Record heatwave closes Mont Blanc to tourists
No new snow, the glaciers are melting, leaving once navigatible trails too dangerous to use, so Mont Blanc is now closed for general use.
Dr Jonathan Bamber, reader in glaciology at Bristol University, said it is likely that, unless global warming unexpectedly goes into reverse, the damage to the Alpine environment and to the tourism that depends upon it can never be repaired.
The melting of the layer of permafrost that holds the peaks together, said to have occurred this year to a depth of seven feet, will make ski facilities, such as lifts and cable-car pylons unstable, costing millions to repair.
Permafrost melting to that depth is beyond unusual. It is a harbinger that something is going very wrong. Yet the current lunatics in D.C. still fight any attempt to do something about global warming.