The before and after images showing glaciers vanishing before our eyes

[ad_1] When Matthias Huss first visited Rhône Glacier in Switzerland 35 years in the past, the ice was only a brief stroll from the place his dad and mom would park the automotive.

"After I first stepped onto the ice... there [was] a particular feeling of eternity," says Matthias.

Right now, the ice is half an hour from the identical parking spot and the scene may be very completely different.

"Each time I'm going again, I keep in mind the way it was once," recollects Matthias, now director of Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (GLAMOS), "how the glacier seemed once I was a toddler."

There are comparable tales for a lot of glaciers everywhere in the planet, as a result of these frozen rivers of ice are retreating - quick.

In 2024, glaciers exterior the large ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica misplaced 450 billion tonnes of ice, in accordance with a current World Meteorological Group report.

That is equal to a block of ice 7km (4.3 miles) tall, 7km extensive and 7km deep - sufficient water to fill 180 million Olympic swimming swimming pools.

"Glaciers are melting in every single place on the earth," says Prof Ben Marzeion of the Institute of Geography on the College of Bremen. "They're sitting in a local weather that may be very hostile to them now due to international warming."

Switzerland's glaciers have been notably badly hit, shedding 1 / 4 of their ice within the final 10 years, measurements from GLAMOS revealed this week.

"It is actually tough to understand the extent of this soften," explains Dr Huss.

However images - from house and the bottom - inform their very own story.

Satellite tv for pc pictures present how the Rhône Glacier has modified since 1990, when Dr Huss first visited. On the entrance of the glacier is a lake the place there was once ice.

<img alt="Satellite images showing how Rhône Glacier has shrunk between 1990 and 2025. The glacier flows from top to bottom of the image. The glacier front has noticeably retreated, and a glacial lake is now visible where the ice used to be. " loading="lazy" width="960" height="837" decoding="async" data-nimg="1" class="rounded-lg" style="color:transparent" src="https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/YgNCdgWwGOJQCIDqeYWO.w--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTgzNztjZj13ZWJw/https://media.zenfs.com/en/bbc_us_articles_995/e6033d86cac64f87bfdabf6fcbfcadf4"/> [BBC]

Till just lately, glaciologists within the Alps used to contemplate 2% of ice misplaced in a single 12 months to be "excessive".

Then 2022 blew that concept out of the water, with almost 6% of Switzerland's remaining ice misplaced in a single 12 months.

That has been adopted by vital losses in 2023, 2024 and now 2025 too.

Regine Hock, professor of glaciology on the College of Oslo, has been visiting the Alps because the Nineteen Seventies.

The modifications over her lifetime are "actually beautiful", she says, however "what we see now could be actually huge modifications inside a number of years".

The Clariden Glacier, in north-eastern Switzerland, was roughly in steadiness till the late twentieth Century - gaining about as a lot ice by means of snowfall because it misplaced to melting.

However this century, it is melted quickly.

<img alt="Two images showing Clariden Glacier in 1898 and 2006, above a larger image of the same glacier in 2025. The glacier has visibly shrunk between 1898 and 2006, but the changes between 2006 and 2025 are even more noticeable: the ice is thinner and has retreated." loading="lazy" width="960" height="1145" decoding="async" data-nimg="1" class="rounded-lg" style="color:transparent" src="https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/mzyytcM9l.XtJWCjDmykAA--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTExNDU7Y2Y9d2VicA--/https://media.zenfs.com/en/bbc_us_articles_995/6787c7b49b1edd80c69d571a61888659"/> [BBC]

For a lot of smaller glaciers, just like the Pizol Glacier within the north-east Swiss Alps, it has been an excessive amount of.

"This is likely one of the glaciers that I noticed, and now it is utterly gone," says Dr Huss. "It undoubtedly makes me unhappy."

Images enable us to look even additional again in time.

The Gries Glacier, in southern Switzerland close to the Italian border, has retreated by about 2.2km (1.4 miles) previously century. The place the top of the glacier as soon as stood is now a big glacial lake.

<img alt="Two images of Gries Glacier, one in 1919 above and one in 2025 below. In 1919 a thick glacier is flowing from left to right, extending off the page. In 2025 the glacier only just enters at the left-hand side of the image. Where the ice once was is a large area of exposed bedrock, followed by a bright blue glacier lake." loading="lazy" width="960" height="755" decoding="async" data-nimg="1" class="rounded-lg" style="color:transparent" src="https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/g4KE4N1iIxTInd7lmSOBDw--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTc1NTtjZj13ZWJw/https://media.zenfs.com/en/bbc_us_articles_995/429781b5b4ddc1a444f6d018b5335833"/> [BBC]

In south-east Switzerland, the Pers Glacier as soon as fed the bigger Morteratsch Glacier, which flows down in direction of the valley. Now the 2 now not meet.

And the biggest glacier within the Alps, the Nice Aletsch, has receded by about 2.3km (1.4 miles) over the previous 75 years. The place there was ice, there are actually bushes.

<img alt="Two images of the Great Aletsch Glacier, one in 1949 above and one in 2024 below. The glacier emerges in between two steep valley walls. In 1949, the glacier extends almost all the way down the image; in 2024, it only just emerges in the background. There are trees and bedrock where there used to be ice." loading="lazy" width="960" height="1367" decoding="async" data-nimg="1" class="rounded-lg" style="color:transparent" src="https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/SLkEMBkmIZeGeV1v6bB8gA--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTEzNjc7Y2Y9d2VicA--/https://media.zenfs.com/en/bbc_us_articles_995/0d51863bec1466b5562e9039d0ab34ea"/> [BBC]

Glaciers have grown and shrunk naturally for hundreds of thousands of years, after all.

Within the chilly snaps of the seventeenth, 18th and nineteenth Centuries - a part of the Little Ice Age - glaciers usually superior.

Throughout this time, many had been thought-about cursed by the satan in Alpine folklore, their advances linked to non secular forces as they threatened hamlets and farmland.

There are even tales of villagers calling on monks to speak to the spirits of glaciers and get them to maneuver up the mountain.

Glaciers started their widespread retreat throughout the Alps in about 1850, although the timing diverse from place to put.

That coincided with rising industrialisation, when burning of fossil fuels, notably coal, started to warmth up our environment, nevertheless it's onerous to disentangle pure and human causes that far again in time.

The place there isn't a actual doubt is that the notably speedy losses of the previous 40 years or so should not pure.

With out people warming the planet - by burning fossil fuels and releasing large quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2) – glaciers could be anticipated to be roughly secure.

"We will solely clarify it if we take into consideration CO2 emissions," confirms Prof Marzeion.

What's much more sobering is that these giant, flowing our bodies of ice can take a long time to totally alter to the quickly warming local weather. That implies that, even when international temperatures stabilised tomorrow, glaciers would proceed to retreat.

"A big a part of the long run soften of the glaciers is already locked in," explains Prof Marzeion. "They're lagging local weather change."

However all will not be misplaced.

Half of the ice remaining internationally's mountain glaciers could possibly be preserved if international warming is restricted to 1.5C above "pre-industrial" ranges of the late 1800s, in accordance with analysis printed this 12 months within the journal Science.

Our present trajectory is main us in direction of warming of about 2.7C above pre-industrial ranges by the top of this century – which might see three-quarters of ice misplaced ultimately.

That additional water going into rivers and ultimately the oceans means greater sea ranges for coastal populations all over the world.

However the lack of ice will probably be notably acutely felt by mountain communities depending on glaciers for recent water.

Glaciers are a bit like big reservoirs. They accumulate water as snowfall - which turns into ice - throughout chilly, moist durations, and launch it as meltwater throughout heat durations.

This meltwater helps to stabilise river flows throughout sizzling, dry summers - till the glacier disappears.

The lack of that water useful resource has knock-on results for all those that depend on glaciers - for irrigation, consuming, hydropower and even delivery site visitors.

Switzerland will not be immune from these challenges, however the implications are way more profound for the excessive mountains of Asia, referred to by some because the Third Pole because of the quantity of ice.

About 800 million folks rely at the very least partly on meltwater from glaciers there, notably for agriculture. That features the higher Indus river basin, which serves elements of China, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

In areas with drier summers, meltwater from ice and snow might be the one vital supply of water for months.

"That is the place we see the largest vulnerability," says Prof Hock.

So how do scientists really feel when confronted by the long run prospects of glaciers in a warming world?

"It is unhappy," says Prof Hock. "However on the identical time, it is also empowering. For those who decarbonise and cut back the [carbon] footprint, you may protect glaciers.

"We have now it in our arms."

High picture: Tschierva Glacier, Swiss Alps, in 1935 and 2022. Credit score: swisstopo and VAW Glaciology, ETH Zurich.

Further reporting by Dominic Bailey and Erwan Rivault.

Extra on this story <img alt="Thin, green banner promoting the Future Earth newsletter with text saying, “The world’s biggest climate news in your inbox every week”. There is also a graphic of an iceberg overlaid with a green circular pattern." loading="lazy" width="960" height="158" decoding="async" data-nimg="1" class="rounded-lg" style="color:transparent" src="https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/WGLggVQC0E84TSs8aEq.KA--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTE1ODtjZj13ZWJw/https://media.zenfs.com/en/bbc_us_articles_995/7e9e6b972e8ce6dee009267dd1286e25"/> [BBC]

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