Swiss glaciers melted at an ‘enormous’ rate in 2025, thanks in part to Europe’s scorching summer
Switzerland’s glaciers are melting at an alarming rate this year, losing 3% of their total volume—the fourth-biggest annual drop on record—scientists say. This dramatic shrinkage ties directly to global warming, hitting the country hardest as it hosts Europe’s largest collection of these icy giants.
Experts from the Swiss glacier monitoring group GLAMOS and the Swiss Academy of Sciences shared the news in a new report. They point out that over the past decade, Switzerland’s ice mass has shrunk by a full quarter. “Glacial melting in Switzerland was once again enormous in 2025,” the team wrote. A winter with barely any snow set the stage, followed by scorching heat waves in June and August that wiped out 3% of the glacier volume.
Home to nearly 1,400 glaciers, Switzerland plays a key role in Europe. These ice reserves feed into hydropower plants, boost tourism hotspots like ski resorts, support farming, and supply vital water to neighboring countries. But the melting spells trouble: more than 1,000 small glaciers have already vanished completely.
The tough winter left snow reserves thin, and June turned out to be the second-warmest on record. By early July, that snow was gone, kicking off earlier-than-ever ice melt. “Glaciers are clearly retreating because of anthropogenic global warming,” explained Matthias Huss, head of GLAMOS and a glaciologist at ETH Zurich university. He calls human-caused climate change the main driver behind the speedup in losses over the last two years.
This year’s 3% drop ranks just behind the massive melts in 2022, 2023, and 2003. Beyond the numbers, the retreat reshapes Switzerland’s mountains—causing slopes to shift and ground to turn unstable. Authorities stay on high alert after a devastating event in May, when a huge chunk of rock and ice from a glacier crashed down, burying nearly the entire southern village of Blatten. As climate change accelerates glacier melting worldwide, these changes highlight the urgent need for action on global warming.
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