03/10/2025

FRIDAY | OCT 3, 2025

23

LYFE

S WITZERLAND’S glaciers, which are disproportionately impacted by climate change, have lost a quarter of their volume in the past decade alone, a study warned recently, heightening concerns over accelerating melting. In 2025, glacial melting in the Alpine nation was once again “enormous”, the Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (Glamos) network said, adding that it was close to the record set in 2022. A winter with little snow combined with summer heatwaves in June and August saw Switzerland’s glaciers lose 3% of their volume. That marks the fourth-largest level of shrinkage since measurements began, trailing only 2022, 2023 and 2003, according to Glamos’s annual report. Glaciers across the Alps have been retreating for more than a century. But in recent decades, the process has sped up as the climate warms, driven by humanity’s burning of fossil fuels. “Since about 20 years, all glaciers in Switzerland are losing ice, and the rate of this loss is accelerating,” Glamos chief Matthias Huss said. Between 2015 and 2025 alone, the glaciers shed 24% of their volume, Wednesday’s report said, compared to 10% between 1990 and 2000. Melting away Glamos researchers did extensive measurements at around 20 reference glaciers in September, and extrapolated the findings to Switzerland’s 1,400 glaciers. Europe’s Alpine region has been hard-hit by climate change, with warming in Switzerland progressing at twice the pace of the global average, according to the Swiss

An aerial picture taken above Gletsch, in the Swiss Alps, shows two tourists facing the Rhone Glacier melting into its glacial lake.

Swiss glaciers shrank by quarter in past decade: study

‘Destabilising’ mountains Overlooking the Rhone Glacier, near Gletsch village, Huss said the giant ice mass had lost more than 100 metres in height in the last 20 years. “It’s really a devastation of the ice,” he said. Water reserves have meanwhile been dwindling as the glaciers retreat, causing increasing problems in the summer months. Huss cautioned that this could hit “water availability not only up here in the mountains but also all the way down to the Mediterranean Sea”. “The continuous diminishing of glaciers also contributes to the destabilising of mountains,” he warned, pointing to the Swiss village of Blatten, which was wiped out by a dramatic glacier collapse in May. Glamos determined that Swiss glacier volume will total 45.1 cubic kilometres at the end of this year – or

30km less than in 2000. At present, the surface area of Swiss glaciers covers 755 square kilometres – a decline of 30% over the past 25 years. This year, Switzerland’s second-hottest June on record contributed to snow melting rapidly, even at the highest altitudes. August brought a fresh heatwave, pushing the freezing line as high as 5,000 metres above sea level – well above the peak of western Europe’s highest mountain, Mont Blanc. Only a rather cool and damp July “provided some relief and prevented an even worse outcome”, Glamos said, with a few cold fronts resulting in individual days with fresh snow at higher altitudes. The overall summer melt this year was therefore only 15% above the 2010-2020 average – its lowest level in the past four years. – AFP

Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology. Other Alpine countries are seeing glaciers retreat, and researchers highlight that those in Switzerland – whose mountain peaks are higher than in neighbouring Austria – may have a better chance of surviving the increasingly hot summers. Even so, scientists warn that Switzerland’s glaciers could all but disappear by the end of this century without more action to rein in global warming. “We can’t avoid the glacier melting overall,” Glamos head Huss said, but “we can slow it down... with globally coordinated climate action”. If carbon dioxide emissions “are brought to zero within 30 years... we could still save about one-third of the Swiss glaciers”, Huss added. Since the early 1970s, more than 1,100 Swiss glaciers have disappeared completely, according to Glamos.

o Alpine area hard-hit by climate change

Beaches shut on Spain’s Ibiza as rain sparks floods A picture shows the bottom part of the Rhone Glacier melting into its glacial lake. – ALL PICS FROM AFP

SPAIN’S Mediterranean holiday islands of Ibiza and Formentera closed beaches and schools recently as torrential rain triggered floods and the highest weather alert. The downpours come a day after a similar warning for the eastern Valencia region, where more than 200 people died 11 months ago in Spain’s deadliest floods in decades. Emergency services on the islands sent a mass telephone alert to residents urging them to avoid travel and outdoor activities, and warned against approaching streams, low-lying areas or basements. National weather agency Aemet said downpours of up to 200 litres of rain per square metre drenched Ibiza due to the “very slow” movement of the storm, the Balearic Islands’ regional government said in a statement.

Footage on social media showed pedestrians wading through muddy water on an Ibiza beachfront lined with palm trees, bars and restaurants as sirens from emergency vehicles wailed in the background. Murky brown water also gushed through streets, sweeping away large waste containers and forcing vehicles to advance at a crawl. The Balearic government reported 132 incidents on Ibiza, mostly related to flooding on ground floors, roads, falling trees and urban material, as well as the risk of rivers overflowing. Regional authorities announced the suspension of classes on Ibiza and Formentera, saying students should stay at school to avoid travel “until further notice”, and ordered beaches shut. The Spanish army’s emergencies unit was being deployed with

Cars drive down a flooded street in Ibiza recently.

Scientists human-driven climate change is intensifying extreme weather events such as the heavy rainfall that triggers floods, with a warmer atmosphere capable of holding more water. – AFP say

similar warning for the Valencia region. The red alert forced schools to shut for more than half-a-million pupils in Valencia, reviving painful memories of last year’s floods.

reinforcements the neighbouring island of Mallorca and the mainland. Aemet later downgraded its highest red alert for Ibiza and Formentera to orange after lowering a from