Mont Blanc’s snowy crown grows nearly 2 meters higher in 3 years

POLEYMIEUX-AU-MONT-D'OR, France (AP) — Mont Blanc ’s snowy crown has been measured at nearly two meters higher than in 2023, French surveyors announced Wednesday after an expedition that involved hauling instruments up Western Europe’s highest mountain for an appointment at dawn.

The new altitude: 4,807.47 meters (15,773 feet).

That is nearly 1.9 meters (6 feet) above the 2023 reading. But the surveyors’ records also show a higher measurement last year, meaning the summit lost about 1.3 meters (4 feet) in the past year.

The ups and downs principally reflect changes in the cap of snow and ice covering the rock. Snowfall, wind and temperatures help reshape the summit.

Surveyors, guides and scientists reached the summit at daybreak on Sept. 17 and spent more than two hours taking readings. They carried nearly 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of measuring equipment on top of mountaineering gear, according to the Haute-Savoie surveyors’ association, which organizes the measurements.

Satellite positioning instruments helped pinpoint the summit. A drone captured more than 1,300 images to build a three-dimensional model of its snowy cap. Ground-penetrating radar probed the ice and the rock beneath it.

The association has organized repeated measurements since 2001, building a record for scientists studying how the summit changes. The latest figure is close to the altitude calculated by cousins Joseph and Henri Vallot in the 1890s, using surveying and triangulation.

Research by glaciologists in Grenoble has found that Mont Blanc’s summit is so high and cold that its ice rarely melts, so climate change had barely affected it, with its thickness changing by only a few meters over the 20th century.

Adamson reported from Paris.