“In half a century half of the ice surface of the Écrins massif has disappeared”, warns a high mountain guide in the Alps

Julien Charron is a high mountain guide. He also leads the “Glacier” group in the Écrins massif, which measures the evolution of ice reserves at altitude. And the results are quite spectacular:In half a century the estimates are that half of the ice surface of the massif has disappeared, he explains. It’s 50 square meters out of the 100-something that there was in the 70s.”

>> In Europe, 2022 is the second hottest year behind 2020 according to the European climate change program Copernicus.

The melting of glaciers in the Alps has accelerated very significantly since the mid-1980s. Over the past 10 years, they have lost between 1 meter and 1.20 meters per year, with an exceptional situation in 2022 where glaciers have melted three to four meters due to very high temperatures and lack of snow. The European climate monitoring system Copernicus highlights this alarming finding in its climate report published on Thursday 20 April. “Three quarters of the glaciers in the French Alps are expected to disappear by 2050, with consequences for water reserves”, points out Christian Vincent researcher at the CNRS and the Institute of Environmental Geosciences.

Rivers with “increasingly low flows”

“Today, resumes the scientist, the streams near the mountains are strongly fed by the glaciers in August and September, it corresponds to a period of melting of the ice. In the future, with the disappearance of glaciers, rivers are likely to have increasingly low flows“. To adapt, at the foot of the mountains, some elected officials are already considering the solution of water reservoirs. The subject is flammable today in the country, but unavoidable considers the mayor of Saint-Gervais, Jean Marc Peillex. ” Qwhen it’s hot, the glaciers melt and our water goes to Marseille”, indicates the chosen one.

“Our problem is to prevent our water resource from leaving too quickly because it does not have time to infiltrate the groundwater.”

Jean-Marc Peillex, Mayor of Saint-Gervais

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“When we talk about hill reservoirs, continues Jean-Marc Peillex, we are not talking about large basins. It is a way to conserve water. We don’t want to see all our water melt“The melting of these glaciers is also likely to pose security problems, with the disintegration of certain rocks and the formation of new lakes which could cause flooding.