Climate change reduces the height of some Swiss Alpine peaks by up to 29 meters

Almost two dozen Swiss peaks of around 4,000 meters or more have reduced their height in the last 60 years, with drops of up to 29 meters in the most extreme cases, something that is partly explained by the climate changereported the Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung.

The newspaper has examined the statistics of the Federal Topography Office and has observed that the greatest decrease has been recorded in Punta Parrot, one of the peaks of the Monte Rosa massif on the Swiss-Italian border, where it has dropped from 4,463 to 4,434 meters, almost thirty less.

The emblematic peak of the Virgin (Jungfrau), in the Bernese Alps, has dropped eight meters in the last six decades to 4,158, the newspaper indicates, which nevertheless points out that another famous peak in the country neighboring the previous one, the Monk Peak (Mönch), has increased its height by 11 meters.

The Central European country has 48 peaks over 4,000 meters, although some of them are in danger of falling out of that category, such as Weissmies, which has dropped from 4,023 meters in height in the 1960s to 4,013 in the latest measurements. .

International reports show that Switzerland has lost a 10% of the mass of its glaciers in just two years, and in the summer of last year temperatures above zero degrees above 5,000 meters of altitude were reached.