Swiss glaciers lose nearly 20% of ice in five years as record melt accelerates
Swiss glaciers have lost nearly 20% of their ice volume in five years, with 2026 marking the second-worst annual decline on record, according to a study published Thursday by the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network (GLAMOS).
The report found glaciers shed 5.5% of their remaining volume this year, as a record-hot summer followed a winter with critically low snowfall. Mean ice thickness on individual glaciers dropped by 2.5 to 4 meters, with some glacier tongues losing up to 10 meters, GLAMOS stated. The total melt from July to September reached roughly 2,200 billion liters of water—more than four times Switzerland’s annual household water consumption.
Matthias Huss, a glaciologist at ETH Zürich and lead author of the report, said the pace of retreat has accelerated dramatically. “You have huge holes like cheese in the middle of the ice that have collapsing roofs,” Huss said, describing internal caverns forming beneath the surface. He noted that some small glaciers, including the Bella Tola and Plattalv, have disappeared entirely this year, while iconic sites like the Great Aletsch and Rhône glaciers experienced their strongest melt since records began.
The losses bring the total ice volume decline to 19.4% since 2021, with the past five years seeing melt rates more than double those of any previous five-year period, according to GLAMOS. The network, which monitors 23 of Switzerland’s 1,400 glaciers and extrapolates the data, attributed the trend to climate change, noting that Alpine regions are warming twice as fast as the global average .
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Articles
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