A new study has found that 1,400 glaciers in Switzerland have lost half their volume since the early 1930s and their melting is accelerating amid growing concern about climate change, the Associated Press and AFP reported.

The Federal Polytechnic University of Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Nature Research have announced the results of the first reconstruction of the process of ice loss in Switzerland during the twentieth century, based on an analysis of changes in glacier topography since 1931 .

Over 21,000 archival photographs from the period 1916-1947 were also used for the research.

Scientists found that the volume of the glaciers had halved in 85 years, until 2016. Since then, in just six years, the ice has shrunk by another 12 percent.

"Glacier retreat is accelerating. Carefully monitoring this phenomenon and quantifying changes in size is important because it allows us to study the response of glaciers to climate change," said Daniel Farinotti, co-author of the study published in the specialized journal Cryosphere.

180 new lakes in Switzerland from melting glaciers in a decade

Scientists have established that in two periods - in the 1920s and in the 1980s, the glaciers in Switzerland recorded a sporadic increase in their mass, adds BTA.

Switzerland

glaciers

melting