study
Switzerland is losing a tenth of its glaciers in just two years
Switzerland hasn’t lost so much glacier ice in decades. 2022 was a shocking record year.
2022 was the worst year for glaciers in the Swiss Alps since records began, the report said. Their volume has shrunk by a record six percent. This year it was hardly better at four percent. For 2023, “the second largest decline since measurements began” will be recorded. As a result, some glacier tongues collapsed and several smaller glaciers disappeared completely.
Glacier melting is occurring “at a rapidly increasing rate,” warned the SKK, which is part of the Swiss Academy of Sciences. This acceleration is “dramatic”: within just two years, as much glacier ice was lost as in the entire period from 1960 to 1990.
Glaciers important for Switzerland
Glaciers are of great importance, among other things, as water reservoirs. This also affects the hydroelectric power plants in Switzerland, from which around 60 percent of the energy generated in the Alpine country comes.
Illustrated book “Alpine Ice”
The retreat of the glaciers: Aerial photos show the disappearing ice in the Alps
In 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted in a special report on the oceans and global ice and snow reserves that low-lying glaciers such as those in the Alps and Scandinavia would lose around 80 percent of their mass by the end of this century. In its assessment report published in February 2022, the IPCC named the global melting of ice and snow as one of the top ten threats from climate change.
A glacier burst in the Italian Alps in July 2022 made it clear what immediate danger glacial melting poses. Eleven people died on the Marmolada Glacier.