Europe’s highest peak shrank by more than a metre last year, data has shown.
Mont Blanc in France now stands ۴,۸۰۷.۴۷ metres above sea level, a team of surveyors from the Haute-Savoie regional department said on Wednesday, putting “the roof of Europe” ۱.۲۹ metres lower than in ۲۰۲۵.
The mountain rock is about ۴,۷۹۲ metres tall but the summit constantly shifts as heat, wind and precipitation change the thickness of snow and ice on top. The height scientists recorded during an expedition last month is ۱.۸۸ metres greater than it was in ۲۰۲۳, when it reached the lowest levels in recent memory.
Chartered surveyors from the Union Nationale des Géomètres-Experts (UNGE) and the Ordre des Géomètres-Experts, who have regularly monitored the peak since ۲۰۰۱, used precise satellite technology to measure the mountain, and drones to create a detailed model of the snow and ice cap.
The summit has shrunk by ۳.۴۳ metres since a high of ۴,۸۱۰.۹۰ metres in ۲۰۰۷, the data shows. The experts cautioned against linking fluctuations in height from year to year to the rapid loss of Alpine ice being caused by fossil fuel pollution.
“Regarding ice mass, it is essential to distinguish between changes in surface altitude and changes in the total volume or mass of ice,” a UNGE spokesperson said. “An increase in summit altitude does not necessarily mean that the mountain has gained ice mass, nor does it contradict the documented retreat of Alpine glaciers.”
Climate breakdown was a factor in western Europe’s hottest summer on record this year, scarring Alpine regions and melting ice at dizzying speed. Earlier this month, Swiss glaciologists warned of an “explosion of melt rates” after confirming that one-fifth of the country’s ice had been lost in the past five years, and ۵.۵% of volume was lost between ۲۰۲۵ and ۲۰۲۶.
Jean des Garets, the president of the Haute-Savoie departmental chamber of surveyors and the leader of the Mont Blanc expedition, said the warming trend can be seen with the naked eye in the rest of the Alpine massif but that “for the moment, climate change doesn’t seem to have the same impact above ۴,۰۰۰ metres”.
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“When we climb, we pass by the Brigade Blanche hut before the Tête-Rousse glacier,” he said in comments reported by the French television channel TF۱ on Wednesday. “We’ve seen that the glacier has moved up. It has literally melted before our very eyes and now in some places we’re crossing a stream instead of a glacier.”
