Switzerland’s glaciers are disappearing faster than ever — and the Alps may never look the same.
Even during the United Nations International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation, Switzerland’s glaciers continued to shrink dramatically. A snow-poor winter was followed by intense heat waves in June 2025, pushing ice loss close to the record-breaking levels seen in 2022. By early July, the winter snowpack had already melted away, exposing the ice beneath far earlier than is typically observed. Cooler weather later in July slowed the damage, but the relief was temporary.
By the end of the year, Switzerland had lost nearly an additional three per cent of its total glacier volume. That makes 2025 the fourth most severe year for glacier shrinkage, following 2022, 2023, and 2003. The year added to what is now the fastest decade of glacier loss ever recorded in the country. Since 2015, glaciers across Switzerland have lost about a quarter of their total volume, and more than 1,000 smaller glaciers have already vanished completely.
Major Ice Thickness Reductions Across Key Glaciers
In many areas, the seasonal snow cover melted all the way up to the highest elevations. As a result, glaciers such as the Claridenfirn (Canton of Glarus), the Plaine Morte Glacier (Canton of Bern), and the Silvretta Glacier (Canton of the Grisons) thinned by more than two meters. In southern Valais, glaciers, including the Allalin Glacier and the Findel Glacier, experienced smaller but still significant losses of roughly one meter.
Snow-Poor Winter and Extreme Summer Heat
The winter of 2024/2025 brought unusually low snowfall. Reduced precipitation combined with the third warmest winter half-year (October to March) since records began led to exceptionally shallow snow depths. Parts of northern and central Grisons received less fresh snow than ever previously measured. By the end of April, glaciers held about 13 per cent less snow compared to the average from 2010 to 2020.
June then became the second warmest on record, accelerating snowmelt even at the highest elevations. Although July turned cooler and wetter, August delivered another heatwave. During that period, the zero-degree line rose above 5,000 meters in some areas, contributing to an overall warmer-than-average summer. A few cold fronts between July and September briefly brought fresh snow above 2,500 m above sea level, but lasting snow cover persisted only at the highest mountain peaks.
Glacier Retreat Increasing Mountain Instability
“The continuous diminishing of glaciers also contributes to the destabilising of mountains,” says Matthias Huss, Director of GLAMOS. “This can lead to events such as in the Lötschental valley, where an avalanche of rock and ice buried the village of Blatten.”
Reference: And Swiss glaciers continue to melt
Funding: Federal Office for the Environment FOEN, MeteoSwiss within the framework of Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) Switzerland, Federal Office of Topography swisstopo, Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT)
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2 Comments
It is unlikely that the recent rate of 3%/year can be maintained indefinitely because the atmospheric lapse rate forces the air to become colder with altitude and the surface temperature has to be above freezing for the ice to melt. The ice-melt rate is only proportional to the temperature when and where the surface temperature is above freezing. Below the freezing point, solar insolation plays the primary role in melting, along with some sublimation resulting from wind. The surface sunlight is modulated by cloudiness. However, it is unclear exactly how anthropogenic CO2 would affect cloudiness.
Examination of the 1919 and 2025 pictures provided, it appears that solar heating plays an important role because in 1919 most of the snowfields and small glaciers were on the shadow-side of the mountains or in ravines, although the physiography indicates that previously the whole mountain was buried in ice. The snow and ice has been retreating for about 20,000 years, which was about the peak of the northern hemisphere glaciation, both continental and alpine. We are currently experiencing a warm interglacial.
“That makes 2025 the fourth most severe year for glacier shrinkage, following 2022, 2023, and 2003.”
The last major El Nino event (2023), which is associated with warm weather and shifting precipitation patterns, was anomalous. The warming peak was actually in 2024 instead of 2023, and the subsequent decline in global temperatures is equally unusual; the ramp-up peak was the strongest in decades, and the width (full-width, half-max) is unprecedented in modern times. Furthermore, the typical temperature graph of an approximate half-sinusoid for El Nino events, is beginning to look like an exponential decline, post peak.
This is suggestive that the eruption of the submarine volcano, Hunga-Tonga, coincidentally about the same time as the El Nino peak, put a lot of water vapor into the normally low relative humidity stratosphere, which is only slowly depleting. This is controversial. However, I suggest that one keep an open mind and follow the changes in the lower-troposphere temperatures over the next several months to see if the unusual behavior continues.
Lastly, the claim, “the Alps may NEVER look the same,” should be amended with “in your lifetime.” But then, depending on how literal one wants to be, “One never steps into the same stream twice.”