Alps particularly affected Soon 4000 glaciers will disappear worldwide - every year
According to a Swiss study, up to 4,000 glaciers per year could disappear worldwide by the middle of the century. The Alps are particularly affected.
15.12.2025, 19:35
15.12.2025, 19:36
SDA
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- According to a Swiss study, up to 4,000 glaciers could disappear worldwide every year by the middle of the century.
- At least half of all glaciers will no longer exist by the end of the century.
- According to the study, glaciers will disappear first in regions with many small glaciers, such as the Alps and the Caucasus region.
- The extent of glacier retreat depends on the extent of global warming.
Up to 4,000 glaciers per year are at risk of disappearing due to climate change. This is shown by Swiss researchers in a new study. According to the study, at least half of all glaciers worldwide will no longer exist by the end of the century.
With the study published on Monday in the journal "Nature Climate Change", the researchers wanted to draw attention to the fact that glacier retreat is more than just a scientific problem. "Each individual glacier can be locally decisive. It can be a cultural monument, an important tourist destination or a symbol of regional identity," said lead author Lander Van Tricht from ETH Zurich at the presentation of his study to the media.
Even the disappearance of a small glacier with a small contribution of meltwater can have a major impact. Therefore, unlike previous studies, it is important not only to analyze the glacier volume and the area covered by glaciers, but also to focus on the number of glaciers themselves.
In the new study, the researchers therefore asked the question: "How many of the approximately 200,000 glaciers on Earth today will still exist in the future?"
Four out of five glaciers gone
The answer to this question depends on the extent of global warming. With a temperature rise of 2.7 degrees - the level of global warming that the world is heading towards with current climate measures - four out of five glaciers worldwide would disappear.
If global warming were limited to 1.5 degrees - as envisaged in the Paris Climate Agreement - half of today's glaciers would be preserved. In a worst-case scenario with global warming of 4 degrees, only one in ten glaciers would remain by the end of the century. "These contrasts illustrate how ambitious climate policy can make a significant contribution to the preservation of glaciers," the researchers wrote in the study.
1000 glaciers already gone in Switzerland
According to the study, glaciers are disappearing first in regions with many small glaciers, such as the Alps and the Caucasus region. Larger glaciers in regions such as Greenland and Antarctica are disappearing more slowly.
In the years around the middle of the century, between 2,000 and 4,000 glaciers will disappear each year, depending on the rise in temperature. According to the researchers, around 750 to 800 glaciers are already disappearing worldwide every year.
"In Switzerland, we have already lost over 1000 glaciers in the last three decades," explained glaciologist Matthias Huss, who was involved in the study. Four out of ten glaciers in this country have already disappeared. "They were mainly small glaciers, most of them didn't even have a name."
Funerals for glaciers
"In recent years, funerals have been organized for glaciers in all parts of the world," added Huss. For him, this shows the profound significance a glacier can have.
He himself took part in the funeral of the Pizol Glacier SG in 2019. More than 250 people set out to pay their last respects to this glacier. "It was impressive for me to see how many people were interested in this small glacier that I had been surveying for so long," said Huss.
A glacier is considered to have disappeared when its area falls below 0.01 square kilometers or its remaining mass is less than one percent of its original mass.
