Monday 28 January 2013

Covering Glaciers with blankets

At the top of Andermatt ski resort in Switzerland lies the Gurschen glacier and glacial melting is a problem for ski resorts as the melt water falls onto their slopes and melts them and also a melting glacier is not safe for people to ski on, this then looses the resort money and also is harming the cold environment. To combat this scientists have developed a synthetic material that covers over 2500 meters squared effectively becoming a giant glacial blanket but instead of warming up the glacier (as this would be ridiculous and counter-productive) the material reflects that Sun's UV rays that land on the glacier back into the atmosphere preventing it from melting. The glacial blanket is however still in the testing stages and is heavily criticized by the WWF but if it works it will become used more widely.

V.Lombardo 


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