Les Diablerets, Switzerland - Switzerland's glaciers, which are disproportionately impacted by climate change, have lost nearly 20% of their mass over the last five years, experts warned this week.

Swiss glaciers have seen at least 5.5% of their volume melt away over the course of 2026, the Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (GLAMOS) network found in a new study, published Thursday following a record hot summer.

"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 10,000 feet, he gazed across the landscape in despair: "This is a glacier that isn't surviving… There will be probably no ice in 10 or maybe 15 years."

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He carefully dismantled an aluminum measurement stake and inserted it at the center of the glacier. In late July, when it was installed, it was completely embedded – now, about 10 feet protrudes from the 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 colors 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."

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% since 2021.

While Switzerland's glaciers have long been shrinking, the melt has recently sped up dramatically. While 10% of Swiss ice volume disappeared between 1990 and 2000, 27% was lost in the past 10 years, the report showed.

"Alpine glaciers have no chance of surviving in the long term under such conditions," GLAMOS said in a statement.