Italy calls fast-melting glacier in Mont Blanc range “an alarm” that can’t be ignored

Mayor Stefano Miserocchi has forbidden access to a section of the Val Ferret, outside of Courmayeur, a popular hiking area on the south side of the Mont Blanc massif, or mountain range. The precaution was taken after experts monitoring the massive Planpincieux glacier said they are recording ice movements of up to almost 20 inches a day. They warned that an 8.8 million cubic feet mass of the 512 square mile glacier was at risk of collapsing.”There are no models to tell us if it will fall entirely or in pieces,” the mayor told Sky TG24.  “We need to keep an eye on the monitoring.”He emphasized that even if a large chunk of the glacier collapses, no residents would be at risk, just the area of road that has been closed.
The glacier is located in the Alps on the Grande Jorasses peak of the Mont Blanc massif, which straddles the borders of Italy, France and Switzerland and contains the highest peak in Western Europe. Officials said unusually high temperatures during August and September had accelerated the ice melt of the Planpincieux, which has been monitored by the Safe Mountain Foundation since 2013.Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte alerted world leaders to risk of the glacier’s collapse during his address Tuesday to the U.N. General Assembly in New York City.”It is an alarm that we cannot be indifferent to,” he said.A new special report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said Wednesday that glaciers around the world, outside of Greenland and Antarctica but including Europe, are losing 220 billion metric tons of ice a year. The report said glacier melt is happening faster than before and is accelerating.The report projects that if nothing is done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, these glaciers in general will shrink 36% between now and the end of the century. But smaller glaciers, like those in the Alps, could lose up to 80% of their ice by the year 2100 in a worst-case scenario.”Many glaciers are projected to disappear regardless of future emissions,” the new science report said.Matthias Huss, a glaciologist at ETH Zurich and head of the group Glacier Monitoring Switzerland, said the loss of glacier ice in Switzerland and Europe over the last five years has been the strongest since measurements began in the 1950s. He noted that the freezing line of 32 degrees Fahrenheit rose above the top of Mont Blanc this summer, “which very rarely has happened.”