Before and after the pictures, the ice escapes appear in front of our eyes

When Matthias Huss visited for the first time Rhône Glacier in Switzerland 35 years ago, the ice was just a short distance from where his parents would stop the car.

“When I went up to the ice for the first time … there (was) a special feeling,” Matthias says.

Today, it is half an hour from the same place as parking and the scene is completely different.

“Every time I come back, I remember how so,” Matthias, who is now the Ice Monitoring Manager in Switzeros (Glamos).

There are stories similar to many ice rivers all over the planet, because these frozen rivers of ice decline – quickly.

In 2024, the ice rivers were lost outside the giant ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic continent 450 billion tons of ice, according to the World Meteorological Organization report.

This is equivalent to a mass of ice with a length of 7 km (4.3 miles) and a width of 7 km and a depth of 7 km – sufficient water to fill 180 million Olympic swimming pools.

“Ice rivers melt everywhere in the world,” says Professor Ben Marzi from the Geography Institute at Bremen University. “They are sitting in a very hostile climate for them now because of global warming.”

Sensors from Glamos revealed this week.

“It is really difficult to understand the extent of this melting.”

But the pictures – from space and Earth – tells her own story.

Satellite images show how Rhône Glacier changed since 1990, when Dr. Hus visited for the first time. In the front of the ice rivers there are a lake where there was ice.

Until recently, the ice doctors in the Alps used to look at 2 % of the lost ice in one year to be “extremist”.

Then in 2022 this idea of ​​water, as nearly 6 % of the remaining ice in Switzerland lost in one year.

This was followed by significant losses in 2023 and 2024 and now 2025 as well.

Regina Hook, a professor of ice science at the University of Oslo, has been visiting the Alps since the 1970s.

She says the changes over her life are “really amazing”, but “what we see now is truly enormous changes within a few years.”

Clariden ice, in northeastern Switzerland, was almost balance until the late twentieth century – gained nearly snow by snow that he lost to measuring.

But this century, it melted quickly.

For many smaller glaciers, such as Pizol Glacier in the northeastern Swiss Alps, it was too much.

“This is one of the ice rivers that I have noticed, and now it is completely over,” says Dr. Haws. “It definitely makes me sad.”

Pictures allow us to look further in time.

Grace icy, in southern Switzerland near the Italian border, fell by about 2.2 km (1.4 miles) in the last century. The end of the iceberg once now stands a large ice lake.

In southeastern Switzerland, Pers Glacier has once feed the largest Mortratsch Glacier, which flows towards the valley. Now the two are no longer gathering.

The Great ALETCH, the largest iceberg, has declined by 2.3 km (1.4 miles) over the past 75 years. Where there were ice, there are now trees.

The ice rivers grew and shrunk naturally for millions of years, of course.

In the cold shots in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries – part of the small ice age – the ice rivers developed regularly.

During this time, many devil were considered cursed in the folklore in the Alps, and their progress is related to spiritual forces because they threatened the remains of agricultural lands and agricultural lands.

There are even tales of villagers who call the priests to speak to the souls of the ice rivers and take them to move to the top of the mountain.

The ice rivers began to decline widely across the Alps around 1850, although the timing varies from one place to another.

This coincided with the high manufacturing, when burning fossil fuels, especially coal, in heating a juna, but it is difficult to separate the natural and human causes in a timely manner.

When there is no real doubt that the rapid losses in particular over the past forty years or so are not normal.

without Humans heat the planet By burning fossil fuels and launching huge amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) – The ice rivers are expected to be almost stable.

“We can only explain this if we take into account the emissions of carbon dioxide,” Professor Marago.

The most realistic thing is that these large bodies flowing from ice may take decades to completely adapt to the rapid warming climate. This means that, even if global temperatures settled tomorrow, the ice rivers will continue to decline.

Professor Marago explains: “A large part of the melting of the ice rivers in the future is already fraught.” “They fail to change climate.”

But everything was not lost.

The remaining half of the ice can be maintained all over the world from mountainous rivers in the world if Global warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius The highest levels of “pre -industry” in the late nineteenth century, according to the research published this year in Science Magazine.

Our current path leads us to a high temperature of 2.7 ° C above pre-industry levels by the end of this century-which will eventually witness three quarters of ice.

This additional water that enters rivers and ultimately means the ocean high levels of sea surface to the coastal population all over the world.

But ice loss will be especially felt by mountain societies that depend on the ice rivers of fresh water.

Ice rivers are somewhat similar to giant tanks. They collect water while snowfall – which turns into ice – turns through cold and wet periods, and release it as a mile of water during warm periods.

This dissolved water helps stabilize river flows during hot dry summer – until the iceberg disappears.

The loss of this water resource has effects on all those who depend on the ice rivers – for irrigation, drinking, electrical energy and even charging movement.

Switzerland is not immune from these challenges, but the effects of the high mountains in Asia are referred to as the third pole due to the size of the ice.

At least 800 million people depend at least on Meltwateer from the ice rivers there, especially for cultivation. This includes the Alawite Sind River basin, which offers parts of China, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In areas with more dry summer, Meltwater of ice and snow can be the only important source of water for several months.

“This is where we see the biggest weakness,” says Professor Hook.

So how do scientists feel when they face future glaciers in the world of warming?

Professor Hook says: “It is sad.” “But at the same time, it is also able. If you remove the carbon and reduce the imprint (carbon), you can keep the ice rivers.

“We have in our hands.”

The upper image: Tschierva Glacier, Swiss Alps, in 1935 and 2022. Credit: SwissTopo and Vaw Glaciology, Eth Zurich.

Additional reports by Dominic Billy and Arwan Revolt.