To slow down the melting of glacier ice, parts of a glacier can be covered with white tarpaulins. This does not stop the melting of a glacier. See e.g.
Repeat photos from the Rhone glacier
12.7.2021: Glacier covers on the snout of the Rhone glacier. These covers allow the longer operation of the famous ice grotto in the Rhone glacier.
These glacier covers protect the underlying ice.
This for two reasons:
1) The freshly rolled out tarpaulins reflect more sunlight than the grayish ice (keyword albedo). This effect decreases continuously depending on the degree of contamination of the cover with dust.
2) The tarpaulin has an insulating effect. The summer heat is thus partially kept away from the glacier ice. Part of the insulating effect is lost if the cover shows cracks. These occur when the ice moves and/or melts. See in the right part of the photo below.
The life of the cover is limited to a few years. Then they need to be replaced.
Largely unknown are the consequences that the fibers of the covers will cause in nature.
Mistakenly, covering glaciers is equated with climate protection.
Dem In this context, the slightly better reflection of sunlight serves to protect the climate. The production and transport of the covers are associated with emissions that more than compensate for the effect of the improved reflection. In other words, the balance is negative.
A study (see [
34>) further shows that covering entire glaciers would involve very high costs. Costs that are disproportionate to the benefits.
Therefore, covering parts of the glaciers in most cases serves the protection of commercial interests (e.g. ski resorts, ice caves, etc.) and not climate protection.
This is legitimate and necessary, for example, to preserve jobs. But anyone who pretends to use it to protect the climate and/or the glaciers is trivializing climate change and sending the wrong signals.
12.7.2021: Glacier covers on the tongue of the Rhone glacier. View from oblique above.
True climate protection can be achieved in four ways:
1) Avoiding greenhouse gas emissions
Greenhouse gases include CO2, methane, nitrous oxide and others.
Everyone is challenged in this area: States, companies, science, etc., but also each individual person.
2) Binding greenhouse gases in nature
Examples: Reforestation, reactivation of peatlands.
3) Removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere
Above all, the safe storage of the greenhouse gases extracted from the atmosphere has not yet been solved to date (2021). In addition, the removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere requires a great deal of energy.
4) Improving the reflection of incident sunlight
Examples: Brighter roofs, brighter road surfaces.
What sounds simple is technically difficult to implement because of pollution, e.g. by dust. As described above, it must be clarified what effort is required for the implementation of a measure. A measure only makes sense for climate protection if the balance is positive.
A well-founded overview of the topic is given by [
34>. ("Covering glacier ice: effective but expensive", 2021, Reinhard Lässig, WSL).
11.8.2018: Glacier covers protect the route of a ski lift above Zermatt.