“The ice that we thought would last forever is disappearing; funerals have become commonplace in tribute to the missing glaciers,” writes Laurie Deboy in La Relève et La Peste. In the French state, Sarenn is the first to receive this kind of tribute. On 3 September, she was greeted by researchers from the International Glaciology Association (IGS), members of the Mountain Wilderness France group and numerous citizens. “The first warning was the disappearance of the possibility of skiing in summer [in the 1990s],” explains the glaciologist François Valla, according to Le Parisien: “I knew I would die sooner or later, but I didn’t think I was going to see him while he lived, it’s happened faster than I thought.”

Located 3,000 meters high, at the beginning of the last century the Sarenne Glacier occupied the entire valley, reached the top and was about 100 meters thick. In the 1980s, it was still tens of meters high, up to 80 meters in some places, but in recent years, speed has collapsed at a much faster rate. In just a hundred years its extension has gone from 124 hectares to zero.

– 1908: 124 hectares
– 1952: 85 hectares
– 2003: 41 hectares
– 2009: 12 hectares
– 2014: 9 hectares
– 2023: 0 hectares, disappearance of the glacier and consequent abandonment of observation work. The Glacioclimatic Observatory has declassified forever on October 16, 2023, after 75 years watching the glacier.

Irati ski resort closed by climate change

We know the disappearance of the Alpe D'Huez glacier a week after we know that they are going to close the Irati ski resort. The heat and strong winds have pushed those responsible to make this decision.

According to the Pirenaico Observatory on Climate Change (OPCC), 63% of the mountain stations without artificial snow should be closed within a few years, and yet the destination of one in three is to disappear, especially those that are south or at the lowest altitude. In the Spanish State, 52 per cent of the tracks of the six largest ski resorts (five of the Pyrenees and the Sierra Nevada) are equipped with artificial snow guns, according to the report issued by the White Whale association. These are the data you will find and much more in the extensive report Sport and Climate Emergency (ARGIA 2.879).

At the site of the Okjökull Glacier in Iceland a plate was placed with the following message: “Over the next 200 years, all our glaciers can have the same fate. This monument shows that we knew what is going on and what needs to be done. Only you will know whether we did it or not.” According to a study by the IGS, up to 2100 years 90% of the glaciers in the Alps will disappear. “Faced with these dreadful forecasts, there are those who want to make an effort to protect the ecosystem, but also to invest in snow activities, which aim to delay the inevitable with guns and transient artificial snow infrastructures,” said Laurie Deboy.