Above, Deutshe Welle, the German equivalent of PBS, had a nice report going on the recent, and ongoing, mountain side collapse in Switzerland, with some local interviews and new footage, so no problems on their end.
Then they cut to a “Climate Policy Specialist” at Stanford, who gives a clear, deer-in-the-headlights lesson in how to miss opportunities to inform and not respond to the questions being asked.
That question was, “is this a trend in the Alps that we will see more of?”
The answer is yes.
Some details below.
Italy was enduring a prolonged heat wave before a massive piece of Alpine glacier broke off and killed hikers on Sunday and experts say climate change will make those hot, destabilizing conditions more common.
Seven hikers died and several others are unaccounted for after large chunks of ice and rock from the Marmolada glacier sped down the mountain in an avalanche. Higher temperatures coupled with below-average winter snowfall were among the factors that may have triggered the event, experts said.
The exact role of climate change in specific events is complicated and large portions of ice can break off Alpine glaciers naturally. But climate change is fueling hotter temperatures that can lead to more ice and snow melt, said Brian Menounos, a professor at the University of Northern British Columbia who researches climate change and glaciers.
“Glaciers are directly responding to a warmer climate, a warmer planet,” said Menounos. “They can respond to long-term changes, but they can also respond to these extreme events,” like heat waves.
Swiss National Science Foundation:
If the bedrock in the Alps no longer remains permanently frozen, rockfalls may occur more frequently. By measuring electrical resistivity in the ground, researchers can now better understand why this happens.
The disappearance of the glaciers is visible to us all. What is happening to the alpine bedrock is less obvious. The permafrost is thawing there. And that has consequences: when the underground ice melts, it can destabilise mountain slopes, change the landscape and endanger people and their infrastructure.
This is why Swiss researchers have been monitoring the state of permafrost in the mountains for many decades. The conventional method is to drill holes of up to a depth of 100 metres to measure ground temperatures. However, this is time-consuming and expensive – especially at high altitudes. “You also only know the temperature at certain points and cannot make any statements about the volume of ice,” says geoscientist Christian Hauck, whose research is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). In recent years, he and his team at the University of Fribourg have co-developed a non-invasive measurement method that measures permafrost over large areas, determines the amount of ice, and thus makes it possible to forecast future developments.
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In another study (**), Hauck and his colleague Christin Hilbich analysed data from resistivity measurements taken throughout Europe. This showed that even a single hot summer – such as in 2003, 2015 and 2022 – can lead to the irreversible loss of permafrost in the mountains. A subsequent cold winter is not sufficient to compensate for the loss. “Very specific conditions are needed for permafrost to form again,” says Hauck. For example, it has to rain when it is extremely cold so that ice can form before the water drains back into the valley.
Using the resistivity data, Hauck can now reconstruct such processes in the past and make predictions for the future. He believes that the alpine permafrost has already reached or will soon reach the tipping point in many places. This means that the disappearance of permafrost will then speed up on its own and can no longer be stopped without significant changes to the climate.
Depending on the geological conditions, this could then lead to increased rockfalls or landslides in places where they were previously not possible, such as on slopes where geological layers are stabilized by permafrost. It is therefore all the more important to establish methods that predict such tipping points as early and reliably as possible, says Hauck.