Zumbühl Heinz Jürg

Top of Europe: The Finsteraarhorn–Jungfrau Glacier Landscape

Project Number: CH-7185

Project Type:	Report
Project Duration:	01/01/2020 - 05/12/2021 project completed
Funding Source:	other ,
Project Leader:	Prof. em. Heinz Jürg Zumbühl Halen 34 3037 Herrenschwanden

Research Areas:


Landscape

Disciplines:


hydrology, limnology, glaciology

Abstract:
The Finsteraarhorn, the highest peak in the Bernese Alps, and the Jungfrau, renowned for its cog railway that attracts a high number of tourists each year, are together in the heart of a high mountain glacier landscape. The Unteraar 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 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) glacier fluctuations in a uniquely precise way. The Upper Lauterbrunnen Valley, dominated on both sides by huge steep rock walls with a great number of waterfalls, hosts smaller glaciers and a collection of moraines 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 Glacier, for instance, shows a reduction of the ice volume by 50 % since the end of the LIA. By the end of the twenty-first century, the Finsteraarhorn–Jungfrau landscape will no longer exist in the form it has been renowned for over the last centuries.

Publications:
Zumbühl, H. J., Nussbaumer, S. U., Wipf, A. (2020): Top of Europe: The Finsteraarhorn-Jungfrau Glacier Landscape. In: Landscapes and Landforms of Switzerland, Springer, pp 217-233 (2020).
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Last update: 4/1/22
Source of data: ProClim- Research InfoSystem (1993-2024)
Update the data of project: CH-7185

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