Switzerland, which has the most glaciers in Europe (almost 1,400), has lost even more ice this year. The Swiss Academy of Sciences and GLAMOS (Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network) have produced a new analysis that says Switzerland’s glaciers decreased by 3% in 2025. This is the fourth-largest yearly drop on record.
This most recent loss means that Switzerland’s glaciers have lost a quarter of their ice mass in just the last ten years. This is bad news for hydropower generation, agriculture, tourism, and water resources across Europe.
The experts said, “In 2025, glacial melting in Switzerland was once again huge.” “A winter with little snow and heat waves in June and August caused the glacier to lose 3% of its volume.”
Extreme heat and glaciers that are disappearing
More than 1,000 tiny glaciers in Switzerland have already melted away. The article talked about how a winter with little snow was followed by record-breaking heat. June 2025 became the second-warmest June on record, which made the melt happen much sooner than usual.
Matthias Huss, leader of GLAMOS and a glaciologist at Zurich’s ETHZ University, said, “It’s clear that glaciers are retreating because of human-caused global warming.” “This is the main reason why things have sped up in the last two years.”
The losses this year come after record drops in 2003, 2022, and 2023, which shows that glacier retreat caused by climate change is no longer a distant threat but an ongoing issue.
Effects Outside of Switzerland
The effects of melting glaciers go well beyond Switzerland. The shrinking of ice masses has an effect on:
Hydropower: Europe’s renewable energy generation is at risk because of lower water supplies.
Agriculture: Lack of water in the summer puts crops at risk.
Tourism: Famous alpine scenery and ski resorts don’t know what will happen to them in the future.
Geological Stability: When ice melts, it makes mountainsides less stable, which raises the risk of landslides and rockfalls.
Earlier this year, a huge piece of ice and rock fell off a glacier and buried almost all of the southern village of Blatten in May. This was a clear example of how dangerous glacier retreat can be.
A Wake-Up Call for the Climate
Experts say that if the world doesn’t act quickly to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions, Switzerland could lose most of its glaciers by the end of the century. The disaster shows how quickly climate change is happening and how badly we need better environmental legislation.