Twice the heat, half the ice

GLAMOS DATA: SWISS GLACIERS SHRINK BY A QUARTER IN PAST DECADE, STUDY FINDS

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VANISHING WORLD. Two tourists face the Rhone Glacier melting into its glacial lake. Switzerland's glaciers have shed a quarter of their mass in the past decade alone.

(AFP)

Switzerland’s glaciers, which are disproportionately impacted by climate change, have lost a quarter of their volume in the past decade alone, a study warned yesterday, heightening concerns over accelerating melting.

In 2025, glacial melting in the Alpine nation was once again “enormous”, the Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (Glamos) network said, adding that it was close to the record set in 2022.

A winter with little snow, combined with summer heatwaves in June and August, saw Switzerland’s glaciers lose 3% of their volume.

That marks the fourth-largest level of shrinkage since measurements began, trailing only 2022, 2023 and 2003, according to Glamos’ annual report.

Glaciers across the Alps have been retreating for more than a century.

But in recent decades, the process has sped up as the climate warms, driven by humanity’s burning of fossil fuels.

“Since about 20 years, all glaciers in Switzerland are losing ice, and the rate of this loss is accelerating,” said Glamos chief Matthias Huss.