Swiss glaciers suffer another year of record ice loss
Swiss glaciers experienced a significant 5.5% ice loss in 2026, continuing a trend of rapid decline linked to global warming. Experts warn that this loss threatens Europe's water supply, which is critical for agriculture, transportation, and energy production.
Why it matters
The melting of these 'water towers' disrupts essential infrastructure and food security across Europe, highlighting the tangible economic impacts of climate change.
BERN, Switzerland — Switzerland's glaciers lost more than 5% of their ice in 2026, marking another year of rapid decline. The loss reflects a wider global trend: Glaciers around the world have been shrinking at increasingly rapid rates, a phenomenon scientists link directly to global warming.
Matthias Huss leads Switzerland's glacier monitoring network, known as GLAMOS . Each summer, he heads high into the mountains to measure the country's ice fields. For years, his research has documented rapid ice loss, with the decline peaking in 2022, when Switzerland recorded a record 6% loss in a single year.
At the end of this year's long, hot summer, Huss returned to some of the glaciers to find much of the ice gone.
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