Alps weather: Heavy snow cuts off ski resorts
[image credit: BBC News]
How does this make any sense?
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A vast tarpaulin unravels, gathering speed as it bounces down the glacier over glinting snow.
Summer is here and the alpine ice is being protected from global warming, reports Phys.org.
In northern Italy, the Presena glacier has lost more than one third of its volume since 1993.
Once the ski season is over and cable cars are berthed, conservationists race to try and stop it melting by using white tarps that block the sun’s rays.
“This area is continuously shrinking, so we cover as much of it as possible,” explains Davide Panizza, 34, who heads the Carosello-Tonale company that does the work.
From around 30,000 square metres (36,000 square yards) covered in 2008 when the project began, his team now places 100,000 square metres under wraps.
Once in place, the sheets, which measure 70 metres by five metres (230 by 16 feet), are hardly distinguishable from the packed white snow beneath.
“There are glacier cover systems similar to ours on a few Austrian glaciers, but the surface covered by the tarpaulins is much smaller,” Panizza said.
The Austrian-made tarps cost up to 400 euros ($450) each and it takes the team six weeks to install them—and another six weeks to remove them before winter sets in again.
Full report here.
via Tallbloke’s Talkshop
June 21, 2020 at 04:15AM
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