Melting glaciers in Europe force Italy and Switzerland to officially redraw their borders

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Italy and Switzerland have decided to redraw their border after global warming dissolved Alpine glaciers that marked out the frontier between the two countries, according to reports.

For the past 100 years, the surface area of the glaciers, which is crossed by the border, has been shrinking steadily. In the past five years the process speeded up. The neighbors have now agreed to meet to work out a new border, the Independent reports. Daniel Gutknecht, responsible for the co-ordination of national borders at Switzerland's Office of Topography, said "the border is moving because of the warmer climate", among other reasons.

The border has been fixed since 1861, when Italy became a unified state. The new frontier cannot be decided until Italian parliament approve a new law at the end of next month. The areas affected include the famous Matterhorn mountain and the surrounding towns, which are popular with skiers in winter. However, no towns or communities will be forced to change countries, because the border lies 4,000 meters above sea level, well above any human habitation.

Climatologists have said rising temperatures have caused noticeable changes in the landscape over the past 20 years. Luca Mercalli, a well-known Italian meteorologist told the paper: "But the melting of the glaciers has been accelerating since the very hot summer of 2003," he said. "That heat wave caused a lot of changes in the landscape, and many landslides resulted from the melting of the permafrost. For the first time ever the zero-degree altitude went higher than 4,000 meters, and the morphology of many parts of the mountains began to change."

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Photos courtesy of Photo / AP, Getty Images,

Original Source: Telegraph