Curiosities Curiosity
Did you know that snow is not actually white?
A snowflake is made of ice, and ice is transparent. So why is snow white and glaciers blue? The answer lies in how light bounces and is absorbed.
Tag
#glaciers
Everything about glaciers on Altavia: 14 articles including news, guides, routes and features.
14 articles
Latest articles
News Feature
Longyearbyen, the Arctic town where melting ice is already polluting the water and cracking homes
At 78° north, Svalbard's main town is living Arctic warming first-hand: tap water unfit to drink, homes made uninhabitable by thawing permafrost, avalanches and tour guides changing their routes.
News News
UN calls Nepal's glacier flood a 'defining moment' for the world
A wall of water more than 100 metres high swept through 60 kilometres of valley in seconds. Two months on, the UN's project services agency calls it one of the most destructive and deadliest climate-related disasters and urges rich countries to keep their promises.
News News
Swiss glaciers lose 5.5% of their volume in 2026: almost a fifth of the ice gone in five years
Little winter snow, heatwaves from May to September and the 0 °C isotherm above 4,000 metres for 76 days: the result is the second-worst year for Swiss glaciers since measurements began.
News Analysis
Swiss glaciers chain together years of record losses: what the measurements say
Measurement campaigns by the Swiss glacier monitoring network document the biggest losses since records began. We explain what the numbers mean and why they matter beyond Switzerland.
News Feature
Blatten, the Swiss village buried by a glacier: what we know and what it teaches
In May 2025 a huge flow of ice, rock and mud almost completely destroyed the village of Blatten, in the Lötschental. A preventive evacuation avoided a far greater tragedy. We look at what happened and why it is a warning for the whole of the Alps.
News Explainer
2024, the first year above 1.5 °C: what it does and does not mean for the Paris Agreement
The European Copernicus service ranked 2024 as the warmest year on record and the first to exceed the 1.5 °C threshold. Have we already broken the Paris Agreement? Not exactly. Here is why.
News News
Venezuela runs out of glaciers: how the last ice of the Venezuelan Andes disappeared
The Sierra Nevada de Mérida once had at least six glaciers. By 2024 the last one —Humboldt— had shrunk into a small ice field. Venezuela thus became the first country in modern times to lose all its glaciers.
News News
Melting ice moves borders: Switzerland and Italy redraw their line beneath the Matterhorn
When a border follows the watershed across a glacier, melting can move it. That is what has happened around the Matterhorn, where Switzerland and Italy have had to adjust their shared boundary.
Environment Explainer
Why are glaciers melting and what will the consequences be?
A glacier is a balance between the snow it gains and the ice it loses. When the books come out in the red year after year, it retreats. We explain why this is happening almost everywhere and what it means for us.
Environment Analysis
What would happen if snow disappeared from the great mountains
Snow is not just scenery: it is a natural reservoir that releases water when it is needed most. When it snows less or melts earlier, rivers, forests, wildlife and the economy of entire valleys change.
Nature Feature
10 places on Earth where nature is still extremely wild
There are still corners of the planet where human presence is minimal and natural processes set the pace: active volcanoes, deltas in the middle of the desert, immense ice fields and rainforests still to be explored.
Environment Analysis
10 natural places that could change radically this century
Some landscapes that seem eternal today could look very different by the end of the century. We review ten places where scientists are already measuring profound changes, separating what has been observed from what is projected.
Curiosities Curiosity
Red snow: the algae that tint the mountains and speed up melting
In summer, some snowfields in the Alps, the Pyrenees or the Arctic turn pink. It is not dust or pollution: it is microscopic algae with their own 'sunscreen'. And their colour has consequences.
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