Glaciers protect European Alps from erosion
AUG 06, 2013
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.027234
BBC : According to a study published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, cold glacier ice may serve to weatherproof the world’s highest mountain peaks. Cécile Godon of the Université de Savoie and colleagues studied Mont Blanc, western Europe’s highest peak, and the Bossons glacier, which covers it. They found that water and rain erode glacier-free areas 10 times as fast as they erode areas protected by glaciers. The glaciers, which freeze to the rock, appear to act as a protective lid. The results may explain how the Alps have attained such high peaks. And one of the adverse effects of climate change may be the lowering of those peaks as global warming eats away at the glaciers.
© 2013 American Institute of Physics
