The alpine glacier of La Meije, of which only the upper part remains in this photo, has experienced a phase of decline dating back to the middle of the 19th century. This phenomenon started at the end of the Little Ice Age, a cold climatic period that extended from the early 14th to the late 19th centuries. La Meije's decline amplified after a series of scorching summers between 1943 and 1952 and has continued inexorably since the middle of the 1980s due in particular to global warming.