As Switzerland struggles to contain the shrinking of its glaciers, researchers are conducting an unusual experiment in the Alps to see whether one of its less valued natural resources can help: sheep's wool.
In summer for years now, synthetic tarpaulins were laid over areas of ice and snow to reflect sunlight and reduce heat absorption as global warming melts away the ice sheets that defined the high Alpine landscape for millennia.
A participant walks through a snow protection test site covered with sheep wool material during a Sept. 2 news conference in Les Diablerets, Switzerland.
However, those tarpaulins typically are made from plastic and can shed polluting microfibres.
The "Keep It Wool" project, led by the environmental group Summit Foundation and the University of Lausanne, instead uses wool to slow the melting of the Tsanfleuron Glacier in western Switzerland.
Niklaus Sagesser, the weaver who made sheep wool covers, checks them at a snow protection test site covered with the material during a Sept. 2 news conference presenting the results of the "Keep It Wool" glacier protection experiment in Les Diablerets, Switzerland.
Material solution
This summer's record heat melted snow on the glaciers weeks earlier than usual, leading almost inevitably to more of the ice loss blamed for exacerbating rockslides like ones that devastated the village of Blatten last year and triggered a recent cataclysmic flash flood in the Himalayas.
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Project manager Timothee Steiner said the team wanted to explore a biodegradable alternative while finding a use for Swiss wool, 40% to 70% of which is discarded each year.
Wool covers a snow protection test site during a Sept. 2 news conference in Les Diablerets, Switzerland.
Four university master's degree students had the idea and worked to put it to the test.
In June, two prototype wool blankets made by the Swiss firm Fisolan were laid on 2,100 square feet of the Tsanfleuron Glacier. Throughout the summer, researchers compared their performance with that of a conventional geotextile cover.
Early results exceeded expectations.
A snow protection test site covered with sheep wool material, bottom left, is seen Sept. 2 near a traditional snow farming cover in Les Diablerets, Switzerland.
Fiber findings
Steiner said measurements taken every two weeks showed the wool covers limited melting as well as the synthetic ones.
Fisolan's Niklaus Saegesser said he was surprised by the material's durability. "I thought it wouldn't be stable enough."
A camerawoman films at a snow protection test site covered with wool blankets during a Sept. 2 news conference in Les Diablerets, Switzerland.
Student Elliot Gaffiot said the team wasn’t sure what to expect. "Now we have a result we can see and even touch. It worked incredibly well."
The project's backers stress that wool blankets are not a solution to global warming.
Only about 0.02% of Switzerland's glacier surface is covered by protective sheets, and scientists say reducing greenhouse gas emissions — mostly produced by fossil fuels — remains the only meaningful long-term way to slow the loss of ice.
