See 120,000 years of change in the ice cap in the Alps

Have you ever imagined what they are like? European Alps during the ice age? The last of them occurred about 115 thousand years ago, which makes it extremely difficult for scientists to accurately reproduce the features of this period. But a recent study may change that.

With impressive precision, The program developed by scientists was able to simulate the ice level of the Alps 120 thousand years agoA mountain range covering parts of Switzerland, France, Italy, Austria, Germany and Slovenia.

And it wasn’t just that. The model was also able to predict what mountain glaciers will be like by 2100, based on the projected increase in the planet’s temperature this century. The study was published on: Journal of Glaciology.

How does the model work?

The result of collaboration between climatologists and glaciologists, the program is based on a complex numerical model developed at the University of Bern, Switzerland. This model is unique in that it uses historical climate information to simulate conditions at a specific time.

Based on this, glaciologists from the universities of Zurich and Lausanne used this information Mapping an ice flow model that allowed them to predict the movement of Alpine glaciers with the highest accuracy ever seen.

As the main author of the publication noted, traces on rocks and accumulations of debris were important in tracking this flow: Guillaume Jouvet. “We used these traces to validate our simulation and everything that matched. Due to the complexity of modeling, it took us 6 years to properly structure our climate and glaciology models,” he said.

Impact of climate change

The difference in ice levels in the Alps is frightening, especially compared to 20,000 years ago. The few remaining glaciers are much smaller than in the previous period and their days may be numbered..

The end of these glaciers and sea level glaciers can cause drastic changes to biomes, often leading to problems for life on the planet.

This raises awareness about the effects of global warming and the increase in temperature on the planet, which is expected to be between 2 and 7°C in the next century.

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