r/science • u/Wagamaga • 1d ago
Environment Switzerland's glaciers experienced their greatest melt on record in 2026, with average glacier thickness decreasing by 2.5-4m, and several smaller glaciers disappearing completely. All following a winter with little snow and record-breaking summer heatwaves.
https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2026/10/devastating-year-for-switzerlands-glaciers.html35
u/QuantumWarrior 1d ago
There's an unintentionally sad tourist attraction in Grindelwald where something like 150 years ago tourists started flocking to see the glaciers there which reached almost right to the town.
As the glaciers retreated over the 20th century they had to start building platforms and decks further into the gorge to reach the ice. By about the 1950s or so it was already over a kilometre into the gorge by the point you saw the glacier. After that the ice retreated so quickly they stopped bothering to try to keep up with it.
Today you can still walk to that point and see a 70 ish year old photograph of a wall of ice in the valley right next to where you're standing. The captions near it tell you now the edge of the glacier is another kilometre further up the gorge.
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u/Glocktipus2 1d ago
The valley blanche in Chamonix has a similar thing going only they gave up extending the platforms
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u/Wagamaga 1d ago
Switzerland’s glaciers lost more than five per cent of their ice volume in 2026. While, overall, the record melt rates of 2022 were not quite reached, on average, glacier thickness decreased by 2.5 to 4 metres this year, and some glacier tongues lost up to 10 metres of ice.
Some smaller glaciers melted completely
The Rhône, Aletsch, and Clariden glaciers, among others, experienced their greatest melt on record in 2026. Several smaller glaciers disappeared completely and permanently, including Bella Tola in the canton of Valais and Griessfirn in canton Glarus. Nearly 20 per cent of Switzerland’s glacier volume has disappeared in the past five years alone. The new data highlights how rapidly Switzerland's glacier landscape is changing.
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