Swiss glaciers have lost 10% of their total volume in the past two years, according to a report from the Swiss Academy of Sciences. The loss during the hot summers of 2022 and 2023 is equivalent to the total depletion recorded between 1960 and 1990.
This year saw a 4% decline, the second-largest annual drop on record, while 2022 recorded a 6% loss, the largest since measurements began. Scientists attribute the accelerated melting to climate breakdown driven by fossil fuel use, combined with unusually hot summers and low winter snowfall.
Matthias Huss, head of Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (Glamos), said that small glaciers are disappearing at an alarming rate. He noted that even if global warming is limited to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, only a third of Switzerland's glacier volume is expected to survive. “All the small glaciers will be gone anyway, and the big glaciers will be much smaller,” he added.
The monitoring programme has stopped measuring some glaciers, including the St Annafirn glacier in Uri, because they have essentially melted away. In August 2023, the Swiss weather service recorded the highest freezing level on record, at 5,289 metres above sea level, surpassing the previous record of 5,184 metres set in 2022.
Melting ice is reshaping the Alpine landscape: new lakes are forming at the bases of glaciers for the first time, bare rock is emerging, and bodies long buried in ice have been recovered. Huss warned that if current trends continue, such extreme losses will become annual occurrences.
