Returning to the Rhône glacier on a camper van trip this summer, the family found a drastically different landscape.
A British couple’s holiday photos have gone viral for showing the shocking speed of glacier retreat in Switzerland.
Duncan and Helen Porter, a software developer and nurse from Bristol, first visited the Rhône glacier in August 2009, capturing the memory with a viewpoint photo.
Almost 15 years to the day later, they returned on Sunday with their teenage daughters and took the same snap in the same loving pose – but with a very different backdrop.
“Not gonna lie, it made me cry,” Porter shared in a viral post on X of the two photos that has now received more than four million views.
A huge sheet of white ice has drained to reveal craggy grey rock, and a lake now covers the foreground. The stark contrast has caught people’s attention, framing one aspect of the climate crisis in a relatable way.
How fast are Europe’s glaciers disappearing?
Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent. Temperatures are now running at 2.3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, compared to 1.3C higher globally.
These fossil-fuelled temperatures are chipping away at our frozen regions, including widespread glacier loss.
Switzerland lost about 10 per cent of its glacier ice in two years, according to research from the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT) and Glacier Monitoring Switzerland (GLAMOS) published last year. One-third of its glacier volume has melted since 2000.
Glaciers in Austria and Italy – including iconic ice flows in the Dolomites – are also at risk.
A previous study concluded that half of the world’s glaciers are doomed to disappear by the end of the century, even if global heating is limited to 1.5C. But climate action can save the rest, the authors urged.
“A lot of people, when they see something like that, they feel quite helpless,” Porter told the UK’s Guardian newspaper of his viral post.
“But from my experience there’s a huge amount they can do,” added the Bristolian bike enthusiast, who sits on the committee of a local climate action group in the south-west of England.
Despite attracting the attention of climate-denying accounts on X, Porter said he was choosing to focus on other “really kind comments” in response to his emotive post.