Before and After Images Show Ice Masses Vanishing Before Our Eyes

At the time Matthias Huss initially explored Rhône Glacier 35 years ago, the glacier was merely a short walk from the spot where his family typically parked their vehicle.

"The first time I walked on the glacier... I experienced an extraordinary emotion of permanence," recalls Dr. Huss.

In the present day, the journey requires 30 minutes starting from that very location and the scene is very different.

"Whenever I revisit, I remember how it used to be," notes the glaciologist, who is now director of Switzerland's glacier observation program, "the glacier's appearance during my childhood."

Global Ice Reduction

There are similar stories regarding numerous ice masses across the globe, as these glacial structures are shrinking - fast.

In 2024, glaciers excluding the enormous ice fields in Greenland and Antarctica lost 450 billion tonnes of glacial mass, according to a recent World Meteorological Organization report.

This equals a frozen block 7 kilometers high, 7 kilometers across and 7km deep - adequate water volume to occupy 180 million Olympic-sized pools.

"Glaciers are thawing across the planet," states Ben Marzeion, professor at the Geographical Institute of Bremen University. "They exist in an environment that's particularly damaging for their preservation because of global warming."

Swiss Glaciers Hit Hard

Switzerland's glaciers have suffered especially severe impacts, shedding 25 percent of their frozen mass during the previous ten years, GLAMOS measurements revealed this week.

"It's truly challenging to comprehend the scale of this melting," clarifies the glaciologist.

However, photographs - taken from satellites and terrestrial locations - provide clear evidence.

Satellite images demonstrate the way Rhône Glacier has transformed over the past three decades, during the expert's first observation. At the front of the glacier is a lake where there used to be ice.

Rapid Glacial Decline

Previously, Alpine glacier experts generally viewed a 2 percent ice reduction annually to be "extreme".

However, in 2022 completely shattered that notion, with nearly 6% of Switzerland's remaining ice disappearing in just one year.

This was subsequently followed by considerable decline over 2023, 2024 and presently in 2025.

Professor Regine Hock, professor of glaciology from Oslo University, has been visiting the Alps since the 1970s.

The transformations during her career are "absolutely remarkable", she states, yet "present conditions is really massive changes over just several years."

Individual Ice Mass Cases

The Clariden Glacier, located in northeastern Switzerland, was approximately stable up until the late 1900s - accumulating nearly equivalent ice via snow accumulation as it lost to melting.

But this century, it has thawed quickly.

Concerning various minor glaciers, including the Pizol glacier in Switzerland's northeastern Alps, the impact has been overwhelming.

"This particular ice mass that I observed, and now it's completely gone," states Dr Huss. "This certainly causes sadness."

Century-scale Outlook

Photographs allow us to investigate earlier periods.

Gries' ice mass, in southern Switzerland near the Italian border, has receded approximately around 2.2 kilometers during the previous century. The area previously occupied by glacial ice is now a large glacial lake.

In south-east Switzerland, the Pers Glacier previously supplied the more extensive Morteratsch glacier, which flows down towards the valley. Presently, these ice masses are separated.

Furthermore, the biggest ice mass across the mountains, the Great Aletsch, has diminished by about 2.3km (1.4 miles) over the past 75 years. Where there was ice, presently contain forests.

Natural vs Human Factors

Glaciers have grown and shrunk through natural processes over millennia, of course.

During colder periods in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - associated with the Little Ice Age - ice masses frequently expanded.

During this time, numerous were thought to be bewitched in mountain cultural stories, their advances linked to spiritual forces while endangering villages and agricultural areas.

There are even tales of villagers calling on priests to communicate with glacial spirits and encourage them to ascend the slopes.

Modern Global Warming

Glaciers began their widespread retreat throughout the Alpine region approximately in 1850, although specific dates differed depending on location.

That coincided with increasing industrialization, when burning of fossil fuels, especially coal, began to heat up our atmosphere, but it's hard to disentangle natural and human causes from that historical period.

Regarding aspects with certainty pertains to the dramatically accelerated melting since approximately the 1980s are not natural.

Without humans warming the planet - by burning fossil fuels and emitting substantial quantities of carbon dioxide – glaciers should theoretically to maintain approximate equilibrium.

"We can only explain it by including CO2 emissions," states Professor Marzeion.

Coming Projections

Particularly alarming is that these large, flowing bodies of ice could need several decades to completely adapt to fast-increasing temperatures.

This indicates that, if planetary heating stopped immediately, ice masses would keep diminishing.

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