OSLO, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Nigard Glacier in Norway's western county of Sogn og Fjordane retreated 80 meters this summer, Norwegian media reported Tuesday.
This makes the glacier more dangerous than before, professor Atle Nesje from the University in Bergen told public broadcaster NRK.
"Some of these glacier arms are quite dangerous. When they melt back and burst, they become potentially even more dangerous to those who come too close," he said.
It was both "dramatic and surprising" to find out that the glacier retreated as much as 80 meters, Nesje said.
According to Bjarne Kjollmoen, senior engineer from the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE), this year's warm summer was not the main reason for the retreat of the glacier.
"The fact that it is retreating so much is due to what has happened on the glacier plateau during the last decades. It is the result of many years of more melting than the supply of snow," Kjollmoen told newspaper Aftenposten.
According to him, the lower part of the glacier will be gone in four to five years if it retreats as much as each year. This year's decline is the largest the NVE has ever measured, Aftenposten wrote.
