Swiss Glaciers Lost over 5% of Ice Volume This Year as Heat Waves, Low Winter Snow Accelerate Thaw
Scientists say heat waves and low winter snowfall drove the second-biggest annual decline on record, with some glacier tongues losing up to 33 feet.
- Switzerland's glaciers lost 5.5% of their ice volume this year, according to the GLAMOS Swiss glacier monitoring service, contributing to a nearly 20% decline over the past five years.
- Heat waves and low winter snowfall accelerated this year's record retreat, with experts attributing the warming trend 100% to anthropogenic climate change.
- On Aletsch Glacier, the largest in the Alps, scientists documented a vertical thinning of 15 feet, while some glacier tongues retreated up to 10 meters this year.
- The loss of 2.2 trillion liters between July and September threatens hydropower generation and impacts Europe's water tower, affecting critical rivers like the Rhine and Rhone.
- Glaciologist Matthias Huss of ETH Zurich termed the situation "completely unsustainable," warning that in today's climate "we cannot keep glaciers in the Alps.
15 Articles
15 Articles
An alert study on the consequences of global warming in the Swiss Alps, where some glaciers could disappear faster than expected.
The figure gives the measure of acceleration: Swiss glaciers have just experienced their second worst annual balance after 2022. In five years, they have lost almost 20% of their volume, after a summer
At This Rate, Alps' Glaciers Will All Disappear
Switzerland's glaciers aren't just shrinking; they're vanishing at a pace that has stunned the people measuring it. A new report from Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (GLAMOS) finds the country has lost about a fifth of its glacier ice since 2021, with 2026 bringing some of the steepest drops ever recorded...
In the first eight months of 2026, the country's glaciers shrank by 5.5%, according to a Swiss glacier monitoring report - Their average thickness decreased by 2.5 to 4 meters in the period under review
Between 2022 and 2026, the melting rate of Swiss glaciers was "more than twice as high as any other five-year period previously monitored," one report noted.
Within a single generation, several glaciers have completely disappeared, says the researcher.
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