"Last-Chance Tourism" Behind Boom In Glacier Visits In EU - Reuters

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Swiss glaciers have lost more than 15 percent of their surface area in the last two decades, and could vanish almost entirely within a century if climate shifts are not moderated, said Max Maisch, a glaciologist from the University of Zurich.

As one of the only glaciers in Europe accessible by car, and with its man-made grotto that lets visitors walk underneath the ice mass, the Rhone Glacier has drawn many visitors looking to see for themselves how global warming is felt in the mountains.

"Tourists can observe a dying glacier here," Maisch said, standing next to the blue-tinged ice that once stretched a further 1.5 kilometres (1 mile) into the valley below.

No precise figures are available on how many people visit Switzerland's glaciers every year, because most are accessed and viewed freely, said Veronique Kanel of the Swiss tourist board.
But hundreds of thousands of people travelled on trains leading to Swiss glacier sites last year, she said, including 23,000 to the Rhone glacier and 562,000 on the Jungfrau railway line leading to the Aletsch glacier, the largest in the Alps.

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http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/38141/story.htm