Funeral in Switzerland for a glacier disappeared under the effect of global warming

On the eve of the UN's special climate summit on Monday in New York, a special ceremony takes place on Sunday 22 September in Switzerland. To pay homage to an alpine glacier, the Pizol, evaporated under the effect of global warming, a funeral march is organized.

After a two-hour hike, the participants, in mourning clothes, were to join in the day, under a cloudy sky, the foot of this former steep glacier located at around 2,700 meters above sea level, near Liechtenstein and the Austria.

A wreath of flowers will be laid, but no commemorative plaque will be left on the spot, contrary to what the Icelanders did on August 18, in memory of Okjökull, the first glacier on the island to have lost his status.

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"It's not a glacier at all"

In Switzerland, the Pizol "has lost so much of its substance that, from a scientific point of view, it is no longer a glacier," said Alessandra Degiacomi, from the Swiss Association for Climate Protection. NGOs at the origin of funerals.

"Since 1850, it is estimated that there are more than 500 Swiss glaciers that have completely disappeared", of which only 50 had a name, also described Matthias Huss, a glaciologist at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, who takes part in the ceremony . "The Pizol is not the first, but it can be considered as the first Swiss glacier disappearing which has been very well studied" since 1893, he said. Since 2006, it has lost about 80 to 90% of its volume. Only 26,000 m² remain, "less than four football pitches", said Matthias Huss.

Like the Pizol, the 4,000 or so Alpine glaciers, tourist attractions that also provide water for millions of people in summer, are at risk of melting by more than 90% by the end of the century if nothing is not done to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming, according to a study of the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

And whatever efforts are made to reduce emissions, the Alps will lose at least half of their glaciers. Located in Switzerland, the Aletsch glacier, the largest of the Alps, could disappear by 2100 if nothing is done to curb global warming.

The funeral of the Pizol is therefore, for the NGOs that organize the event, including Greenpeace, the opportunity to recall that climate change also jeopardizes "our means of subsistence" and threatens "the human civilization as we know it in Switzerland and around the world ".

With AFP