Largest Glacier retreating faster than expected.

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The Aletsch Glacier has been shrinking by about 50 m per year for 30 years, and leading scientists fear it will be largely melted by 2100.

The Aletsch is so large that it would provide a litre of water a day for every inhabitant of Earth for six years if it melted. The largest glacier in the Alps, it curves like a massive freeway of packed ice--23 km long and 900 m deep.

While Glaciers have melted for 2,500 years in Europe, environmentalists are concerned at the pace.

"Yes, it should retreat, but not so fast. The glacier is in rapid retreat, which is a fact and a clear sign of climate change," says Laudo Albrecht, a local director of Pronatura, a Swiss environmental group with 100,000 members.

Studies show thinning over the past 30 years. It lost 115 m last year, but gained about 50 m per year in 2004 and 2005.

"At this rate, by 2100 about 80 per cent of the surface of the glacier will be gone," says Ralph Logon, a Swiss geomorphologist and expert...

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