Shrinking glacier points to snowless future for Swiss resort

[#juan]

Sunday, Apr 30, 2006

Even the Swiss glaciers are melting


The Jungfrau massif with the view point terrace Sphinx, center, surrounded by the Aletsch glacier in Switzerland. (AP/Keystone, Martin Ruetschi, File)
ON THE ALETSCH GLACIER, Switzerland (AP) - It's cold in the snow up at 1,981 metres, even with sunshine pouring down from almost cloudless skies. Skiers schuss their way down for well-earned lunches and there's a smile on almost every face in this wintery wonderland.

Yet looking over the colossal sweep of the Aletsch glacier, a remnant of the last Ice Age snaking down through a deep valley below the peaks of the Bernese Oberland, the picture appears far different - and warmer.

The river of ice has retreated 3.4 kilometres since peaking at a length of 22.5 kilometres in 1860, estimates Hanspeter Holzhauser, a geographer at the

link

 

[#juan]

Re: Shrinking glacier points to snowless future for Swiss re

One of the points

the article makes, is that the rivers are fed by the melting ice and snow and if that is gone, so are the rivers. In Europe, rivers like the Rhine, and the Danube, are as important as highways to people all along their length.

 

[Roger]

Re: Shrinking glacier points to snowless future for Swiss re

See? Even the snow couldn't take the Swiss anymore! :lol:

 

[#juan]

Re: Shrinking glacier points to snowless future for Swiss re

It was either that,

or trilingualism.............. :wink: :lol:

 

[Roger]

RE: Shrinking glacier points to snowless future for Swiss re

Switzerland. The spot on the planet where people can't make up their mind if they're Italian, French or German. Good chocolate, decent beer, intolerance towards students travelling with an Interrail or a Eurrail Pass, regardless of point of origin.

A jazz musician friend who played at Montreux for years asked me about a recent trip there some years back and I told him about how rude to difficult the Service people were. This guy is a Czech. He shook his head and piously said; "They don't understand. WE DON'T HAVE TO COME BACK".