The speed of glacier melting, in the difference between two photos in Switzerland

The photos taken 15 years later in front of the Rhone glacier in Switzerland speak for themselves.The melting of glaciers is breathtaking.

These photos, shared online already thousands of times in the last two days, were taken and published on X by Duncan Porter, a developer from Bristol.They portray him and his wife Helen in front of the Rhone glacier, in Switzerland, at two different times: in 2009 and 2024, exactly fifteen years later.To be precise, fifteen years minus one day, as Porter himself points out.

Switzerland has lost 10 percent of its ice in the last two years

What is evident, and most striking, is what is behind them.There difference in ice mass between the two moments.The retreat of glaciers, with their melting, is one of the direct consequences of global warming.AND Europe, which is warming more and faster than the global average, is seeing the ice disappear before his eyes.Switzerland, where this glacier is located, has lost a third of its ice volume since 2000, and the 10 percent in the last two years alone (6 percent in 2022 alone), which is the same amount it lost in the time frame from 1960 to 1990.It is no coincidence that these were the years that recorded record temperatures, with the freezing point above 5,000 meters in the summer of 2023.The Alps are a climate change hotspot and glaciers respond very sensitively to the increase in temperature, becoming a clear manifestation of their changes.

Take part in climate action

“Not gonna lie, it made me cry,” Porter wrote on his social media.“A lot of people when they see things like that they feel helpless”, he later commented to the English newspaper Guardian.“But from my experience, there is so much we can do.”Porter is in fact part of a committee of a local climate action group in the south-east of England.“I don't want to sound like a moralizer, but for me this group is a beautiful way for normal people to take part in climate action, including through what we buy or who we vote for, and push those who make decisions to change the system."