The highest mountain in Western Europe shrank by more than a metre last year. The summit of Mont Blanc in France now stands at 4,807.47 metres above sea level, a team of surveyors said on Wednesday, putting the "roof of Europe" 1.29 metres lower than in 2025, UNN reports, citing The Guardian.
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The mountain is approximately 4,792 metres high, but its summit is constantly shifting as heat, wind and precipitation alter the thickness of the snow and ice at the top. The height recorded by scientists during an expedition last month was 1.88 metres greater than in 2023, when it reached its lowest level in recent times.
Certified surveyors from the National Union of Geometry Experts (UNGE) and the Order of Geometry Experts, who have regularly monitored the summit since 2001, used precise satellite technology to measure the mountain and drones to create a detailed model of its snow and ice cap.
The data show that the summit has decreased by 3.43 metres from its height of 4,810.90 metres in 2007.
Experts caution against linking year-to-year fluctuations in elevation with the rapid loss of alpine ice caused by fossil-fuel pollution.
"Regarding the mass of ice, it is important to distinguish between changes in elevation above sea level and changes in the total volume or mass of ice," a UNGE representative said. "An increase in the summit's elevation does not necessarily mean that the mountain has gained glacial mass, and it does not contradict the documented retreat of alpine glaciers."
Climate deterioration contributed to the hottest summer in Western Europe since records began this year, scarring alpine regions and melting ice at a dizzying rate. Earlier this month, Swiss glaciologists warned of an "explosion in the rate of melting" after confirming that one-fifth of the country's ice had been lost over the past five years, while 5.5% of its volume was lost between 2025 and 2026.
Jean de Garet, president of the departmental chamber of surveyors of Haute-Savoie and leader of the expedition to Mont Blanc, said that the warming trend could be seen with the naked eye across the rest of the Alpine massif, but "at the moment, climate change does not appear to have the same impact above 4,000 metres".
"As we climb, we pass the Brigade Blanche hut before the Tête Rousse glacier," he said in comments to French television channel TF1 on Wednesday. "We saw that the glacier had receded. It literally melted before our eyes, and now in some places we cross a stream rather than a glacier."