Swiss glaciers lose over 5% of ice volume in 2026 as heat waves, low winter snow accelerate thaw

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

61% : Switzerland gets more than half of its electricity from hydropower.
58% : The more snow you have, the higher the potential to keep some of the snow at high elevation and to form new ice," Huss added.
53% : Back then, the relative loss was 3.5% of total ice volume in Swiss glaciers.
53% : Such accelerated ice melt has had an impact in Switzerland -- the loss of 2.2 trillion liters (581 billion gallons) from July to September amounts to four times the annual consumption of water in the country of about 9.1 million people.
52% : "On the one hand, it protects the bare ice from melting.
51% : ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) -- Glaciers in Switzerland - the home to the most in the Alps - lost 5.5% of their ice volume this year, the second-biggest percentage drop on record due to heat waves and low winter snowfall, experts report.
50% : The trend has worsened in recent years: Over the past five years alone , the volume of ice in Switzerland has declined by nearly a fifth, the experts say.
49% : The record retreat of glacier ice in Switzerland came in 2022 , when summer heat, low winter snowfall and an unusual smattering of reddish dust blown in from the Sahara darkened the glaciers and caused them to absorb more heat.
49% : The longer you have snow, the longer you avoid the loss of old ice," said Huss in an interview at the Federal Polytechnic Institute ETHZ, where he is a glaciology professor.
47% : "Without human emissions or fossil fuels we wouldn't have any warming at the moment."
46% : Percentage drop rises as overall ice volume falls In Switzerland, in absolute terms, volume lost has been less than that in 2003, but the percentage decline this year is greater.
37% : This year's ice volume loss continues trend

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