A Slow River of Ice: Mer de Glace Through Deep Time

A quiet account of how the Mer de Glace glacier forms, flows, is measured, and carries a record of changing snow and climate through the Alpine valley. The episode separates direct observations from model forecasts, and treats the glacier as a slow system rather than a frozen object. The measurements come from Peyaud and colleagues in The Cryosphere (2020) 1, while the longer Holocene context comes from a 2026 EGUsphere preprint by Rodari and colleagues 2. Broader monitoring context is provided by the World Glacier Monitoring Service 3.

The Rodari et al. study is identified as a preprint under review. Its Holocene timescale describes sediment storage in the catchment, not a claim that every part of today's ice is eleven thousand years old.