Swiss perspectives in 10 languages

The glacier melt in the Swiss Alps has begun

According to the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network (Glamos), at the end of April there was around 31% more snow on all of Switzerland's 1,400 glaciers than the average for the years 2010 to 2020.
According to the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network (Glamos), at the end of April there was around 31% more snow on all of Switzerland's 1,400 glaciers than the average for the years 2010 to 2020. Keystone / Mayk Wendt

The peak of the snow accumulation was most likely reached on Monday, wrote glaciologist Matthias Huss on the social media platform X on Tuesday.

“From now on, the melt will dominate,” Huss continued. This year’s weather has been a blessing for the Swiss glaciers so far.

Sign up to get the latest news from Switzerland directly to your inbox

According to the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network (Glamos), at the end of April there was around 31% more snow on all of Switzerland’s 1,400 glaciers than the average for the years 2010 to 2020. Since these measurements were taken, the condition of the glaciers has improved even further, wrote Huss.

+Why melting glaciers affect us all

This suggests that the glacier melt in 2024 is likely to be lower than in the two previous years.

In the last two years, Swiss glaciers have lost a total of 10% of their ice. Following the record loss of 6% in 2022, glacier ice melted by a further 4% in 2023.

Adapted from German by DeepL/amva

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.

Popular Stories

Most Discussed

News

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR