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Swiss Glaciers Lose 3% of Ice in 2024–25, Fourth-Biggest Annual Decline

The new GLAMOS report shows roughly a quarter of Switzerland’s glacier volume has vanished since 2015.

FILE - Matthias Huss, of the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and glacier monitoring group GLAMOS, stands at the Rhone Glacier that is partially covered with sheets near Goms, Switzerland, on June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)
FILE - Water drips from a melting chunk of ice that originated from the Rhone Glacier near Goms, Switzerland, on June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)
A drone view shows the Turtmann glacier on a warm summer day, amid climate change, in Turtmann, Switzerland, September 3, 2025. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
FILE - Matthias Huss, of the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and glacier monitoring group GLAMOS, and Monica Ursina Jaeger prepare a camera at the Rhone Glacier near Goms, Switzerland, on June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)

Overview

  • Scientists point to a low-snow winter followed by June and August heatwaves that drove the freezing level to about 5,000 meters, accelerating melt at high altitudes.
  • Field measurements extrapolated across roughly 1,400 glaciers detail sharp 2025 thinning, including about 1.5 meters on the Rhone Glacier and more than two meters on Claridenfirn, Plaine Morte and Silvretta.
  • Glacier retreat is destabilising mountain terrain and raising hazard risks, exemplified by the May rock-and-ice collapse that buried the Valais village of Blatten.
  • Researchers warn shrinking ice reserves are already squeezing summer water supplies, with potential impacts extending from Alpine communities to downstream regions toward the Mediterranean.
  • GLAMOS cautions most Swiss glaciers could vanish by century’s end without deep emissions cuts, while rapid global CO2 reductions could preserve up to 200 high-elevation glaciers.