Mont Blanc, the ‘roof of Europe’, loses more than a metre of height in a year

Peak of French mountain now 4,807 metres high and fluctuates year by year due to changes in Alpine climate

Europe’s highest mountain shrank by more than a metre last year. The peak of Mont Blanc in France now stands 4,807.47 metres above sea level, a team of surveyors said on Wednesday, putting “the roof of Europe” 1.29 metres lower than in 2025.

Chartered surveyors from the Union Nationale des Géomètres-Experts (UNGE) and the Ordre des Géomètres-Experts, who have regularly monitored the peak since 2001, used precise satellite technology to measure the mountain, and drones to create a detailed model of the snow and ice cap.

The experts cautioned against linking fluctuations in height from year to year to the rapid loss of Alpine ice being caused by fossil fuel pollution.

Climate breakdown was a factor in western Europe’s hottest summer on record this year, scarring Alpine regions and melting ice at dizzying speed. Earlier this month, Swiss glaciologists warned of an “explosion of melt rates” after confirming that one-fifth of the country’s ice had been lost in the past five years, and 5.5% of volume was lost between 2025 and 2026.

“When we climb, we pass by the Brigade Blanche hut before the Tête-Rousse glacier,” he said in comments reported by the French television channel TF1 on Wednesday. “We’ve seen that the glacier has moved up. It has literally melted before our very eyes and now in some places we’re crossing a stream instead of a glacier.”