ZURICH — Switzerland has lost almost one-fifth of its glacial ice in five years, with glaciers across the Alps retreating at an accelerating pace. Swiss glaciers shrank by 5.5 percent during the first eight months of 2026, a loss second only to the record melt in 2022. Since 2021, the total ice volume reduction has reached 19.4 percent.
The 2026 losses followed a summer of extreme heat and a winter with minimal snow. The mean thickness of individual glaciers decreased by 2.5 to 4 meters in 2026, according to the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network and the Swiss Commission for Cryosphere Observation.
Matthias Huss, a glaciologist at ETH Zürich and lead author of the annual monitoring report, said many people do not recognize the speed of glacial retreat. Sites now barren were once covered by hundreds of meters of ice just one generation ago, he said.
Several small glaciers disappeared entirely during 2026, though a formal tally has not been completed. Huss visited one former glacier site recently and described the transformation. "I visited one last week and it's so impressive to stand in this moonlike landscape where there was a big layer of ice — an extensive glacier — just a few years ago. And now it's a rock desert where there's some scattered blocks of old ice still lying around and melting on the hot rocks."
Glaciers are collapsing from within as well as melting at the surface. Internal streams beneath the ice excavate caverns, causing the glaciers to tear apart and retreat faster, Huss explained. "You have huge holes like cheese in the middle of the ice that have collapsing roofs. These are processes that tear the glaciers apart and make them retreat even faster."
Europe is warming at twice the global average rate, driven by heat-trapping greenhouse gases and environmental degradation. Alpine regions are experiencing the most pronounced shifts. MeteoSwiss reported Tuesday that the summer half-year from April to September 2026 was the hottest and driest since records began in 1864.
Despite 2026 summer heat surpassing 2022 levels, ice loss did not exceed the 2022 record. Scientists attributed this to fewer deposits of Saharan dust, which reduces snow's ability to reflect sunlight, along with slightly increased snow cover at winter's end.
The former Plattalvafirn glacier, also known as Griess glacier, exemplifies the scale of retreat. Once covering an entire mountain flank, it lost 99 percent of its area in 20 years.
