Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Sparks

Mont Blanc Just Shrunk By 7 Feet

Heat is taking a toll on its peak.

Mont Blanc.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 climbers attempt a summit of France’s Mont Blanc each year — a task that will be slightly easier in 2023, as the mountain’s peak has shrunk by more than 2.2 meters, or over seven feet, the equivalent of NBA star Victor Wembanyama, since 2021. Measurements of its height have been taken every two years since 2001 to assess the impact of climate change on the Alps, and this year’s measurement struck surveyor Denis Borel as “somewhat exceptional.” The shrinkage was “quite considerable compared to the measurements of previous eras,” he told French television channel TF1.

Mont Blanc is sheathed in a cap of ice, which shrinks in warmer, drier years, and grows in colder, wetter years. Depending on future precipitation, “Mont Blanc could well be much taller in two years,” according to Jean des Garets, the area’s chief surveyor. However, since 2013, when the mountain reached a height of 4,810.02 meters, its peak has steadily declined. “It is hard to believe we are going to recuperate a few meters over the next two years. There is a lot of variation, but there is a slight downward trend,” Farouk Kadded of Leica Geosystems said. “Normally, Mont Blanc gains one meter from June to September, but that did not happen this summer because [of] several days of positive temperatures, even a record of 10 degrees Celsius.”

Though des Garets said that the team was “gathering the data for future generations; we’re not here to interpret them,” it seems that the iconic mountain's decline is yet one more effect of recent months’ disturbingly — some might say gobsmackingly bananas — warm temperatures.

Green

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Sparks

After Trump Phone Call, DOE Cancels $5 Billion for Grain Belt Express

The Department of Energy announced Wednesday that it was scrapping the loan guarantee.

A cut wire.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Department of Energy canceled a nearly $5 billion loan guarantee for the Grain Belt Express, a transmission project intended to connect wind power in Kansas with demand in Illinois that would eventually stretch all the way to Indiana.

“After a thorough review of the project’s financials, DOE found that the conditions necessary to issue the guarantee are unlikely to be met and it is not critical for the federal government to have a role in supporting this project. To ensure more responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources, DOE has terminated its conditional commitment,” the Department of Energy said in a statement Wednesday.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Sparks

Meta’s Major AI Energy Buildout

CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed the company’s expanding ambitions in a Threads post on Monday.

Electrical outlets and a computer chip
Justin Renteria/Getty Images

Meta is going big to power its ever-expanding artificial intelligence ambitions. It’s not just spending hundreds of millions of dollars luring engineers and executives from other top AI labs (including reportedly hundreds of millions of dollars for one engineer alone), but also investing hundreds of billions of dollars for data centers at the multi-gigawatt scale.

“Meta is on track to be the first lab to bring a 1GW+ supercluster online,” Meta founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote on the company’s Threads platform Monday, confirming a recent report by the semiconductor and artificial intelligence research service Semianalysis.

That first gigawatt-level project, Semianalysis wrote, will be a data center in New Albany, Ohio, called Prometheus, due to be online in 2026, Ashley Settle, a Meta spokesperson, confirmed to me. Ohio — and New Albany specifically — is the home of several large data center projects, including an existing Meta facility.

Keep reading...Show less
Sparks

Trump Says He’s Going to Slap a Huge Tariff on Copper

“I believe the tariff on copper — we’re going to make it 50%.”

Donald Trump.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

President Trump announced Tuesday during a cabinet meeting that he plans to impose a hefty tax on U.S. copper imports.

“I believe the tariff on copper — we’re going to make it 50%,” he told reporters.

Keep reading...Show less
Green