Two tourists facing the Rhone Glacier melting into its glacial lake, on September 12, 2025 above Gletsch, in the Swiss Alps.
Switzerland's glaciers, which are disproportionately impacted by climate change, have lost a quarter of their volume in the past decade alone, a study warned Wednesday, heightening concerns over accelerating melting.
In 2025, glacial melting in the Alpine nation was once again "enormous", the Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (GLAMOS) network said, adding that it was close to the record set in 2022.
A winter with little snow combined with summer heatwaves in June and August saw Switzerland's glaciers lose three percent of their volume.
That marks the fourth-largest level of shrinkage since measurements began, trailing only 2022, 2023 and 2003, according to GLAMOS's annual report.
Glaciers across the Alps have been retreating for more than a century.
But in recent decades, the process has sped up as the climate warms, driven by humanity's burning of fossil fuels.
"Since about 20 years, all glaciers in Switzerland are losing ice, and the rate of this loss is accelerating," GLAMOS chief Matthias Huss told AFP.
Between 2015 and 2025 alone, the glaciers shed 24 percent of their volume, Wednesday's report said, compared to 10 percent between 1990 and 2000.
Melting away
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