Sweden’s once highest peak loses 2 meters in height when the glacier melts
STOCKHOLM, August 17 (Reuters) – Sweden’s only remaining mountaintop glacier, which until 2019 was also the highest peak, lost another two meters (6.6 feet) in height in the past year due to rising air temperatures driven by climate change, said University of Stockholm .
In 2019, the southern peak of the Kebnekaise massif was downgraded to second in the ranking of Swedish mountains after a third of the glacier melted. The northern peak of Kebnekaise, where there is no glacier, is now the highest in the Nordic countries.
“On August 14, the southern peak of Kebnekaise was measured at 2,094.6 meters (6,912 feet) above sea level by researchers from the research station in Tarfala. This is the lowest height that has been measured since the measurements began in the 1940s,” the university said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The decrease in the peak and the changed appearance of the operation can mainly be explained by rising air temperatures but also changed wind conditions, which affect where the snow accumulates in the winter.”
It said that the changes reflect a long-standing warming of Sweden’s climate, citing a report by the UN Climate Panel which recently said that global warming had caused an unsurpassed melting of glaciers and was close to going out of control. Read more
Kebnekaise’s southern peak was measured as high as 2118 meters in the mid-1990s.
The Kebnekaise massif is located about 150 km north of the Arctic Circle in the Scandinavian mountain area, which extends over large parts of northern Norway and Sweden and is part of the Laponia World Heritage List.
Reporting by Anna Ringström Editing by Mark Heinrich
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