Despite hopes that melting would slow or even stop this year, new data suggests that glaciers in Switzerland have lost volumes of ice the size of Lake Biel in 2024. Heavy snowfall during last winter was not enough to protect the glaciers during the spring and summer, with experts reporting a record month for melting in August 2024.
On October 1, the Swiss Commission for Cryosphere Observation (CSC) of the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT) confirmed that glaciers in Switzerland lost 2,5 percent of their volume in 2024. Collectively the glaciers have lost 1,2 cubic kilometres of ice, the equivalent volume of Lake Biel / Bienne.
The 2,5 percent loss follows a record two years for ice loss in Swiss glaciers. SCNAT noted that in 2022 and 2023, glaciers lost 10 percent of their volume. This year, glaciers in northern areas below 3.000 metres above sea level were the most affected by melting.
"We were astonished that so much melted," Swiss Glaciological Survey head Matthias Huss told Keystone-SDA, explaining that the large amount of snowfall documented over last winter had raised hopes that they wouldn’t melt as much or at all this year. Between November 2023 and May 2024, snow depths in the Swiss Alps were the highest seen since records began, 30 percent above average.
However, this changed in July and August, when continuous high temperatures wore away at this blanket of snow. SCNAT found that the six metres of snow reported in Claridenfirn, Canton Glarus in mid-May had disappeared completely by September. Melting sped up with the addition of Saharan dust, to the extent that August 2024 saw the fastest glacial melting in Switzerland since records began.
SCNAT noted that the decline of glaciers in Switzerland “is continuing at a constant level due to climate change.” Rising global temperatures reduce the time window glaciers have to replenish during the winter, while making melting periods longer and more severe.
"Most glaciers will probably have disappeared in 80 years," Huss admitted.
"The largest glaciers in Switzerland can still be saved," he added, but conceded that this would require governments around the world to sign up to and crucially follow through with sweeping climate-related reforms and ultimately fulfil their commitments to net-zero carbon emissions.
Huss explained that while the end of glaciers would have an impact on the Swiss landscape, it would also pose major challenges as the local water and energy supply rely on the meltwater they provide. The absence of glaciers would also lead to a crisis should Switzerland face a drought - a prospect made all the more likely by climate change.