For the first time in history, there was no snow left in the Alps last summer, according to a new report.

Scientists warn that the melting of ice in Europe over the past few years has been “off scale” against the backdrop of a worsening climate.

The Swiss Alps have lost six percent of their glaciers between 2021 and last year, exacerbated by heat and lack of snow.

Experts also recorded temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius at a record altitude of 5,000 meters for the first time in almost 70 years.

And the state of the global climate for 2022 showed that the past eight years have been the hottest in the world, while Europe has broken records for melting glaciers.

The European mountain range is famous for its snow cover most of the year, which attracts snowboarders from all over the world.

But the harsh effects of climate change have led to the complete disappearance of this cap, as the ice melt begins a month earlier than usual in 2022.

And when desert dust exploded on the mountain range last March, that melting accelerated even more as the reflection of solar energy was limited.

Blair Trevin of the World Meteorological Organization told The Times: “It was a completely dry winter, so there was less snow than usual during the winter, and then there was consistently very hot summer. So the melting was faster than usual.”

Another study last year showed that vegetation above the tree line has increased by nearly 80% of the Alps in the past 38 years.

This was due to the fact that the snow cover had significantly decreased on about 10% of the measured area.

However, the Alps were by no means an anomaly, as glaciers in North America, South America, and parts of the Arctic also experienced significant glacier loss.

Meanwhile, other regions of Europe have been hit by fierce wildfires and extreme heatwaves as the continent experienced its hottest summer on record.

Sea ice in the Arctic was below the 1991-2020 average for most of 2022, while ice in Antarctica also fell to record lows.

Drought in Africa has displaced more than 1.7 million people in Somalia and Ethiopia, while devastating floods in Pakistan have displaced about eight million people.

Source: Daily Mail