Europe's Melting Glaciers: Rhone

GLETSCH, SWITZERLAND - AUGUST 22: Visitors hike towards the bottom of the Rhone glacier at a small lake created by melting ice on August 22, 2016 near Gletsch, Switzerland. In the last 120 years the Rhone glacier, which once extended down from its current position into the valley below all the way to the village of Gletsch, has shrunk in length by 1.3 kilometers and is continuing to shrink rapidly. While glaciers across Europe have been receding since approximately the 1870s, the process has accelerated since the early 1980s, a phenomenon many scientists attribute to global warming. The European Enivironmental Agency predicts the volume of European glaciers will decline by between 22% and 89% by 2100, depending on the future intensity of greenhouse gases. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)