Swiss Glaciers Shrank By 12 Percent in Past Ten Years

Switzerland’s glaciers have shrunk by 12 percent since 1999, the fastest rate in the past 150 years, according to a study by the Swiss University ETH. In the past decade, the warmest on record in the Swiss Alps, the nation’s glaciers lost 9 cubic kilometers (2.1 cubic miles) of ice, the study said. The World Glacier Monitoring Service has reported that since 1850, glaciers in the Alps have shrunk by half and that nearly 90 percent of the region’s glaciers are now smaller than four-tenths of a square mile. Another study by scientists at the University of Buffalo shows that large glaciers and ice sheets in the Arctic melted extremely rapidly as the last ice age ended. The study, based on an analysis of rock samples, showed that Arctic ice sheets rapidly lost mass — and raised sea levels — as their edges slid deeper into the sea. Published in the journal Nature Geoscience, the study said huge volumes of glacial ice melted within several hundred years, and the authors warned that similar tidewater glaciers and ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica also could melt swiftly.