Our beloved glaciers are melting at a rapid pace. So far, there is no patent remedy to prevent the melting. Last summer, a handful of geography students from Mainz tried to slow down this process with a pilot project using wind traps. The results that have now been published promise unexpected success.
Professor Hans Joachim Fuchs doesn't actually have much to do with glaciers. As a geography professor, he knows glaciers from books and vacations, but he would never have thought that they would become the subject of his studies. No wonder that his project to slow down the melting of glaciers by means of wind trapping was initially met with incomprehension, especially among glaciologists. The only successful method so far was to cover the glaciers with white fleece tarpaulins. But the problem with this is that snowfall in summer remains unused on the tarpaulins and only relatively small glacier areas can be covered at any one time - primarily in the catchment area for skiing.
The pilot project
During an excursion to the Rhone Glacier with students from his seminar, the professor and his students noticed the enormously strong downdraughts. Drop winds (or glacier winds) are caused by the cooling of the air close to the glacier. As this cold air has a higher density than the warmer air parcels in front of the glacier, an air pressure gradient is created. In other words, the cold air flows away from the glacier, sometimes strongly, depending on the amount of sunlight and the nature of the terrain.
In August 2008, the time had come: a group of students erected strange-looking wind traps on the Swiss Rhone Glacier. Some white tarpaulins, a few steel struts and a number of wind and temperature measuring devices. Six months later, the results of the tens of thousands of data have now been presented.
1.5-3 degrees C - and 30-60cm
To the delight of the project group, capturing the downdrafts on the glacier has a significant cooling effect on the areas in front of the wind trap! A temperature difference of 1.5 to even 3 degrees could be measured in the catchment area of the wind traps. A clear hardening of the glacier ice was also detected in this area, which indicates a cooler ice temperature (unfortunately the test equipment for this failed). However, the astonishment of those involved was even greater after the wind trap was dismantled: a step of 30-60 cm was measured between the protected area and the unprotected area down the slope!
A larger test over a longer period of time is currently being planned. Despite the positive results, Fuchs mentions: "Unfortunately, the results cannot be replicated on all glaciers. Special terrain conditions are required for this. However, we are still curious to see what will happen now." He also emphasizes: "We are only fighting the symptoms here. We are not affecting the cause, the massive climate change caused by humans, in the slightest."
