Swiss glaciers shrink 10 percent in five years
Switzerland’s glaciers have lost a tenth of their volume in the past five years alone -- a melting rate unmatched during observations stretching back more than a century, a study showed yesterday. Measurements on 20 Swiss glaciers have shown that melt rates this year have reached “record levels”, according to the annual study on the state of the glaciers, published by the Cryospheric Commission at the Swiss Academy of Sciences. During two weeks of intense heat at the end of June and again in late July, “the volume of snow and ice melting on Swiss glaciers ... was equivalent to the country’s total annual consumption of drinking water,” it said in a statement. Over the past 12 months, around two percent of Switzerland’s total glacier volume has been lost, the commission said.
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