The sky may not fall, but some mountains do.
According to Insider, the impact of man-made overheating of the Earth could create hills and mountains.
what happened?
On June 11, 2023, the summit of Mt. Fluchthorn, one of Switzerland’s highest mountains, collapsed without warning, causing 3.5 million cubic feet of rock to tumble into the valley below.
Thankfully, no one was injured, but the ordeal left Fluchthorn Hill 60 feet shorter. this reason Because collapse is the loss of permafrost on mountains. This permanent layer of ice and mud is found on many high mountains in the far north.
“Permafrost is important because frozen water underground holds the surface together and prevents it from moving,” Jasper Knight, a geoscientist at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, told Insider. “But when the ice melts, the liquid water flows away. The surface becomes less stable and can move, often very quickly.”
Fluchthorn Mountain has a lot of permafrost. “Global warming is causing permafrost to melt, which is the trigger for these mass movement events,” Knight said.
“The peak may have been frozen for thousands of years,” Jan-Christoph Otto, a geologist at the University of Salzburg, told Live Science. “The collapse of Fluchthorne was most likely the result of extreme temperatures last summer or autumn,” he added.
Why is this crash concerning?
The loss of permafrost is the result of Earth’s overheating, and it will only get worse as the planet continues to heat up.
LiveScience reports that according to MeteoSwiss, temperatures in the Alps are warming by about 0.5 degrees per decade, almost twice the global average.
Rising temperatures aren’t just affecting permafrost, either. Surface ice and snow can also melt, causing flooding and large-scale mudslides.
Leading scientists report that such events could bring disaster or even death to the 670 million people around the world who live in mountainous areas.
In addition to the risk to life, large-scale movements also increase the risk of damage to farmland, blocked highways and contaminated water sources.
What can be done to help?
Aboriginal communities have traditional knowledge systems that can help manage extreme weather conditions on the mountainside. According to Insider, one strategy they are using is agricultural terracing, which prevents soil erosion and landslides. But this is not enough.
If we slow down the rate at which the Earth overheats, we can prevent further degradation of mountains.
We can do this by ditching single-use plastics, switching from gasoline-powered cars to electric vehicles, and using clean energy wherever possible.
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