The Swiss "dying glacier" melting at an alarming pace

Switzerland's Gries Glacier is retreating at an alarming pace as climate change accelerates unprecedented ice melt across the country. - REUTERS

Transcript

00:00This is a dying glacier.

00:02Switzerland's Greece glacier is disappearing at an alarming pace.

00:07Climate change is accelerating ice melt across the country at an unprecedented rate.

00:13Matthias Haas, director of Glacier Monitoring Switzerland, is measuring this dramatic retreat.

00:19At this place where we are standing, there will be no ice in maybe five years from now.

00:24Higher regions of this glacier reach about 3,000 metres, and it will take about 40 to 50 years for it to disappear.

00:32For the lower region, it's taking mere months to see change.

00:36In the beginning of July, the ice surface was up there.

00:40So this is the melt that we have seen in just the last two months, two and a half months.

00:47So pretty impressive.

00:48If we compare the total melting from last September, it's even more.

00:54It's about six metres.

00:56Six metres in the vertical direction.

01:00Last September, exactly one year ago, the ice surface was up there.

01:06Haas pointed to consecutive dry years in 2022 and 2023 as major drivers of ice melt, as well as a warm 2025 summer.

01:16That's despite heavy snowfall in mid-April this year, giving momentary relief.

01:21According to GLAMOS, around 100 glaciers have vanished between 2016 and 2022 in Switzerland,

01:28and it can have devastating effects, with a glacier collapse in May destroying a whole village.

01:35Around the globe, the World Meteorological Organisation found that since the 1990s,

01:40ice loss has increased in nearly all regions and sped up after 2000, mainly due to strong summer melting.

01:47It found, for the third year in a row, every glaciated region on Earth reported ice loss.

01:54I hope that in that ficus was Royal, especially by a kirk, which was a tourist state,

01:56so special intensity one year ago, which he committees and partisans have been working on TensorFlow,

01:57which has been given for many more than 9 a half to 49 minutes.

02:02So really, I think you've missed all the time out there.

02:06We are really.