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Aletsch Glacier
Sign in to saveAlso known as Great Aletsch Glacier, Grosser Aletsch, the Aletsch Glacier, Aletsch
glacier in Switzerland
The Aletsch Glacier is the largest glacier in the Alps, located in Switzerland. It is important for understanding how glaciers respond to climate change, as it has been monitored extensively and has retreated significantly in recent decades.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Key facts
- Type
- Valley glacier
- Location
- Valais , Switzerland
- Area
- 81.7 km (31.5 square miles) (2011)
- Length
- 22.6 km (14.0 miles) (2014)
- Thickness
- 940 m ( Konkordiaplatz )
- Highest elevation
- 4160 m
- Lowest elevation
- 1650 m
- Terminus
- Massa
- Status
- Retreating
via Wikipedia infobox
~12 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The Aletsch Glacier (German: Aletschgletscher [ˈaːlɛtʃˌɡlɛtʃər] ) or Great Aletsch Glacier (Grosser Aletschgletscher) is the largest glacier in the Alps. It has a length of about 23 km (14 mi) (2014), a volume of 15.4 km (3.7 cu mi) (2011), and covers about 81.7 km (31.5 square miles) (2011) in the eastern Bernese Alps in the Swiss canton of Valais. The Aletsch Glacier is composed of four smaller glaciers converging at Konkordiaplatz, where its thickness was measured to reach a maximum of 905 metres (2,969 ft). It then continues towards the Rhône valley before giving birth to the Massa. The Aletsch Glacier is – like most glaciers in the world today – a retreating glacier. As of 2016, since 1980 it lost 1.3 kilometres (0.81 mi) of its length, since 1870 3.2 kilometres (2.0 mi), and lost also more than 300 metres (980 ft) of its thickness.
The whole area, including other glaciers is part of the Jungfrau-Aletsch Protected Area, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Aletsch Glacier” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.