Why are the glaciers melting particularly early this year?

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• Glacier retreat day in the Swiss Alps was particularly early this year.
• Glacier shrinkage day is the day on which the winter snow has melted and the glaciers are starting to melt.
• This is mainly due to the winter with little snow. "As long as there is snow, no ice melts. But the melting of the ice began at the end of May and continued rapidly through June and into July," says glacier researcher Andreas Bauder.
• Due to climate change, there hasn't been a year with glacier growth in Switzerland for more than 20 years.

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Things are not looking good for the Alpine glaciers this year: this is what Glacier Retreat Day suggests. It is the day on which the winter snow has melted and the glaciers' substance is at risk. The day was comparatively early in Switzerland this year, as glacier researcher Andreas Bauder from ETH Zurich reports. Depending on the glacier, it happened at the end of June/beginning of July. "The situation is likely to be similar throughout the Alps," said Bauder.

In view of the cool and in many places rainy July, some laymen are also surprised in the Alps. However, the damage was already done in July, as Bauder explains. Why did the glacier melt come so early?

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Lack of snow in winter

"Because we had so little snow in winter," he says. "In some regions in north-eastern Switzerland, we've never had such a small amount of snow on the glaciers at the end of winter." It melted very quickly.

"As long as there is snow, no ice melts. But the thawing started at the end of May and continued rapidly through June and into July," says Bauder. Ausaperung is the technical term for the melting of the snow and ice cover.

Snow and ice are measured in detail in spring and fall on around 20 of the 1400 glaciers in this country. Further measurements are carried out on 10 to 15 over the summer. The glacier retreat day is determined on this basis.

According to Bauder, last year's summer began with much greater amounts of snow. Nevertheless, the glaciers still lost more in 2024 than they gained in winter.

No glacier growth for more than 20 years

"In the past, the glacier shrinkage day tended to be at the end of August/beginning of September, but we haven't seen that in the past 20 years," says Bauder. With climate change, there hasn't been a year with glacier growth in Switzerland for more than 20 years.

According to the Glamos glacier monitoring network, the volume has practically halved since 1950, from 92.3 to 46.5 cubic kilometers last year. One cubic kilometer corresponds to an ice cube with a side length of 1000 meters or one billion ice cubes with a side length of one meter.

Even a cold August with snowfall at high altitudes can hardly change anything, says Bauder. Summer snow is not as dense as winter snow and melts quickly. "A glacier is like a viscous mass of honey on an inclined plane, it flows downwards," he explains. If the snow supply is lacking at the top, too little flows down. Then the glacier tongue at the bottom cannot hold itself and shrinks.