October 5, 2025 – Glaciers around the world are retreating at an unprecedented pace driven by global warming, according to scientists who are documenting massive ice loss in regions from the Alps to the polar fringes. A recent World Meteorological Organization report revealed that glaciers outside of the colossal ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica lost a staggering 450 Billion Tonnes of ice in 2024 alone.
This volume of ice is equivalent to a block 7 km tall, 7 km wide, and 7 km deep enough water to fill 180 million Olympic swimming pools.
The dramatic retreat is profoundly evident in Switzerland, where glaciers have been particularly hard hit losing a quarter of their ice in the last 10 years, according to measurements released this week by Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (GLAMOS).
Matthias Huss, director of GLAMOS, recalled visiting the Rhône Glacier 35 years ago, when the ice was just a short walk from his family’s parked car. Today, the glacier front is half an hour away from that same parking spot. Satellite images confirm the change, clearly showing the Rhône Glacier retreat since 1990, with a new glacial lake now visible where the ice once stood.
Professor Ben Marzeion of the University of Bremen commented on the global crisis, stating that glaciers are “melting everywhere in the world” and are now “sitting in a climate that is very hostile to them… because of global warming.”
The recent melt rates have redefined what glaciologists consider extreme. In the Alps, losing 2% of ice in a single year was once considered “extreme.” However, this threshold was dramatically surpassed in 2022 when nearly 6% of Switzerland’s remaining ice was lost. This massive melt has been followed by significant losses in 2023, 2024, and 2025, confirming a sustained period of rapid decline. Regine Hock, professor of glaciology at the University of Oslo, described the changes seen over the last few years as “really massive,” noting that glaciers like the Clariden in north-eastern Switzerland, which were in balance until the late 20th Century, are now melting rapidly.