If you look at these photos, you breathe. The size of the destruction is unimaginable. A huge glacier root buried the already evacuated mountain village of Blatten in Switzerland on Wednesday. The high mountain researcher Jan Beutel, who works at the University of Innsbruck, sees the glacier channel in the context of climate change.
“The strong changes that we experience today in the high mountains are largely the result of climate change in recent decades. To a certain extent the journey is booked for the coming years. The university professor will inevitably continue.
“Bergen will be unstable”
It is important to distinguish “if you want to relate climate projections to current events.” These events take place in the context of climate change, but are not always connected immediately. “Bergen get unstable and eventually fall off because the material configuration and geometry change. That means: the effect of gravity is the actual driving force,” said the researcher and trained mountain guide specialized in high alpine.
Permafrost is leaving more and more
The landslide in the Lötschental in the Swiss canton Valais took place in the high Alpine site, where the decline of the ice opens the surface compared to wind and weather. Water and wind can penetrate and erode directly into the rock, at the same time the mountains become steeper.
“Moreover, the increasing speeds of movement are determined everywhere. Moreover, the permafrost is about 0.1 degrees Celsius per decade. In the Alps, the temperature of the permafrost is already in the range of minus three to minus a degree Celsius, that is, it is very hot. This makes the active layer, iez
Laboratory tests know that this is accompanied by stability losses in rock samples up to 80 percent: “But defrost also means that there is more liquid water available – even within the mountain – and that smears and promotion of mobility, driven by gravity.”
“When rock material crashes, fragment it”
To illustrate the processes that have spilled the village with sheets, BEKEN stated: “When rock material crashes, fragment it. When opening a glacier, the kinetic energy of ice is liquid water. Together with the resulting substance and the movement, this is just like a concrete mixed machine. Very destructive power if they have a very destructive power in the valley.
The scientist, who has been working with various research projects in Valais for almost 20 years, followed the abortion of the glacier in Switzerland from far in his office. “At De Kleine Nesthorn, GPS measured devices were used for forecast and planning measures, which we developed there twelve years ago as a research prototype in the region in collaboration with the authorities.”
Source: Krone
I am an experienced and passionate journalist with a strong track record in news website reporting. I specialize in technology coverage, breaking stories on the latest developments and trends from around the world. Working for Today Times Live has given me the opportunity to write thought-provoking pieces that have caught the attention of many readers.
