Europe’s Alpine glaciers are going fast — some reports have them washed away by 2050.
To stop them, some Alpine regions have tried gimmicks like heat-reflecting blankets, but the Swiss region of Jungfrau is banking on an iPhone app to raise awareness.
Developed by the University of Berne’s Institute for Climate Change, the Jungfrau Climate Guide app, also available on iTunes, shows hikers where the effects of climate change are already visible and what scientists know about the subject.
Visitors to the Jungfrau region, south of Interlaken, pick up iPhones at the tourist office for a tour of Alpine erosion on seven specific paths.
Guided by the iPhone’s GPS function, the curious can explore a handful of hotspots to learn more about climate change, climate research, natural hazards and melting glaciers.
On an outing with a BBC reporter testing the app, one of the hotspots mentioned by the iPhone guide as site of erosion gave way to an impromptu rock slide.
“This kind of thing is happening basically all the time now,” said Kaspar Meuli of the Climate Change Institute. “Just two kilometers from here they had to build a special tunnel to protect the path from rock falls.”
