Before and after photos show how quickly ice is disappearing on Swiss glaciers
Advertisement
Sep 18, 2018, 18:33 IST
The Rhone Glacier is located in Furka, a mountain pass in Switzerland. The top photo shows what it looks like now. On the bottom, a 2009 photo shows how much ice has vanished in the past nine years.
Advertisement
The top photo shows the amount of ice on the glacier in September 2018, while the bottom image was taken in July 2008.
Advertisement
In addition to covering glaciers with blankets, a Dutch research group has proposed blowing artificial snow across glaciers to help reflect sunlight.
This method could be applied to the Rhone.
Advertisement
Researchers are trying to find out what, in addition to water, is lost when a glacier melts.
Here, Hannes Peter from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne gathers microorganisms from a stream near Rhone Glacier. He wants to study their DNA and figure out how the organisms have adapted to an extreme environment.
Advertisement
According to Reuters, the researchers will examine hundreds of streams at the largest glaciers in the world to collect microorganisms.