More glacial ice has melted in the Alps than ever before

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More glacial ice than ever before melted in the European Alps last year, according to the EU’s climate change agency Copernicus. The glaciers of the Alps lost more than five cubic kilometers of ice, the Reading-based service announced on Thursday.

If you were to squeeze this mass of ice into a cube, the edges of the cube would be about five and a half times the height of the Eiffel Tower.

Glacier ice is not the only record for 2022: Europe also experienced its warmest summer on record. On average, it was 1.4 degrees above the reference period from 1991 to 2000. According to Copernicus, temperatures in Europe are rising about twice as fast as the global average.

Drought in the summer of 2022

“The climate that awaits us will be very, very different from the one we grew up in,” Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo told journalists. It is all the more important to collect data and knowledge about this and to draw the right conclusions.

The summer was marked by a severe drought that, according to Copernicus, affected more than a third of Europe and affected agriculture, transport and energy supplies. This was partly because less snow fell than usual in the previous winter and enormous heat waves in the summer exacerbated the situation.

In Southern Europe, the number of days considered as extreme heat stress days considered hazardous to health has also increased significantly – the Copernicus service measures these days in different temperature levels.

In addition, solar radiation in Europe was more intense than at any other time in the past 40 years. This led to above-average potential for solar energy production in many parts of the continent. Experts expect this trend to continue.

This is what the EU Copernicus service does

The concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere did not decrease last year either, on the contrary. Both the concentration of carbon dioxide and that of the extremely potent greenhouse gas methane increased. “Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is imperative to avoid the worst impacts of climate change,” said Samantha Burgess, Vice President of Copernicus.

Copernicus data dates back to 1979. The Climate Change Service also uses data from ground stations, balloons, aircraft and satellites dating back to 1950. Data on temperatures, sea ice cover and other aspects are published monthly using computer analysis. (SDA)

Source: Blick