2023-10-14 11:30:10
“Here, we enter new ecosystems. » The glaciologist Jean-Baptiste Bosson points to a slope covered in forest, opposite the path which climbs above Contamines-Montjoie (Haute-Savoie). Larches, birches, alders. In 1850, the Tré-la-Tête glacier, the fourth largest in the Mont-Blanc massif, descended to the bottom of the valley. “This forest is less than two hundred years old, it is primary in the ecological sense, explains Jean-Baptiste Bosson. Humans have had no influence on the soils that have developed here, they have not selected the tree species and have never exploited them. It’s almost unique in France. »
Jean-Baptiste Bosson and Kenzo Héas, scientists from the Ice & Life project, on the bank of the lake created by the retreat of the Tré-la-Tête glacier, at 2,000 meters above sea level, October 9, 2023. SOPHIE RODRIGUEZ FOR “ THE WORLD ”
Forests, but also lakes, moors, wetlands or fjords: the Ice & Life project, launched in 2021 and managed by the Haute-Savoie Conservatory of Natural Spaces (Asters-CEN74), is interested in what’s next. What happens after a glacier melts? What is there in these areas freed by the ice? And, above all, how can we protect these last almost intact spaces on the planet, when the vast majority of land has already been altered by human activities? By collecting naturalistic data and scientific knowledge on these still little-studied areas, the Ice & Life team hopes to raise awareness and encourage their protection.
A few kilometers above the larches and birches, a block of “dead ice”, detached from the glacier, finishes melting at the foot of Tré-la-Tête, which extends behind a rocky spur. At the beginning of October, it is still over 20°C at 2,000 meters above sea level. The front of the glacier continues to retreat: here, it has given way to a lake, which appeared less than ten years ago. From the wall, debris falls with noisy “splashes”, a sort of soundtrack for warming. Since 2014, the glacier has lost around 24% of its volume, the equivalent of more than 30,000 Olympic swimming pools. In the French Alps, according to the first results of a still unpublished study, 400 square kilometers have been defrosted since 1850.
The melting of the Tré-la-Tête glacier, in Contamines-Montjoie, October 9, 2023. SOPHIE RODRIGUEZ FOR “THE WORLD”
Preventing the disappearance of glaciers
An inestimable loss, recalls the Ice & Life team: if it is interested in emerging ecosystems, it emphasizes that the priority is, above all, to avoid the disappearance of glaciers. The world’s approximately 210,000 white giants and the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica play a fundamental role in regulating the climate, the water cycle and sea levels, but are now melting extremely quickly. – the glaciers of the Alps are particularly affected.
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