Tag: Rhone River

Rhone Glacier Finely Tuned to Climate Changes

by | 6.3.2011 at 12:58pm
The Rhone Glacier c. 1900. Residents of the village of Gletsch, down the valley from the Rhone Glacier, have kept track of the ice since 1602. “Their water supply, the availability of farmland is controlled by where the glacier is,” said researcher Brent Goehring. For more glacier photos, go to: http://www.swisseduc.ch/glaciers/index-en.html

By chiseling hunks of stone from recently exposed bedrock near the edge of the Rhone Glacier, scientists were able to decipher the comings and goings of the ice over the past 11,000 years. That should help predict what will happen to glaciers in the warming world to come.