In the winter of 2021-2022, Diavolezza, a 3,000-meter-high ridge in Switzerland’s Upper Engadine Mountains, will offer nine ski slopes and cable cars to some of the highest peaks in the Alps. You can look. But gun operators weren’t just trying to improve ski conditions. They were testing new methods of making snow with the goal of saving the disappearing Morteratsch Glacier just to the west.
This pilot study was urgent. Morteratsch, his easily accessible 16-square-kilometer glacier complex, has long attracted tourists, hikers, and scientists. However, since 1860, 3 km, or about one-third of the total length (the distance from the end of the glacier’s descent to the top), has been lost. Around the world, many mountain glaciers are melting rapidly. New research shows that even limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels by 2100 (generally considered the best-case scenario, albeit unlikely) was found to result in the disappearance of half of the mountain glaciers of The consequences are already devastating, from rapid melting of glaciers leading to devastating floods, to water shortages when glaciers dry up and rock falls and even rising sea levels.
Some regions are particularly vulnerable, such as the Alps, where temperatures are rising more than twice as fast as the Northern Hemisphere average. The Swiss glacier has already lost 60% of her volume since 1850. Just last year, the Swiss glacier lost 6% of her. This is the worst loss on record. “People were shocked, including glaciologists,” says glaciologist Christian Fuggel of the University of Zurich. “The withdrawal is progressing faster than expected.”
Climate experts say the only lasting solution is to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, lovers of mountain glaciers (which are often home to ski resorts in Europe) have tried to come up with local solutions. In Switzerland, a professor came up with the idea of building giant shields to protect ice from katabatic winds (dense high-altitude air currents that can scrape off snow and ice). In the Andes, researchers suggested whitewashing rocks to reflect warm sunlight.
The dramatic idea of protecting other layers of ice and snow is gaining attention. As early as 1947, residents around the Aletsch Glacier in Switzerland were scattering sawdust on the roofs of ice caves built to protect tourists from the sun’s radiation. Since the 1990s, some supraglacial ski resorts have had giant white ‘blankets’ spread across their main slopes. These covers are usually made of layers of plastic and fleece-like materials that allow water to penetrate while blocking out solar radiation. Currently, at his 9 sites in Switzerland he uses 10,000 to 50,000 square meters of blankets. The largest he can cover seven professional soccer pitches. Such “geotextile” coverings can reduce ice melt “by about 50 to 60, 70 percent,” said a glaciologist at the University of Friborg in Switzerland and head of the glacier monitoring network Glamos. , says Matthias Huss, lead author of a recent study on the use of geotextiles. Huss estimates he used geotextiles for seven years. The Rhone Glacier in southern Switzerland maintains an ice thickness of about 35 meters.
Shading a significant portion of a lucrative ski area may be worth the expense, but using a “blanket” to cover the world’s glaciers, or even entire glaciers, is not impossible. Even so, says Huss, it’s unrealistic. According to his calculations, if geotextiles were used on his 1,000 glaciers, the largest in Switzerland, they could prevent two-thirds of his average annual volume loss, but at a cost of about $1.52 billion annually. . According to Huss, geotextiles were “not intended as a way to save glaciers.”
Huggel agrees. “It’s not feasible on a larger scale across glaciers,” he says. “That would be ridiculous.”
snow saves ice
Another possible approach to protecting glaciers is the snowmaking technology tested at Diavolezza by the University of Lucerne in Switzerland and the water conservation-focused non-profit GlaciersAlive.
Snow’s particularly high albedo (reflectance), whether natural or man-made, can bounce much of the sun’s radiation back into the sky and stop it from melting. However, traditional snowmaking methods require large amounts of water and often use small amounts of chemical additives. A 2011 study estimated that just three cubic meters of snow would require as much energy as a Swiss household consumes in his day.
Seeking to reduce its carbon footprint, the snow industry has created new systems, including the one used at Diavolezza, that utilize elevation rather than electricity. For it to work, water from rain, snow, melting ice, or other sources enters the system from 200 meters or more above where the snow is needed. The water supplies the liquid to the artificial snow itself, and gravitational energy provides enough water pressure (20 bar or about 290 psi) to activate a gun that looks like a showerhead that sprays the snow. In a pilot project at Diavolezza, a 15-meter-tall tower was tethered by hanging cables interrupted by downward-pointing guns.
The Diavolezza pilot is a collaboration between GlaciersAlive co-founder Johannes Oerlemans and glaciologist Felix Keller at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, who believe that a system of this kind works at nearby Morteratsch, which could recycle the glacier’s own meltwater into snow. It was a way to test whether Oerlemans said the trial showed that it was “technically possible” and was a “big step.” The team is looking for a small glacier for its next test and is seeking investment. Oerlemans said the pilot cost about $2.15 million and he was funded by Innosuisse, a Swiss government agency that promotes innovation.
The model run by Oerlemans’ team found that the system, when deployed at Morteratsch, could not only slow the retreat of the glacier, but reverse its trend. According to his 2017 feasibility study by Oerlemans, if nearly a square kilometer of glacier is consistently covered with snow each year (which Oerleman also admits is a “substantial amount”), by 2100 he will be at Morteratsch. Length can be about 0.5 km longer. , Keller and co-author Martin Haag. Without snow, researchers estimate that the glacier would lose about half a kilometer.
These projections are overly optimistic, says Huss, who recently completed an independent study on the proposed project. His one in question is the ejection scenario used by the GlaciersAlive team. Huss said the team estimated glacier growth based on countries meeting the Paris Agreement goal of net-zero global emissions by 2050. He also argues that the project underestimates how much ice Morteracci will lose before a large-scale system is implemented, arguing that by 2022 alone the glacier will lose 10% of its volume. I am referring to the loss of more than
Huss said snowmaking “always delays losses. And the proposed process absolutely works.” He added that the glacier would lose 35% of its volume even if Without this effort, you could lose 56 to 71 percent.
The project can also cause environmental damage. According to a planning study for 2021, to store meltwater for snowmelt, a concrete wall 31 meters high and 650 meters long will need to cut off the glacier’s natural depression that serves as a reservoir. A 900-meter tunnel is dug from the reservoir to the snow system below. The snowmaking itself required eight different cables, ranging in length from 850 meters to 1,200 meters, strung across the terrain. “It’s a huge construction site,” Huss says. It threatens a pristine environment that “trying to save one element”.
Future scalability is an open question. Morteratsch’s application will cost approximately $163 million. Invest that money in innovative new technologies to reduce CO2 According to Huss, the emissions “could benefit humanity as a whole, not just the few tourists who go to St. Moritz. [Switzerland]”
Oerlemans is used to such criticism. He agrees that we can’t really “save” glaciers without reducing emissions. Still, pilots have shown the potential of the gravity system, especially for ski resorts, which could lead to investment in glacier protection as an alternative to power-hungry traditional snow machines, he said. say. This may be the final benefit of various glacier conservation ideas. On a hyperlocal scale, it could help stem glacier melt, at least for a while.
