BERN — Swiss glaciers lost an estimated 5.5 percent of their remaining ice over the past 12 months — a pace scientists once called extreme at just 2 percent in a single year — in what Glacier Monitoring Switzerland director Matthias Huss described as a “disastrous” melt season, the BBC reported.
Researchers said a mild winter left thin snow cover, then early and intense May–June heatwaves stripped snow and exposed darker bare ice that absorbed more solar energy, accelerating later melt. More than 5 percent of Switzerland’s glacier ice disappeared in a year; scientists warned the loss threatens long-term water supplies for farming, hydropower and transport and can destabilize mountain slopes, raising landslide and flash-flood risks.
Glaciologists stressed that alpine ice loss is expected under fossil-fuel-driven warming, but the speed of 2026’s decline stood out even against recent extreme years. NPR likewise reported another year of record Swiss ice loss as European monitoring networks updated seasonal tallies.
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