Kebnekaise South ("Cauldron Ridge"), situated in the North-West of Sweden has ceded its crown of Sweden’s highest peak to its rocky northern top (2096.8 m). The emblematic glaciated southern summit is literally melting away in the European heatwave.
“It’s pretty shocking” according to Gunhild Ninis Rosqvist, geography professor at Stockholm University. “The glacier is symbolic of all the world’s glaciers. That environment is melting away, the snow is melting and that affects the ecosystem: plants, animals, weather, everything."
The summit is regularly measured as part of a project studying climate change. According to Rosqvist the summit (measured at 2097.5 meters in August 2014) has been losing 14cm per day during the heatwave, 4 meters in July alone. The summit has been shrinking at a rate of 1 meter per year since for the last couple of decades. According to Martin Hedberg from the Swedish Weather Service “extreme heat is 100 times more common today than in the period 1950 to 1970. The differences between the Mediteranean and Arctic are getting less."
