Mont Blanc, Europe's highest peak, has decreased in height by more than a metre over the past year. Surveyors from the Haute-Savoie regional department announced on Wednesday that the mountain now measures 4,807.47 metres above sea level, which is 1.29 metres lower than its recorded height in 2025.
The mountain's rock base is approximately 4,792 metres tall, but its summit's elevation constantly changes due to variations in snow and ice thickness influenced by heat, wind, and precipitation. Despite the recent decrease, the height recorded last month is 1.88 metres greater than in 2023, when it reached its lowest levels in recent memory.
Chartered surveyors from the Union Nationale des Géomètres-Experts (UNGE) and the Ordre des Géomètres-Experts, who have monitored the peak since 2001, used satellite technology and drones for their measurements. Data indicates the summit has shrunk by 3.43 metres since its high of 4,810.90 metres in 2007.
Experts have cautioned against directly linking year-on-year height fluctuations to the rapid loss of Alpine ice caused by fossil fuel pollution. A UNGE spokesperson stated that an increase in summit altitude does not necessarily mean the mountain has gained ice mass, nor does it contradict the documented retreat of Alpine glaciers.
Jean des Garets, leader of the Mont Blanc expedition and president of the Haute-Savoie departmental chamber of surveyors, noted that while the warming trend is visible in other parts of the Alpine massif, climate change does not appear to have the same impact above 4,000 metres.