Climate Change in the Alps – Rhône Glacier Melting

The Rhône Glacier is located in the Swiss Alps (Valais) and is known for being the source of the Rhône river, the primary tributary of Lake Léman (the largest lake in Switzerland).

This glacier is a perfect example of the ongoing impacts of climate change in the Alps. Increasing temperatures are  gradually melting the ice and a lake is forming (and rapidly increasing) over the last few years in the glacier forefront.

According to the most recent numbers, the glacier lost ~1300 m during the last 120 years.

We used the Swiss Data Cube with Landsat (1985) and Sentinel-2 data (2018 & 2020) to produce this short animation and look at the evolution of the glacier.

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You can also have a look to images on the ground to get a before/after comparison photo of Rhone glacier (Valais, Swiss Alps)