watercolour
Charlene Brown
Glaciers in Switzerland are shrinking more quickly every year and have lost 10% of their ice volume in the last two years. Tongues of glaciers such as the one pictured are collapsing and many small glaciers have disappeared completely.
The photo on which this painting was based was taken by Sean Gallup in May of last year, prior to the record-breaking heat wave in Europe. In August, the zero-degree isotherm, below which ice melts, rose to record elevations, well over 5000 metres ̶ higher than many of the mountain peaks in Switzerland.
The main reason for this chilling development is human-induced climate heating. By the middle of the 21st century, a further rise in the zero-degree isotherm of a catastrophic 400 to 650 m can be expected if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase unchecked.
