Britain's longest and best-preserved snow cover has disappeared for the eighth time in 300 years. Climate change that makes the Earth's temperature warmer is accused of being the cause.
Nicknamed the Sphinx, this layer of snow on remote Braeriach in the Cairngorms is known to have melted more often in the last 18 years. Snowfield expert Iain Cameron said, according to records, the previous Sphinx melted completely in 1933, 1959, 1996, 2003, 2006, 2017, and 2018.
Prior to 1933, it was thought to have last melted completely in the 1700s. Sadly, the Sphinx has shrunk to the size of an A4 sheet of paper in recent weeks before finally disappearing in mild weather.
Quoted from the BBC, Cameron, who lives in Stirling, has studied the snow cover in Scotland for 25 years. In his book The Vanishing Ice, he describes this condition as the "wailing" of the remaining snow and ice in the Scottish hills.
He worked with the late Dr Adam Watson, a biologist who studied mountains for years. Some of Dr Watson's research on the Sphinx draws on information passed down through generations of people who worked and visited the Cairngorms. The information suggests the layer may have melted only a few times in the last 300 years.
From the 1840s, the Scottish Mountaineering Club began to take note of the fate of the layer, and more recently scientists and ecologists have been gathering information.
Cameron said the Sphinx was historically the "most durable" snow cover in Britain. But this designation is questionable because the snow cover has disappeared several times.
Cameron mentioned, warmer Earth temperatures due to climate change seem to be a logical reason that causes an increase in the rate of snowmelt.
He added that the conditions affected high snow areas in other Scottish mountains including the Ben Nevis mountains in Lochaber. Aonach Beag, near Ben Nevis, also has patches of snow that often persist from one winter to another.
"What we see from this study is, smaller and less snow cover. Less snow is falling now in winter than in the 1980s and even the 1990s," he said.
Meanwhile, a separate study by the Cairngorm National Park Authority says there has been a decrease in snow cover, and fewer days when snow has been observed on Mount Cairngorm since the winter of 1983-1984.
The researchers also noted a trend of warmer weather since the 1960s, and predict that in the 2080s there will be several years with very little or no snow in Cairngorm.
Lauren McCallum, of the international climate change campaign group Protect Our Winters, said that Cairngorms and the wider world needed to be protected from further temperature rises.
"We have to maintain a healthy temperature so that our ecosystems and communities can survive," he stressed.
