Swiss glaciers lose 5.5% of ice in second-largest melt on record

Swiss glaciers have suffered a significant loss of mass over the past five years, with the country's glaciers losing nearly 20 percent of their volume, according to experts. The year 2026 was marked as a particularly catastrophic year for glacier melt, with 5.5 percent of their volume melting away, as reported by the Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (GLAMOS) network. Matthias Huss, the chief of GLAMOS, described 2026 as a catastrophic year, predicting that some glaciers may not survive for another 10 to 15 years.

During a visit to the Scex Rouge glacier, Huss expressed his concern about the deteriorating state of the glacier, noting that the ice had retreated significantly. The measurement stake inserted at the glacier's center in late July had almost entirely disappeared by September, with more than three meters of it protruding from the ice surface. Huss emphasized that the situation is not surprising, given the rapid rate at which glaciers are melting due to climate change.

Between 2022 and 2026, the melt rate at Switzerland's glaciers was more than twice as high as in any previously monitored five-year period. The ice volume loss since 2021 amounted to almost 20 percent. While Switzerland's glaciers have been shrinking for a long time, the recent acceleration in melting has been unprecedented. The report, based on measurements taken at 23 reference glaciers in September, extrapolated the findings to the nearly 1,300 glacial formations still present in Switzerland.

The report comes after a summer where June, July, and August recorded the hottest temperatures ever measured in Switzerland since 1864. The protective snow cover on the glaciers had already started to disappear during the heatwaves in June, and it had completely vanished by September, even at high altitudes. GLAMOS warned that alpine glaciers have no chance of survival in the long term under these conditions.

The average ice thickness of some glaciers decreased by 2.5 to 4.0 meters, while more exposed glacier tongues experienced losses of up to 10 meters of thickness over the summer. Although the ice loss did not surpass the record set in 2022, the summer melt was more intense due to higher temperatures and better conditions for snowmelt before the summer. Less dust from the Sahara Desert settling on the glaciers also contributed to the increased ice melting this year.

Although there were exceptions, with four major glaciers experiencing record melting this year, including the Rhone Glacier and the Aletsch, which is the largest glacier in the Alps, the overall impact of glacier retreat raises concerns about the future availability of water resources. Between July and September, the glaciers lost a total of around 2.2 trillion liters of water, a quantity that Huss described as difficult to imagine, equivalent to more than four times the annual freshwater consumption of Swiss households.