The UK is mourning the melt of its longest-running snow patch, dubbed the “Sphinx.”
The occasion marks only the eighth time the frosty mound has fully disappeared during the past 170 years or more, according to researcher Iain Cameron, though “reliable” records suggest that The Sphinx has endured since at least the 18th century, he told The Post. Prior to this year, its only other recorded melts occurred in 1933, 1959, 1996, 2003, 2006, 2017 and 2018.
In recent weeks, the parcel of snow, located on the Braeriach mountain in the Cairngorms range of Scotland, had shrunk to about the size of an 8-by-11 inch piece of paper. It’s nestled in a hollow called Garbh Choire Mor, which was formed by a glacier during the previous ice age — and once thought to be Scotland’s snowiest mountain nook, even during the summer.
Cameron, an expert on the Sphinx’s history, blames climate change for the increasingly regular melts. He told BBC Scotland that the Sphinx, which is named after a nearby climbing route, has traditionally been referred to as the UK’s “most durable” snow.
“That is being challenged because it is disappearing more often,” he said.
Cameron has studied Scottish snows for 25 years. He’s even written a book on it, “The Vanishing Ice,” which features the late biologist Adam Watson, who peers called “Mr. Cairngorms” for his expertise in Scottish mountains.
Anecdotal evidence by generations of travelers and researchers has suggested that the snow has only melted a few times during the last 300 years.
Increasingly warmer weather due to climate change “seemed to be the logical” explanation, said Cameron — and the trend has been seen elsewhere in the region.
“What we are seeing from research are smaller and fewer patches of snow,” he said. “Less snow is falling now in winter than in the 1980s and even the 1990s.”
Snow has fallen less and less frequently since the 1980s, according to Cameron’s own research, commissioned last year by the Cairngorms National Park Authority. Findings suggest that by the 2080s, there may be little to no snow at all on the mountains.
Lauren MacCallum, a spokesperson for Protect Our Winters, told BBC, “We have to maintain a healthy temperature for our ecosystems and communities to survive.”
The report comes amid the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, currently ongoing in Scotland.