The melting of the glaciers will make them more dangerous, experts warn, adding that some may even disappear entirely within the next 50 years.
The glacial runoff, meanwhile, is filling up the local rivers they feed. The river tied to the glacial Nigardsbreen, part of the Jostedals glacier in the county of Sogn og Fjordane, has been recorded as having 50 percent more water in it than normal.
"Never before has there been such a large difference in the rivers coming off glaciers and those that aren't fed by glaciers," Rune Engeset of the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (Norges vassdrags- og energidirektorat, NVE) told newspaper Aftenposten.
"Tourists on board the cruiseships ask why there's so much water in some rivers while others are almost dry," he noted. The answer lies in the extremely warm and unusually dry summer over most of southern Norway, and especially in the mountains.
The Vosso river system, for example, has no links to glaciers and its reservoirs now hold only half the amount of water in a normal year.
This summer marks the third time in the last six years that scientists are registering a considerable reduction in the glaciers. Measurements taken in Jotunheimen, in the mountains of western Norway, at Svartisen and in West Finnmark show that the snows that fell last winter have disappeared quickly. Only at Svartisen were larges areas of the glacier still covered with the past winter's snow.
Engeset expects temperatures to keep rising, leading to more glacial melting. The uncertainty is tied to how much snow may fall this winter.
