Swiss glaciers lose winter snow and ice covering

Swiss glaciers have lost the mass accumulated over the winter Keystone-SDA

According to initial estimates, all the snow and ice accumulated by Swiss glaciers over the winter has now melted and they are now shrinking.

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The moment when a glacier has lost all the snow and ice it has accumulated over the winter is known as Glacier Loss Day (GLD), glaciologist Matthias Huss, a researcher at ETH Zurich and the University of Fribourg, told Keystone-ATS.

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So far, this day has only been recorded once so early in the year, as shown by the data from the Swiss Glamos measurement network: in 2022, a record year, it was already on June 26.

At present, the GLD 2025 is an estimate that could change again between now and the end of the year, according to Matthias Huss. The mass that Swiss glaciers will actually lose by the end of the melting period now depends on the weather conditions over the next three months.

Translated from French by DeepL/mga

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