Swiss glaciers lost nearly one-fifth of ice volume in five years

The pace is the story: losing a fifth of national ice volume in five years, and a second near-record single-year drop, points to a structural rather than cyclical shift in Alpine water storage. That matters well beyond Switzerland, since glacier melt feeds rivers that underpin European hydropower, agriculture and industrial cooling. Whether the record-setting frequency of recent years persists, and how downstream water users adapt to shrinking summer buffers, is the open question.