Swiss glaciers have lost almost a fifth of their ice in just five years, scientists warn

A winter with too little snow followed by record summer heat has left Switzerland’s glaciers with one of their worst years on record, and scientists say years like this are now becoming the norm

gradually for quite some time, but fresh research suggests the pace of this melting has sped up significantly over the few last decades.According to a report from the Swiss Gl

acier Monitoring Network (GLAMOS) and the Swiss Academy of Sciences, 2026 was particularly bad year for the ice melt in the Alps.Director of GLAMOS, Matthias Huss, said

this came down to two things working together – one is that there wasn’t enough snow over the winter to protect the glaciers, and then the other is that summer brought record temperatures across Europe. These two things together led to what he described as “enormous” melting.‘Extreme years almost every year now

The major finding in the report is that

Switzerland’s glaciers lost more than 5% of their ice this year. Worse still is that over the past five years, …….