The Melting Glaciers

The spectacular worldwide shrinking of mountain glaciers that we have been observing since the middle of the 19th century is one of the surest signs of global climate change. Mountain glaciers are therefore seen as a kind of “global fever thermometer”. And although the mean temperature increase of 0.85 °C between 1880 and 2012 may not seem all that much at first glance, its impact is enormous. Alone the Alpine glaciers have lost around a third of their surface area and half of their mass until the 1970s.