Mont Blanc Closed Due To Global Warming

[Dru]

Record heatwave closes Mont Blanc to tourists

Dramatic proof of global warming as peaks begin to crumble in high temperatures and snowline retreats

 

David Rose

Sunday August 17, 2003

The Observer

 

It figured as a stop on adventurous young men's nineteenth-century Grand Tour, and in summer 300 people might climb it in a single day. This year, for the first time since its conquest in 1786, the heatwave has made western Europe's highest peak too dangerous to climb.

 

Mont Blanc is closed.

 

The conditions have been so extreme, say glaciologists and climate experts, and the retreat of the Alps' eternal snows and glaciers so pronounced, that the range - and its multi-billion-pound tourist industry - may never fully recover. The freak weather, with no substantial snowfall since February, means pylons holding up ski-lifts and cable cars may be too dangerous to use next winter, while the transformation of shining mountains into heaps of grey scree and rubble is unlikely to persuade tourists there this summer to return.

 

From the streets of Chamonix, the bustling resort at its base, Mont Blanc and its outlying peaks, the Aiguille du Midi, Mont Blanc du Tacul and Mont Maudit, rise in a giant curtain usually filling half the sky with dazzling whiteness. This year they are grey with old, dirty ice from which the overlying snow has long melted, while their slopes are being raked by regular fusillades of rocks, some the size of cars, dislodged as the ice surrounding them melts in the heat.

 

In some areas it is too dangerous to follow paths that would normally be used by thousands of ramblers.

 

From Chamonix, three routes suited to guided climbers of modest ability lead to the summit of Mont Blanc, almost 16,000ft above sea level. Two of these routes, the so-called Grands Mulets and the 'three summits' path via Mont Blanc du Tacul, have been turned into death traps of open crevasses, unstable, overhanging ice cliffs and vertical icy walls, where normally there would be a pleasant, albeit strenuous, track through the snow.

 

The third route, the Gouter Ridge, is one of the worst spots for rockfalls. After two climbers died merely trying to reach the restaurant near the start of the route last week, Chamonix guides announced that using this path was 'strongly ill-advised'. A guides' spokeswoman said: 'We are not taking bookings for Mont Blanc by any route. For this year, it is finished.'

 

'No one has ever seen a year like this,' said a spokesman for Chamonix's Office de Haute Montagne. 'There has been occasional rain in the valley, which would normally fall as snow in the high mountains. But after a very warm and dry spring, the freezing level has mostly been above 13,000ft since the beginning of June.'

 

Those who know the mountains have been astonished to see no snow on the summit of Mont Blanc's subsidiary summit, the Dome de Gouter - almost 15,000ft high.

 

Famous peaks are disintegrating before Chamoniards' eyes. Patricia Rafaelli, a ski instructor, was in her office at the Chamonix golf club watching the Dru, a granite spire, which bears some of the world's hardest rock climbs, falling apart as the ice holding it together melted. 'I'm sitting here and every hour or so there is another rockfall, with boulders thundering down through the forests below the mountain and filling the sky with dust,' she said.

 

Glaciologists estimate it will take 30-40 metres of snow, which would normally take several harsh winters to fall, to make good the deficit of snow and ice that has melted this summer.

 

Dr Jonathan Bamber, reader in glaciology at Bristol University, said it is likely that, unless global warming unexpectedly goes into reverse, the damage to the Alpine environment and to the tourism that depends upon it can never be repaired.

 

He said: 'People don't seem prepared to take real notice of [global warming] and start to press for something to be done until it affects their own backyard and livelihood. What's happened to the Alps this year, coming after a long run of very warm years, is almost an allegory for the kind of events that may take place elsewhere.'

 

Bamber, an experienced mountaineer, described the effective closure of Mont Blanc as historic: 'Climbing Mont Blanc from Chamonix with a guide is something people have done for over 200 years.

 

'This is a major wake-up call, and no way is a normal winter going to put this back. You're looking at something that is going to have a serious long-term impact.'

 

Bamber said that the melting of the layer of permafrost that holds the peaks together, said to have occurred this year to a depth of seven feet, will make ski facilities, such as lifts and cable-car pylons unstable, costing millions to repair. 'I wouldn't be buying shares in the ski industry right now,' he said.

 

While the lower resorts do not rely on the permafrost for their lifts, they are already at risk from the steady rise in the winter snowline. A Unesco report last year quoted Swiss glaciologist Bruno Messerli from the University of Bern, who said that within 20 years low-level ski stations would be forced to close.

 

'Big banks will no longer give loans for new ski industry constructions,' he said, adding that from 1850 to 1980 Alpine glaciers lost half their volume, and in the 20 years from 1980 to 2000, another quarter of what was left was also lost.

 

Bamber said the effect on summer tourism would be disastrous. 'Who wants to come and see a pile of stones? This isn't why people visit the Alps,' he said.

 

He warned that the disappearance of snow could intensify global warming and damage to the mountains, because once snow is replaced by darker, matt surfaces, such as grey ice and rubble, heat and light once reflected into space are absorbed. 'You get a very strong positive feedback at both the poles and in mountain ranges when this happens,' he said.

 

Bamber is leading a team working on the consequences for the whole Northern Hemisphere and its climate of the fact that by 2050 it is likely there will be no sea ice at all in summer in the Arctic: 'This will have very profound consequences, with the likelihood of much more precipitation and violent storms,' he said.

 

Doug Scott, one of Britain's greatest mountaineers, said he was glad he had done his Alpine mountaineering in the 1960s and 70s.

 

'It's a tragedy,' he said. 'Here is the most dramatic and visible proof that the climate is changing, and still the Americans won't sign the Kyoto Agreement restricting greenhouse gas emissions.'

 

Fire and floods worldwide

 

Average temperatures across Europe have been 5C warmer for the past two months. Drought is costing billions of euros in crop damage.

 

In India, temperatures have reached 49C, resulting in more than 1,500 deaths.

 

Heatwaves and flooding have killed 569 people so far in China.

 

A state of emergency has been declared in British Columbia after the worst fires in 50 years.

 

Pakistan's heatwave followed by rains has left hundreds of thousands homeless and damaged 45 per cent of crops in some states.

 

In Russia, hundreds of fires have devastated swaths of Siberia. Croatia has lost 12,300 acres of forests and olive groves.

 

A national disaster has been declared in Portugal after fires killed 11 and destroyed 100,000 acres of forest.

 

In Germany, record temperatures continue with the Rhine drying up in parts and farmers unable to feed their cattle.

 

 

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

[PONCHO&LEFTY]

I thought that Europe was going to get cooler from global warming. I no very little about this I may have seen it on tv or something, but the reason being ice from the arctic would melt off the icecaps and cool the sea and cause a cooler weather pattern for some of Europe. Excuse my ignorance I just remember seeing something to that effect.

[Dru]

well whomever said that, obviously was running a defective model.

[Billygoat]

Which side are you on boys, tell me which side are you on?

[Sphinx]

Actually, today's weather patterns don't mean shit. For example, the breakup of the Antactic ice sheets reflect what was happening a century ago. So "dramatic proof" this is not.

[catbirdseat]

Some people would not acknowledge global warming if it bit them in the arse.

[EWolfe]

catbirdseat said:

Some people would not acknowledge global warming if it bit them in the arse.

 

After Dru's article and reference to the "Dru" proper, I am, however, warming to the subject

[Billygoat]

We're overdue for another ice age anyways, don't sweat it...

[Dru]

Everyone knows that whatever happpens in Europe, happens to the world as a whole. Just like however what happens in the East happens to all of North America. How did YOU deal with the blackouts?

[EWolfe]

I worry less about the blackouts than I do the brutal hangover - at least initially...

[offwidthclimber]

Dru said:

How did YOU deal with the blackouts?

 

i got drunk and hoped that at least some new yorkers were smart enough to grab a blanket and a bottle or two of wine and lay out in central park, reveling in the fact that stars were actually visible from manhattan for once...

[Rod_Xuereb]

That's too bad as I was planning a trip there. However the fact that the planet is warming does not imply a cause. Yes fossil fuel burning can contribute but I don't recall any cars being around when the last ice age melted out. Just the cycle of nature. Get over it.

[Necronomicon]

Rod_Xuereb said:

...blah, blah, blah. Just the cycle of nature. Get over it.

 

Paleoanthropologists hypothesize that the main reason why humans turned from a mobile hunter/gatherer "lifestyle" and developed stationary agricultural societies is due to the fact that the worlds weather patterns were in a chaotic state that eventually settled into the patterns that we now observe. The predictability of the seasons allows you to plant crops, harvest etc.

 

But the relationship between the Earth and it's gaseous atmosphere is such that the stability that we now observe, on a global level, could at any time become turbulant. Good luck getting over that.

[Lowell_Skoog]

Rod_Xuereb said:

However the fact that the planet is warming does not imply a cause. Yes fossil fuel burning can contribute but I don't recall any cars being around when the last ice age melted out. Just the cycle of nature. Get over it.

 

Thank goodness--I can sleep easier now. It's so good to see the experts on CC.com put those stupid scientists in their place.

 

More seriously, a friend of mine is on his way to Chamonix for a climbing trip. Sounds like he's going to have to make some adjustments.

[Dru]

yes, see here http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?n=54554

 

sounds like large chunk of walker spur fell off etc.

[Bug]

Rod_Xuereb said:

That's too bad as I was planning a trip there. However the fact that the planet is warming does not imply a cause. Yes fossil fuel burning can contribute but I don't recall any cars being around when the last ice age melted out. Just the cycle of nature. Get over it.

Yes, Ice ages come and go. It's just that you don't usually see it happen in one lifetime. The last ice age took over 1000 years to get into full swing and took another 1000 to swing back into the current phase. Both shifts were due to an average annual temp change of 1 degree farenheit. We have seen a 5 degree annual ave temp change in the northern hemesphere in the last 50 years. But that's OK. I'm over it. It will go away. It means nothing. Goodnight GW.

[Alpine_Tom]

PONCHO&LEFTY said:

I thought that Europe was going to get cooler from global warming. I no very little about this I may have seen it on tv or something, but the reason being ice from the arctic would melt off the icecaps and cool the sea and cause a cooler weather pattern for some of Europe. Excuse my ignorance I just remember seeing something to that effect.

The beauty of global warming is that you can't really experiment usefully. You just have to keep running your Cadillac Escalantes and pumping the greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere and wait to see what happens.

 

The prediction I've read for the cooling of Europe is that, as the ice in Greenland melts, the N. Atlantic will be come less saline, which will prevent the gulf stream from coming as far north. England (and, I guess, northern France, Belgium, etc?) would become colder without that warmer ocean water.

 

Certainly the warming has been going on for a while -- when Vancouver discovered Glacier Bay, the bay was choked with glacier: it's taken a while for them all the melt away and leave it empty. But the industrial revolution and the associated burning of large amounts of coal for power has been going on for about two centuries now. I don't think anyone is claiming that the human activity contributing to global warming is only the last few decades.

 

Maybe Bush and Sphinx and the rest are right, and it's all natural, and we can keep on doing what we're doing. Maybe cigarettes don't cause cancer, it's simply bad genes. It does seem, however, like a rather large gamble to make.

 

[E-rock]

Here's the problem: Anecdotal evidence is rarely used to make sweeping scientific generalizations, it's usually considered bad science. But when enough anecdotes have been amassed, say 100 years from now. Our progeny will look back and say, "how could we have been so stupid?". Unfortunately the actual data that atmospheric and earth scientists use to demonstate that gobal warming is occuring (i.e. bedrock borehole studies, average surface temperature maps) is not what most people read.

 

For as long as we have a record, CO2 concentrations and temperature have always been coupled.

Edited August 18, 2003 by E-rock

[fleblebleb]

catbirdseat said:

Some people would not acknowledge global warming if it bit them in the arse.

 

Some people won't acknowledge global warming until it reaches up their arse to pull their head out, so they no longer see the world through their own navel.

 

[Winter]

PONCHO&LEFTY said:

I thought that Europe was going to get cooler from global warming. I no very little about this I may have seen it on tv or something, but the reason being ice from the arctic would melt off the icecaps and cool the sea and cause a cooler weather pattern for some of Europe. Excuse my ignorance I just remember seeing something to that effect.

 

This will theoretically result from a reversal of thermohaline circulation, resulting from an excess of fresh water from melting polar ice caps. I think the scientific community has reached much less of a consensus on this theory then on the greenhouse effect in general. The beauty, however, is that the rapid shift in temperatures and beginning of a mini ice age could happen in as little 5-10 years. Neat ... sharpen your picks!!

[E-rock]

Global warming and the Greenhouse effect are not the same thing. One is a result of many atmospheric (and earth orbital) processes, the other is an atmospheric process.

[mtngrrrl]

From the Observer, earlier this summer...

 

Decades of devastation ahead as global warming melts the Alps

 

A mountain of trouble as Matterhorn is rocked by avalanches

 

Robin McKie, science editor

Sunday July 20, 2003

The Observer

 

Mountain guide Victor Saunders and his companion Craig Higgins had reached the Solvay bivouac hut on the Matterhorn's Hornli ridge last week when their balmy morning climb turned into a nightmare.

 

'An enormous avalanche hurtled down the mountain's east face,' said Saunders, one of Britain's leading climbers. 'I have never seen so much rock falling at one time.' The pair survived by cowering under an overhang as a rain of boulders ricocheted past them.

 

It would have been a remarkable enough incident on its own. But within a couple of hours, another massive rockfall thundered down the Matterhorn - this time from its north face. 'Even then we still did not realise what kind of a day we were going to have,' said Saunders, for a mere hour later, distant thunder and billowing dust betrayed the triggering of yet another avalanche.

 

In the end more than 70 climbers had to be hauled from the slopes of the Matterhorn, in Switzerland, on Monday - one of the biggest mass rescues in mountaineering history - as rockfalls battered its ridges and valleys. Those climbing its slopes could have been forgiven for thinking the crown jewel of the Alps had started falling apart under their feet.

 

And they would not have been far wrong - for scientists now believe global warming is melting the Alps, threatening widespread devastation over the next two decades.

 

The great mountain range's icy crust of permafrost, which holds its stone pillars and rockfaces together, and into which its cable car stations and pylons are rooted, is disappearing. Already several recent Alpine disasters, including the avalanches which killed more than 50 people at the Austrian resort of Galtur four years ago, are being blamed on the melting of permafrost.

 

And in future, things are likely to get much worse - as scientists will point out tomorrow at the opening, in Zurich, of the International Permafrost Association conference. Held every four years, the meeting provides climatologists, civil engineers, and geologists with a chance to exchange research data about the icy layers that coat the ground in the world's coldest regions. Rarely has a scientific meeting been so timely.

 

'I am quite sure what happened on the Matterhorn last week was the result of the Alps losing its permafrost,' said civil engineer Professor Michael Davies of Dundee University, and a conference organiser.

 

'We have found that the ground temperature in the Alps around the Matterhorn has risen considerably over the past decade. The ice that holds mountain slopes and rock faces together is simply disappearing. At this rate, it will vanish completely - with profound consequences.'

 

Part of the problem, engineers and geologists have discovered, is that air temperature increases - the result of climate change - are being magnified fivefold underground. A test borehole, dug in Murtel in southern Switzerland, has revealed that frozen sub-surface soils has warmed by more than a degree Celsius since 1990. In addition to general air temperature rises that are heating up the ground, increased evaporation caused by warmer summers is also triggering thicker falls of snow which insulate the soil and keep it warm in winter.

 

The trouble is not just that ice is disappearing, however. Research by Davies - to be outlined this week at the Zurich conference - has discovered that ice as it warms, but before it actually melts, may actually be more unstable than ice that is turning into water. The key to this work has been Davies's work with a seven-metre centrifuge in his laboratory. 'When you spin things round very quickly, you create very powerful gravitational fields, and when you place objects in these fields the effects of gravity are speeded up,' he said. 'We have built model slopes and peaks and put them in our centrifuge to study what happens when soil and rock is warmed up and the permafrost, which holds the ground together, is degraded. Essentially, we are simulating landslides.'

 

The aim is to find out how to spot early signs of the imminent collapse of buildings and valleys, he said. 'Cracks and strains, the first evidence that cable stations and other buildings are under threat, may be easy to spot. This gives engineers an opportunity to put things right.'

 

That is the theory. The abrupt disintegration of the Matterhorn last week reveals how tricky life in the Alps - one of the world's top tourist destinations - is going to be. As Davies said: 'We are going to see a lot more of this sort of devastation.'

 

It is not an issue that worries Victor Saunders too much at present, however. He is merely grateful he got off the Matterhorn alive.

 

In the end, he and Higgins had to be clipped to the end of a 100-foot wire cable trailed by a rescue helicopter. Then they were flown from the mountain, hanging like 'a cargo of fragile china dolls,' he said.

 

Guides at the mountain resort of Zermatt are now mending the fixed ropes damaged by the avalanches in the hope that they will be able to keep the Matterhorn open for the rest of the climbing season.

 

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1001674,00.html

[cluck]

Our mountains fall apart every year and you don't hear us complaining. Maybe the Euros should take advantage of all that glacial meltwater and sustain their tourism industry through white-water rafting.

[AlpineK]

I'm thinking the magnitude of the events have escaped you Cluck.

[Dru]

a french guy i know sent me an email saying south facing, all rock routes are still in good shape. its only glaciated & n faces that are suffering.