Mont Blanc, the summit of Western Europe in the Alps, was measured in September 2026 at 4,807.47 meters, or 1.88 meters higher than the previous measurement communicated in 2023, French surveyors announced on Wednesday.
“The summit is in constant motion,” recalled Jean des Garets, president of the chamber of surveyors of Haute-Savoie during a press briefing in Saint-Gervais.
“Each one-off measurement is not important in itself”, with regard to global warming, but it “serves to have data which will be analyzed over time”, he underlined. Expert surveyors measure the cap of snow and ice that covers the rocky relief.
“This cap is subject to extremely variable phenomena: snow accumulation, precipitation, wind, transport and redistribution of snow, temperatures, sunshine and weather conditions in the months preceding the measurement,” emphasize the scientists.
The summit is still cold
For the moment, the summit of Mont Blanc “still remains cold, it is not yet too modified by the climate,” observed Luc Moreau, glaciologist invited to the press conference, who is pleased to have a series of measures to continue to monitor “the evolution of the snowy summit” in the future.
The Haut-Savoyard surveyors launched their measurement campaigns in 2001, on which they communicate every two to three years. The summit, on the French-Italian border, between Haute-Savoie and the Italian region of Aosta Valley, was at the time measured at 4810.40 meters.
In popular culture, and on the pens of the eponymous brand for example, the altitude of the highest peak in Europe is often rounded to 4810 meters.
“We have variations of several meters from one year to the next. So rounding to the nearest ten, it’s not bad,” smiles Jean des Garets. At 4807.47 meters, the last measured altitude “is close to the historical value obtained by the Vallot cousins at the end of the 19th century”, underline the expert surveyors.
