SwissGlaciers.org: Then and now

We have been running the GletscherVergleiche.ch / SwissGlaciers.org project since 2007.

Around 2007, people (including politicians) regularly claimed that only a few glaciers were melting.

These claims and the already accelerated glacier melt at that time prompted us to periodically visit glaciers of various sizes, altitudes and orientations in parts of the Swiss Alps and to document them photographically from as many of the same points as possible.

Today, some 15 years later, the glaciers are still melting rapidly. Year after year. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

Those who claimed around 2007 that only a few glaciers were melting say today that this has always been the case. That is true, but the signs were different: in the previous warmer times, there were not > 8 billion people living on Earth and the warming of the Earth's climate was much slower than today.

Today, glacier melt is no longer the only visible effect of global warming.
Among others, the following have been added:

1) Heat waves,
which occur more frequently and have increased in length and intensity. The consequences are drought, water shortage and/or forest fires.

2) Heavy rain,
which can trigger floods, debris flows and/or landslides.

The melting of the glaciers affects a landmark of our country. Nevertheless, the focus should not only be on glacier melt, but on all consequences (e.g. drought, heavy rainfall, species extinction) of global warming.

Global warming can no longer be explained away. Today, the challenge is to limit the damage. Everyone is challenged: politics, the economy, society, science and every single adult. Everyone will have to question their behaviour and make their contribution. Better today than tomorrow.