High-altitude glacier archives lost due to climate change-related melting

Global warming has caused widespread surface lowering of mountain glaciers. By comparing two firn cores collected in 2018 and 2020 from Corbassière glacier in Switzerland, we demonstrate how vulnerable these precious archives of past environmental conditions have become. Within two years, the soluble impurity records were destroyed by melting. The glacier is now irrevocably lost as an archive for reconstructing major atmospheric aerosol components. Information on past environmental conditions stored within high-altitude glaciers is being lost due to accelerated melting associated with climate change, according to ice core analysis from a Swiss glacier.