8 Missing after Switzerland landslide: Are the Alps melting?

[muriel_volestrangler]

"We have bore holes at different depths in different terrain and the ones that are in rock walls are showing a distinct warming over the last 10 to 20 years," she explained.

That would not be a problem if the rock was simply rock, but the rock in large sections of the Swiss Alps is cracked and fractured - between the layers of rock there are layers of permafrost. Ice in fact, but ice that is not supposed to melt.

"We have a problem if the temperature rises above -1.5C because the permafrost has a stabilising function," Ms Phillips said.
...
The glacier at the base of Piz Cenaglo provided additional stability to the rock above it, but that glacier has shrunk in recent years. So precarious had the mountain become that Marcia and her colleagues had given up on borehole testing and instead resorted to remote monitoring.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41049827

[joeybee12]

1. And it melted ao.much that t he bodies of that couple from WWII

We're found. More evidence

[rickford66]

2. No problem - John Stossel