In the late 1960s/early 1970s, the ice fields slipping down Mont Blanc and the surrounding mountains of the European range covered some 375 square kilometers; by the end of 2010 they’d shrunk to 275 square kilometers, a 30 percent loss. This new research mirrors what’s happening in the rest of the Alps, in Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, Germany, France, and Italy. As you might expect, the greatest loss has been in the south, where some glaciers are nearly gone. Scientists believe the cause is more than merely due to southern latitude, saying that the south also has lower glaciers and that the cloud cover over the northern Alps is consistently thicker, preventing more melt.

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