Glaciers provide vital water supplies in warmer months. Their rapid diminishment is putting communities around the world at great risk. Here I've looked at three very different northern hemisphere examples ithat show why glaciers are so important and how their disappearance will impact on local residents.
Words and photography by Olly Beckett
Argentina
In the Spring issue of Mountains Magazine we reported on how Javier Milei's government was planning to scrap the country’s glacier protection regulations in a move designed to boost copper mines. Sadly this bill has now been approved. When visiting Mendoza and Aconcagua in 2018 I spoke with locals who were already concerned at the reducing levels of water coming from Andean glaciers. This water is vital for sustaining communities and the vineyards that produce 80% of Argentina's wine exports.
The glaciers being put at risk by Milei aren't just thick tongues of snow, but also sections of loose rock which are held together by ice throughout the year. Mining activity would expedite their demise and, by so doing, severely reduce the lifetime of Argentina's wine growing industry and the many millions who depend on the flow of water throughout the year.
USA
Climate change is coming fast to the mountains of North America. This year the snowpack (snow that compress over time to form dense stocks that melt more slowly over warmer months) has been greatly reduced as a result of unreliable snowfall. A particulalrly warm March has exarcebated this situation meaning that, come summer, places that rely on this steady water supply are likely to suffer.
This is a situation that was already starkly evident in 2015, as shown by these NASA images, recent NASA reporting shows that it's a situation that's only getting worse. There are knock-on effects too, such as depleting carbon storage and a much shorter ski season. Apart from addressing climate change – something which politicians are loathe to do – there isn't much that can be done to improve the situation. Initiatives such as spreading reflective materials onto the snow may have some impact, but it's just a drop in the glacial lake.
Switzerland
"Here in the mountains we are the first to see the signs of climate change," I was told on a recent visit to Verbier. In this part of Switzerland they have long depended on the melting waters of glaciers, with 'bisses' having been built for centuries to carry meltwater to fields and villages in a comparatively arid part of the Alps (we'll be visiting the bisses of Verbier in the June 2026 issue of Mountains Magazine, in the meantime this video on our Instagram channel gives you a brief glimpse of these impressive channels).
Having not heeded the alarms sounding from the Alps, not enough has been done to combat humanity's role on climate change and, sure enough, those bisses are now at risk of drying up. The consequences of this include: not being able to keep cattle (yes, no more cowbells, no more Heidi, no more delicious Swiss cheese); barren farms, and; dying flora and fauna. As MeteoSwiss shows this is a rapidly developing situation and the consequences don't just come in liquid form. A collapsing glacier in the Lötschental valley wiped out a village (Blatten, which we photographed shortly before its destruction) that dated to 1343.
Switzerland is, perhaps, more resilient than most countries to the effects of climate change and the government is certainly taking it considerably more seriously than the likes of Milei and Trump. While global warming is an inevitability the speed at which it happens is not. Slowing down global warming may give us a chance at prolonging the life of – and perhaps even revitalising – our glaciers. These icy canaries in the coal mine will be among the first to show us the human consequences of doing nothing, acting too slowly, or actively expediting their destruction.