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Top of Europe: The Finsteraarhorn–Jungfrau Glacier Landscape

2020; Springer Nature (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-3-030-43203-4_15

2213-2104

Heinz J. Zumbühl, Samuel U. Nussbaumer, Andreas Wipf,

Geology and Paleoclimatology Research

The Finsteraarhorn, the highest peak in the Bernese Alps, and the JungfrauJungfrau, renowned for its cog railway that attracts a high number of tourists each year, are together in the heart of a high mountain glacier landscapeGlacial landscape. The Unteraar GlacierUnteraar Glacier with an east-oriented and extensively debris-covered tongue has, since the eighteen/nineteenth century, been the cradle of glacier research (e.g. L. Agassiz). In turn, Lower Grindelwald GlacierLower Grindelwald Glacier became historically the best-documented Swiss valley glacier, thanks to its accessible, low-altitude ice-front position. A wealth of high-quality depictions by top artists (e.g. C. Wolf and S. Birmann) have allowed the reconstruction of the Little Ice Age (LIA)Little Ice Age (LIA) glacier fluctuations in a uniquely precise way. The Upper Lauterbrunnen ValleyLauterbrunnen, dominated on both sides by huge steep rock walls with a great number of waterfalls, hosts smaller glaciers and a collection of morainesMoraine in the valley bottom. Since the end of the LIA, all the glaciers have been melting back, with a dramatic increase in recent years. The Lower Grindelwald GlacierLower Grindelwald Glacier, for instance, shows a reduction of the ice volume by 50 % since the end of the LIALittle Ice Age (LIA). By the end of the twenty-first century, the Finsteraarhorn–JungfrauJungfrau landscape will no longer exist in the form it has been renowned for over the last centuries.