# @afpphoto on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/Dd_HSnDDBVW
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/71266992-afpphoto-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/1bcb3c5f7f.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-10-02T09:00:59.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** AFP Photo (@afpphoto) — https://gondola.cc/afpphoto

## Caption

'Catastrophic': Swiss glaciers lose fifth of mass in five years⁣
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Switzerland's glaciers, which are disproportionately impacted by climate change, have lost nearly 20 percent of their mass in five years, experts said Thursday, with 2026 registering the second-biggest melt on record.⁣
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Swiss glaciers saw 5.5 percent of their volume melt away this year, the Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (GLAMOS) network found in a new study, published after a record hot summer preceded by a winter with little snowfall.⁣
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"The glaciers this year have lost enormous quantities of ice," said GLAMOS chief Matthias Huss, describing 2026 as "a catastrophic year".⁣
Perched on the Scex Rouge glacier, at an altitude of nearly 3,000 metres, he gazed across the landscape in despair.⁣
"This is a glacier that isn't surviving," he said.⁣
"There will be probably no ice in 10 or maybe 15 years."⁣
He carefully dismantled the four-metre-long aluminium measurement stake inserted at the centre of the glacier.⁣
In late July, when it was installed, it was completely embedded, but now more than three metres protrude from the grey surface of the ice.⁣
"It's not that we are surprised, because we know how fast the glaciers are melting," Huss said.⁣
"But to see the colours of the mountains where there is no snow left, there is just these rocks and these dark glaciers that are a relic from the past... it's just incredible."⁣
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Between 2022 and 2026, the melt rate at Switzerland's glaciers was "more than twice as high as in any previously monitored five-year period", the GLAMOS report said, noting an ice volume loss of almost 20 percent since 2021.⁣
While Switzerland's glaciers have long been shrinking, the melt has recently sped up dramatically.⁣
While 10 percent of Swiss ice volume disappeared between 1990 and 2000, 27 percent was lost in the past 10 years, the report showed.⁣
GLAMOS based its findings on extensive measurements at 23 reference glaciers in September, which it extrapolated to the nearly 1,300 glacial formations still found in Switzerland.⁣
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📷 coffrinews⁣
#AFPPhoto

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