New Scientist: Heat threatens to melt Alps

The Alps could face record glacier melt in 2026 due to unusually high temperatures, British magazine New Scientist reports, citing scientists.

Rainer Prinz, who monitors glacier melt at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, said the process is definitely on track to break the record or at least come close to it.

Extreme melting years are becoming increasingly common in the Alps, triggering destructive avalanches of ice and rock and threatening to reduce water flows in major rivers. Over the past 50 years, more than 1,000 Swiss glaciers — around 40% of the total — have disappeared. Another 30 could vanish this summer, in what Swiss media have described as a “massacre”.

Meteorologists forecast that temperatures could remain above average in the autumn, with another heatwave also possible.

Experts estimate that the Alps could lose 97% of their glaciers by 2100.

The magazine noted that glacier melt could, among other things, reduce water levels in rivers used to cool nuclear power plant reactors and supply hydroelectric power plants.

Media reports have also previously indicated that climate warming in recent years has disrupted the operations of many Alpine ski resorts.

By Bakhtiyar Abbasov