Prof. Neil Entwistle, Alpine Glacier Project And just like that, summer is over, the clocks in Britain go back and darkness befalls us before we return home from work.  In Zermatt, we’re still waiting for the winter snowpack to arrive. An early flurry of heavy snow fell in late August into September protected the glaciers from melting for a few weeks but the wider precipitation event resulted in serious flooding around central Europe. The 2022 ablation season was the most severe on record with 6.2% of ice mass lost on average across Switzerland, a previous blog post detailed more on this ..read more

A whistle stop tour of Alpine glaciology, filmed by the Alpine Glacier Project at Findelen Glacier in August of 2022. In just under 3 minutes, we cover moraines, portals, rockfalls, retreat, striations and much more. Ideal for all budding glaciologists….or students with imminent exams…. Findelen Glacier, August 2022 ..read more

Many thanks to Peter Egger for sharing some superb images of how Trift Glacier in the Bernese Alps changed over an 8 year period. The first image here shows the glacier in July 2005, where the ice extended into a proglacial lake, and the lower half of the glacier was still attached to the top. By the time the below image was taken in October of 2013, substantial changes had happened to the glacier. The upper icefall is greatly diminished, and the lower half of the glacier was little more than a static ice patch. Some evidence of lateral moraine are apparent, above the still existent pro-glaci ..read more

The Breithorn, August 2022 The summer of August 2022 has been particularly hot and dry in the Alps – for the first time in many years, skiing at Klein Matterhorn was suspended in early summer as a result of little to no snow. By the beginning of August, when these images were taken, the temperature was 8 degrees Celsius at 4000m, implying a 0 degree isotherm elevation of well above the tallest of the Alpine peaks. On the Breithorn, patches of bare rock on the summit path are clearly visible. The Zermatt Valley, from Klein Matterhorn The lack of summer snow cover at elevation is even more appar ..read more

June 21. An equinox, the summer solstice, estival solstice or midsummer. It not overly important what term you use, it is the day whereby one of Earth’s poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. It happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere (Northern and Southern). For the Alpine Glacier Project it forms a point whereby one can judge the onset of the summer ablation period with previous years. Something we’ve been doing for 50 years. Today is June 21. “The longest day”. A day to enjoy the maximum amount of available daylight, but we are far from celebrating. Traditionally, summer and winte ..read more

Zayd Abid-Waheed, Ph.D candidate at the University of Salford reflects on what changing climate may mean for Alpine glaciers. “Significant glacial retreat in the European Alps is an inevitable reality that scientists within the cryosphere have been gripping with for the last half century of research. Often viewed as the canary in the mine for the glacial impacts of climate change; the extent to which ice is to be lost and has been lost already can lead to a challenging outlook for Europe’s frozen water towers. The extent of glacial retreat in fact is so marked that even if countries fall withi ..read more

Congratulations to the Alpine Glacier Project’s Zayd Abid-Waheed who will present a paper in the upcoming 3rd GAUC Graduate Forum & Global Youth Summit on Net-Zero Futures later this month. The GAUC (Global Alliance Of Universities on Climate) states its aims are to “synergize the momentum of climate actions brought by the global major climate events including New York Climate Week, the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15), and the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26)”. Organising the event are Columbi ..read more

Finally….the 2021 field trip is underway. After the relaxation of travel restrictions from August 27th, with Switzerland added to the UK government green list, we’ve been able to start a small expedition to Findelen and Gorner glaciers to maintain the equipment, download data, and start out comparative photography project to show the extend of deglaciation in the Zermatt region. Gorner gauging station, 29th August 2021 Early indications are that whilst some data loggers reached capaity in July, the majority of data for the 2021 season are intact with equipment functioning properly. Weather ..read more

As I walked down to the Gorner Glacier with a small group of David’s friends to scatter his ashes I was casting surreptitious glances at the exposed roches moutonees at the end of the path. A guilty conscience was troubling me. Now it seems unbelievable that any decent fieldworker would vandalise the environment she was studying; in 1976, believe it or not, I thought it would be fine to “touch up” interesting features with red paint so they could be recorded in photographs. So was the red rash still there on the roches moutonnees after 40 years? I didn’t spot anything, but in past years many p ..read more

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