Melting Glaciers: Alpine Border Redrawn

Switzerland and Italy have redrawn a border running through an Alpine peak, as melting glaciers shift the historically established boundary.

The two countries agreed on the changes below the Matterhorn, one of Europe's highest mountains, which stretches between the Swiss region of Zermatt and the Italian Aosta Valley.

Glaciers across Europe, the world's fastest-warming continent, are retreating ever more rapidly due to human-caused climate change.

“Significant sections of the border are defined by the watershed or ridgelines of glaciers, firn or permanent snow,” the Swiss government stated. “These formations are changing as a result of glacier melt.”

The famous ski resort of Zermatt is affected by the change, as the two countries agreed to shift the border around the landmarks Testa Grigia, Plateau Rosa, Rifugio Carrel and Gobba di Rollin due to their economic interests, Bloomberg reports.

A joint Italian-Swiss commission approved the changes in May 2023. Switzerland formally ratified the treaty on Friday, but Italy has yet to sign it.

The changes come after years of dispute between the two countries over the territory of the summit.

According to the Swiss Academy of Sciences, Swiss glaciers lost 4% of their volume in 2023, the second largest annual decline ever recorded. The largest decline was 6% in 2022.

On some Swiss glaciers, experts are no longer measuring the ice because it no longer exists.

The remains of a German mountaineer who disappeared nearly 40 years ago while crossing a glacier near the Matterhorn were discovered in the melting ice last July.

Experts in Italy declared this month that the Marmolada glacier, the largest and most iconic glacier in the Dolomites, could completely melt by 2040 due to rising average temperatures.

The collapse of part of the Marmolada claimed 11 lives in 2022.

The glacier has been measured every year since 1902 and is considered a “natural thermometer” of climate change.