People Mourn the Vanishing Pizol Glacier

Hundreds of people took part in a mourning ceremony for the Pizol glacier, a disappearing ice mass in Mels, Switzerland. The glacier is located at 2,600 metres above sea level and is less than a tenth of a square kilometre.

Since 2006, the glacier has lost nearly 90 per cent of its volume, monitoring started back in 1893. Last weekend, over 200 people hiked into the alpine where a local priest spoke to comemorate the Pizol. Over 80 per cent of glaciers in Switzerland are in the same state. The Swiss Association for Climate Protection got 120,000 signatures to launch an initiative demanding that Switzerland reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.

Earlier this year, scientists memorialized the Okjökull, the first glacier in Iceland lost to climate change. By current measurements, the Athabasca Glacier in the Canadian Rockies is retreating up to five metres per year.

View this post on Instagram

Post-mortum pictures of the #pizolglacier . . Following the example of Icelandic Okjokull, swiss activists held today a small funeral of the #Pizol Glacier. Main murder suspect: man made #climatchange . Since 2006 the glacier lost 80-90% of its volume until in 2018 it „cracked“ into pieces… Around 100-150 people were there to express their condolences, still much less than the number of hikers we met at the popular 5 Lake Hike on the way . Decided to take a closer look, who knows how much is left next time? . . . #pizolgletscher #glaciares #mountain #mountains #mountainview #swiss #swissalps??

A post shared by Nastya Sycheva (@asykhimky) on Sep 22, 2019 at 11:51am PDT

Follow Guardians of the Ice below on Instagram, an initiative to educate about the melting glaciers around the Columbia Icefield.

Athabasca Glacier one of around 2,500 glaciers in B.C. and Alberta and an estimated 200,000 glaciers around the world.

View this post on Instagram

Our Guardians scientific team member, Dr. Alison Criscitiello, is an ice core scientist with extensive field experience in Antarctica, the Canadian High Arctic, Greenland, Alaska, and the Canadian Rockies. Her research utilizes new polar ice core records to explore how the ocean influence on coastal ice caps and ice sheets has changed over time, and how remote atmospheric dynamics impact regional and local processes and climate. This work helps define projections of future contributions of polar ice caps to global sea level, and is extremely valuable in advancing our understanding of the complex and coupled ocean-ice-atmosphere system. Closer to home in the Canadian Rockies, she has begun investigating environmental contaminant loads in local snow pack and ice fields, which may impact drinking water supplies and communities downstream. #guardiansoftheice #GOTI #ice=water=life #vanishingglaciers #glaciers #saveourglaciers #saveourplanet #globalwarming #climatechange #climatecrisis

A post shared by Guardians Of The Ice (@guardiansoftheice) on Sep 23, 2019 at 9:55am PDT