Life after ice

Glacier-fed streams are cold, milky and changeable, home to specialist insects and algae found nowhere else. As meltwater declines and streams warm, many of these species lose their habitat.

At the same time, retreating ice uncovers new ground. Worldwide, the land and water freed by glaciers by 2100 could cover an area between the size of Nepal and that of Finland. In the Alps it becomes rubble fields, lakes and pioneer vegetation: new ecosystems that are, for now, largely unprotected.