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Swiss glaciers lose 5.5% of ice
Low winter snow and repeated summer heatwaves drove Switzerland’s glaciers close to their worst measured annual loss.
What happened
Swiss monitoring data found that the country’s glaciers lost 5.5% of their remaining ice volume over the past year. A winter with little snow left ice exposed when heatwaves began early and continued through summer. The annual loss was the second-highest measured, behind 2022.
Numbers
- 5.5%ice volume lost this year — Second-highest annual loss measured
- 19.4%ice volume lost since 2021 — Across five years
- 2.5–4 metresaverage glacier thickness lost — Measured during 2026
- 2%formerly considered an extreme loss — Annual threshold
Questions
- Why did the ice melt so fast?
- Snow normally accumulates and compresses into ice; this year’s thin cover melted early, leaving darker bare ice to absorb more sunlight.
- How unusual was this year’s loss?
- Before recent years, glaciologists treated annual loss above 2% as extreme; the new result shows how far that benchmark has shifted.
- What has changed over five years?
- Since 2021, Swiss glaciers have lost 19.4% of their volume, concentrating a large share of decline into five years.
- What could shrinking glaciers affect?
- Glacier water supports farming, hydropower and transport; thinning can also destabilise slopes and raise landslide and flash-flood risks.
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The catch
The report measures Swiss glaciers, not total ice losses across the wider Alps.
Regional comparisons remain limited.