Matthias Huss, head of the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Project, said on the 26th
that winter-accumulated ice and snow on Swiss glaciers are expected to be
completely gone by the 29th as a persistent European heatwave continues. The
monitoring project, which has tracked glacier mass loss since 2000, records the
date as roughly three months earlier than normal and second only to June 26,
2022. After inspecting the Rhone Glacier, Huss called the melt “shocking,”
noting about 1 metre of ice thickness lost in 10 days. He said precise
measurements will be available in September but that “substantial reduction this
year is certain,” and warned sustained high temperatures, not single heatwaves,
drive prolonged loss of alpine glacier volume.
