Tsanfleuron Glacier

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Tsanfleuron Glacier
Tsanfleuron glacier from the southwest, from the Sommet des Diablerets

Tsanfleuron glacier from the southwest, from the Sommet des Diablerets

location Canton of Valais , Switzerland
Mountains Bernese Alps
Type Mountain glacier
length 3.1 km (2011)
surface 3.3 km² (1998)
Exposure east
Altitude range 2945  m above sea level M.  -  2497  m above sea level M. (2006)
Tilt ⌀ 10 ° (18%)
Ice volume 0.21 ± 0.05 km³ (1998)
Coordinates 583.7 thousand  /  130089 coordinates: 46 ° 19 '19 "  N , 7 ° 13' 37"  O ; CH1903:  583,700  /  130089
Tsanfleuron Glacier (Canton of Valais)
Tsanfleuron Glacier
drainage Lachon, Morge , Rhone
Template: Infobox Glacier / Maintenance / Image description missing

The Tsanfleuron Glacier (French Glacier de Zanfleuron ) is a glacier on the eastern flank of the Diablerets in the southwestern Bernese Alps , in the canton of Valais . This plateau glacier has a length of 3.1 km and in 1998 covered an area of ​​around 3.3 km².

location

The Tsanfleuron glacier has its origin at 3000  m above sea level. M. high summit of the Diablerets massif. With a relatively weak incline, it flows to the east, along the southern foot of the Oldenhorn . In 2006 the glacier tongue was at an altitude of around 2500  m . Towards the southwest, the glacier is connected to the small Diableretsgletscher ( Glacier des Diablerets in French ), which covers the summit area of ​​the Diableret with an area of ​​around 1 km². In the west, the small Prapio glacier extends below a rock face .

Although the glacier lies on the main European watershed , its meltwater flows exclusively into the Mediterranean via the Morge and the Rhone . The path into the Saane is blocked by a moraine wall on which the Tsanfleuron glacier borders the Sex Rouge glacier .

tourism

The Tsanfleuron Glacier is accessible by a cable car with two sections from the top of the Col du Pillon to the Sex Rouge ( 2940  m above sea level ). The Glacier 3000 ski area includes several ski lifts and chairlifts. A few years ago, skiing could still be done on the glacier well into summer. In the meantime, due to the dwindling glacier, the ski area is only open between the beginning of November and the beginning of May (as of 2017).

Origin of name

In the regional patois, Tsan denotes the highest alpine pasture on the border with the mountains, i.e. the highest flowering willow.

Little ice age

At the height of the Little Ice Age around 1850, the Tsanfleuron glacier extended more than 3 km further east to the region of the Sanetsch Pass . But since the glacier did not fill a valley, it was always relatively thin, which is why the ice here has retreated particularly quickly over the past 150 years. The glacier has released an extensive, smoothly polished rock field ( Lapis de Zanfleuron ), which has numerous characteristic shapes such as round humps and sometimes water-filled hollows and depressions and is hardly overgrown by vegetation.

Even the uppermost part of the glacier is no longer covered by firn snow in many summers these days and the ablation area thus extends over the entire glacier, which means that the glacier will no longer receive any appreciable supply of ice and will melt completely if the current trend continues.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Research Institute for Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW) of the ETH Zurich (ed.): Tsanfleurongletscher. In: Swiss Glacier Measurement Network. ( ethz.ch , also as PDF , accessed on March 4, 2014).
  2. ↑ a b c Daniel Farinotti, Matthias Huss, Andreas Bauder, Martin Funk: An estimate of the glacier ice volume in the Swiss Alps. In: Global and Planetary Change. 68: 225-231, 2009 ( online ; PDF; 756 kB).
  3. ^ WGMS: Fluctuations of Glaciers Database. World Glacier Monitoring Service, Zurich 2013 ( DOI: 10.5904 / wgms-fog-2013-11 ), accessed on December 11, 2013
  4. ↑ Andreas Linsbauer, Frank Paul, Wilfried Haeberli: Modeling glacier thickness distribution and bed topography over entire mountain ranges with GlabTop: Application of a fast and robust approach. In: Journal of Geophysical Research. , Volume 117, F03007, 2012, doi : 10.1029 / 2011JF002313 ( online )
  5. ^ National Snow and Ice Data Center: World Glacier Inventory. Boulder (Colorado, USA) 1999, updated 2012, doi : 10.7265 / N5 / NSIDC-WGI-2012-02
  6. ↑ Winter sports on: Glacier 3000
  7. ↑ Caroline Fink: Hiking destination glacier: To the finite eternal ice In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung of July 14, 2017
  8. ↑ Tsanfleuron glacier on the Dufour map

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