Study sounds alarm on Swiss glaciers melting at record pace

Swiss glaciers have seen their worst melt rate since records began more than a century ago, losing 6 percent of their volume this year following a dry winter and repeated summer heatwaves.

Scientists visit Switzerland's Gries glacier to measure melt levels. AFP - FABRICE COFFRINI

Three cubic kilometres of ice – three trillion litres of water – have melted away, a study by the Cryospheric Commission (CC) of the Swiss Academy of Sciences showed.

"2022 was a disastrous year for Swiss glaciers: all ice melt records were smashed," the CC said – a retreat that was reportedly nearly double the previous record set in 2003.

The melt was so extreme that bare rock that had remained buried for millenia re-emerged at one site while bodies and even a plane lost elsewhere in the Alps decades ago were recovered. 

"We knew with climate scenarios that this situation would come, at least somewhere in the future," Matthias Huss, head of the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network told Reuters. 

"And realising that the future is already right here, right now, this was maybe the most surprising or shocking experience of this summer."

Small glaciers hardest hit

"The loss was particularly dramatic for small glaciers," the CC said.

The Pizol, Vadret dal Corvatsch and Schwarzbachfirn glaciers "have practically disappeared – measurements were discontinued," the CC said.

In the Engadine and southern Valais regions, both in the south, "a four to six-metre-thick layer of ice at 3,000 metres above sea level vanished”.

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Significant losses were recorded even at the very highest measuring points, including the Jungfraujoch mountain, which peaks at nearly 3,500 metres.

"Observations show that many glacier tongues are disintegrating and patches of rock are rising out of the thin ice in the middle of glaciers,” the report said.

“These processes are further accelerating the decline.”

(with wires)