- Switzerland lost 4% of its total glacier volume in 2023 and 6% in 2022
- Switzerland is home to the largest number of glaciers of any country in Europe.
- As much ice has been lost in two years as between 1960 and 1990
Switzerland has lost 10 percent of its glaciers in the past two years as hot summers and lack of snow “dramatically” accelerate ice loss.
A panel from the Swiss Academy of Sciences reports a dramatic acceleration of glacial melting in the Alpine country.
Switzerland is home to the largest number of glaciers of any country in Europe.
It lost 4 percent of its total glacier volume in 2023, the second-largest decline in a single year, in addition to a 6 percent drop in 2022, the biggest melt since measurements began, the observation commission said. academy cryosphere.
Experts at glacier monitoring center GLAMOS have been keeping an eye on possible extreme melting this year amid early warning signs about the country’s estimated 1,400 glaciers, a number that is now declining.
Switzerland has lost 10 percent of its glaciers in the past two years as hot summers and lack of snow “dramatically” accelerate ice loss.
The head of the Swiss glacier measurement network GLAMOS, Matthias Huss, checks the thickness of the Rhône glacier near Goms, Switzerland
Switzerland is home to the largest number of glaciers of any country in Europe.
The academy said: “The acceleration is dramatic, with as much ice being lost in just two years as occurred between 1960 and 1990.
“The two consecutive extreme years have caused tongues of glaciers to collapse and many smaller glaciers to disappear.”
Matthias Huss, director of GLAMOS, who participated in the research, said in an interview that Switzerland has already lost up to 1,000 small glaciers and that “we are now starting to lose larger and more important glaciers as well.”
‘Glaciers are the ambassadors of climate change. “They make it very clear what’s happening out there because they respond in a very sensitive way to rising temperatures,” he said.
“The study underlines once again that it is very urgent to act now if we want to stabilize [the] climate and if we want to save at least some of the glaciers.’
The team said the “massive ice loss” was due to a winter with very low volumes of snow, which falls on the glaciers and protects them from exposure to direct sunlight, and high summer temperatures.
All of Switzerland, where the Alps run through most of the south and center of the country, was affected, with glaciers in the southern and eastern regions melting almost as fast as in the record melt of 2022.
Swiss meteorologists reported in August that the zero degree Celsius level – the altitude where water freezes – had risen to its highest level ever recorded, at almost 5,300 meters (17,400 feet), meaning all Swiss Alpine peaks They faced temperatures above freezing point.
