Snow and ice on Swiss glaciers melting at alarming rate amid heatwave, expert says

Snow and ice laid down last winter on Switzerland’s glaciers are expected to have all melted by Monday, marking the second-earliest arrival of the tipping point known as glacier loss day, Glamos head Matthias Huss said. The early threshold follows a heatwave battering Europe, an earlier May heatwave and another winter with poor snowfall.

In data going back to 2000, the only earlier year was 2022, when glacier loss day came on 26 June; this century the tipping point has averaged in mid-August. “We’re just seeing enormous ablation, ice melt rates and snow melt rates all over the Alps,” Huss said, as multiple Swiss weather stations registered new all-time records.

Much of the water that feeds the Rhine and the Rhone comes from Alpine glaciers.

Switzerland, Alps

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