Glacier degradation reaches its peak. The Alps face crisis in just 8 years

Around 200,000 glaciers remain worldwide, but 750 of them disappear every year. The results of a study published yesterday suggest that over the next 20 years glacier degradation may accelerate dramatically, calling into question the future of winter tourism in many regions, especially in Europe.

Small glaciers with great significance

The authors of the study published on 15 December this year in the journal Nature Climate Change note that most existing analyses focus on the loss of glacier mass and volume worldwide. These projections illustrate threats related to rising sea levels and water shortages in many regions. What has so far been neglected is glacier degradation in numerical terms, documenting losses that are significant in a local context.

Glaciers around the world, excluding Antarctica and Greenland, attract millions of tourists every year. Their condition determines the survival of ski resorts and the economies linked to them. Moreover, mountain glaciers hold enormous cultural and spiritual significance as sources of legends, traditions, and the identities of local communities. Symbolic funerals of the Pizol glacier in Switzerland in 2019 and the Yala glacier in Nepal in 2025 confirm this importance.

Glacier degradation will reach a critical point in the mid-21st century

An international team of glaciologists led by Lander Van Tricht from ETH Zurich used three global glacier melt models to estimate the pace of changes in glacier numbers over the coming decades. It turned out that between 2041 and 2055 this process will reach a critical point, with a further 4,000 glaciers disappearing from the Earth’s surface each year. This bleak scenario is linked to the increasingly likely rise of the global average temperature by 4°C compared to the pre-industrial era.

Even if greenhouse gas emissions were dramatically reduced and warming were limited to 1.5°C, glacier degradation in the middle of this century would still increase to around 2,000 glaciers per year. Under the increasingly realistic scenario of a 2.8°C temperature rise, as much as 80 percent of all glaciers worldwide will vanish by the end of this century.

Skiing in Europe? Expensive and snowless

Regional analysis showed that in the Alps more than 100 glaciers will irreversibly disappear by 2033, which will have a catastrophic impact on winter mountain tourism. According to scientists, North America will face the crisis a decade later. Massive losses are also expected in the Caucasus and the southern Andes.

The exceptional sensitivity of European glaciers to rising temperatures results from their relatively small size. In Switzerland alone, around 1,000 glaciers have completely degraded over the past 30 years. Skiers have been observing these realities for several years now. Snow presence in December and March is becoming increasingly uncertain, and even at the peak of the season lower slopes are more and more often disappointing. As a result, in 2024, the warmest year on record, many resorts in France, Austria, and Bosnia were forced to end the season earlier than usual.

Lift operators and owners of mountain accommodation fear bankruptcy. In Italy, profits from ski infrastructure during the 2023 Christmas holidays fell by as much as 40 percent. The only apparent lifeline is artificial snow, whose production requires major investments and entails high operating costs. As a result, prices at ski resorts are rising rapidly, deepening the frustration of winter sports enthusiasts.

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Bibliography:

Van Tricht, L., Zekollari, H., Huss, M. et al. Peak glacier extinction in the mid-twenty-first century. Nat. Clim. Chang. (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-025-02513-9