Swiss put glacier under wraps

GEMSSTOCK, SWITZERLAND - Alarmed by the retreat of its alpine glacier, a Swiss ski resort has wrapped part of the shrinking ice-cap in a giant blanket in a bid to reduce the summer melt.

If successful, officials at the Gemsstock resort above Andermatt in central Switzerland expect the example to be followed elsewhere in the Alps, where scientists say glaciers are under threat from global warming.

"We think it will become common practice to cover parts of the glaciers," Urs Elmiger, a board member of Andermatt Gotthard Sportbahnen, the cable car operator behind the project, said.

A thin protective layer of artificial textiles, including polyester, was laid over an area of about 4000sq m. The fleece-like material, hard to distinguish with the naked eye from snow, reflects the rays of the sun.

The 100,000 Swiss franc ($115,000) blanket will protect one of the main glacier access ramps, which has to be rebuilt each autumn at the start of the ski season to cover a yawning 20m gap opened up by the ice melt.

"It needs a lot of work, energy and money to rebuild. And one day, if the melt increases, the cost of rebuilding the ramp will be very, very high," said Elmiger.

But scientists stressed that while such defensive actions could prove valuable in selected spots, such as access areas or cable car installations, they were not a solution to the overall problem of the vanishing ice fields worldwide.

"It may be useful very locally, but it would be totally unfeasible - economically and ecologically - to cover completely even a small glacier," said geography professor Wilfried Haeberli of the University of Zurich.

The alpine glaciers - also in Austria, France and Italy - are losing one per cent of their mass each year and, at that rate, will have all but disappeared by the end of the century.

- REUTERS