Glacial lake outburst floods in Nepal and Switzerland
The spectacular worldwide receding of mountain glaciers is one of the most reliable evidences of the changing global climate since mid 19th century. Mountain glaciers therefore, are seen as key indicators for climate changes and act as a sort of "global thermometer" (Haeberli et al. 1998b, IPCC 2001, OcCC 2002). And although the global temperature rise of about 0.6°C in the last hundred years might seem negligible at first sight its impacts are tremendous. Alone the Alp glaciers have lost around one third of their surface area and half of their volume by the 1970s. Likewise, since the 1980s 10-20% of the estimated 130 km3 of ice reserves have been lost (Maisch/ Haeberli 2003).
