[HN Gopher] Swiss glaciers have shrunk by a quarter since 2015, ...
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Swiss glaciers have shrunk by a quarter since 2015, study says
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 107 points
Date : 2025-10-07 14:56 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.france24.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.france24.com)
| ncr100 wrote:
| I'm having a hard time contributing anything intellectually
| interesting. This is emotionally terrifying to me.
|
| What can be said?
| simmerup wrote:
| I guess we can hope America starts taking climate change
| seriously again instead of chasing short term stock market
| returns
| codyb wrote:
| Stand up, fight back now... gotta save democracy first sadly.
| What a thorn in my side it has been to trade one existential
| crises for humanity for a government that seems actively
| opposed to doing a god damn thing about it
| jawilson2 wrote:
| Same. It pops into my head a few times per week that I
| haven't thought about global climate change recently, and
| it is because we are dealing with the more immediate thread
| of hypercapitalism-authoritarian-christofascism, and my
| neighbors in Chicago are being disappeared nightly.
| sys32768 wrote:
| And China too with its ~30-31% of world CO2.
| John23832 wrote:
| China is leading the world in renewable energy production.
| Nuclear buildout, wind farms, solar farms. There's even
| some minor thermal (even though they're not geographically
| suited for that).
|
| Sure, they are starting from a high number as the worlds
| manufacturer, but they're are clearly making strides that
| the other major industrial nations (the US) are not.
| simmerup wrote:
| Considering America is literally promoting fossil fuels
| over renewables and the US administration is publicly
| saying climate change is a scam, I think America deserves
| more flack than China here
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| Oh yeah promoting fossil fuels is much worse for the
| climate than you know, actual CO2 production.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Production rates are subject to change. China is showing
| it wants to move towards a future where it emits less CO2
| and the US recently elected and appointed cronies to take
| us in the opposite direction.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| CO2 emissions by country: China vs US. Number only.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| No idea, if you read my comment you'd understand that's
| not what I think matters.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| That is not a serious position, that is a political
| position.
| tonfa wrote:
| https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/which-countries-
| hav... I would be surprised if China ends up dumping more
| CO2 than the US (and then if we look at per capita, even
| more so).
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| CO2 since 1750! This isn't serious. Who is currently
| today doing the thing? china
|
| Does the climate care about per capita? no
| tonfa wrote:
| What matters is how much CO2 was dumped in the atmosphere
| (and to stop doing it, China is transitioning, the US
| administration tells everyone it's a scam...)
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| It doesn't matter because it's done. There is nothing we
| can do about it, only about the present. China is
| presently the worst CO2 emitter.
| triceratops wrote:
| > CO2 since 1750! This isn't serious. Who is currently
| today doing the thing?
|
| > Does the climate care about per capita?
|
| It does care about CO2 since 1750 though because that CO2
| never went away. It's at least as important as, if not
| more than "Who is currently today doing the thing?"
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| No. The incremental CO2 is what is harming us. We're
| already experiencing the effects of 1750 to present. What
| happens from now on will incrementally deteriorate the
| climate.
| maxglute wrote:
| Total historic emissions is the ONLY serious metric.
| Since it accounts for all capital buildouts, it takes
| centuries of emission heavy construction to get developed
| countries where they are. Countries are going to emit
| more when they're in steel and concrete phase of nation
| building.
|
| Does climate care about emissions? Does climate care
| about changing? No. Climate doesn't care it cycles back
| to ice age.
|
| Humans (hypothetically) care about climate change. It's a
| fundmentally a geo-political problem, which means the
| solution is geopolitically agreed on metric. Currently it
| rhetorically per capita, but arguably it should be
| historic per capita, because per capita itself is
| geopolitic concession metric that shifts responsibility
| away from historic carbon debt of developed nations
| towards developing nations.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| Why does China have the right to "develop" when they are
| already one of the most advanced countries on the planet?
|
| Do they get to advance until they're in first place? And
| then what? It stops there or does India get a shot at
| being first place? Then Nigeria?
|
| Meanwhile what does the climate look like if every single
| country executes the China 1945-2025 playbook?
| triceratops wrote:
| > China vs US. Number only.
|
| China: down 2.7% this year
|
| US: up 4.2%.
|
| That's total, not per-capita. Try some other excuses to
| do nothing about climate change.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45108292
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| -2.7% to what total amount? +4.2% to what total amount?
|
| This obscures the numbers. The climate doesn't care about
| improvement, only about total tons of CO2.
| quesera wrote:
| https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china?country=CHN~
| USA
|
| I'm no expert, but if these data are correct, emissions
| in China are growing dramatically, and in the US they are
| trending downward at (honestly) an unexpectedly
| impressive rate.
|
| China is currently emitting well over 2x what the US
| does, and extrapolation from the last 25 years suggests
| that China will exceed the US, on a per-capita basis, in
| a handful of years.
|
| This is somewhat counter-narrative. But assuming it's
| correct, the questions become: How bad would it be if
| China was not taking the problem seriously, and how much
| better would the US be if they _were_ taking the problem
| seriously?
| simmerup wrote:
| > In 2024, the U.S. emissions were on the rise, whereas
| the European Union (EU) was decreasing its emissions. The
| U.S. contributes about 13.5% of global annual emissions,
| whereas the EU's share has fallen to approximately 6%.
|
| I don't even understand what you're tyring to say,
| America is taking climate change seriously in your eyes?
| mikestew wrote:
| Can't have a discussion on climate change without the
| obligatory "But what about _Chiiiiina_!? "
|
| It's time to own up to the fact that China is going out of
| their way to use renewables, and the U. S. is actively
| sabotaging renewable energy programs. Whining about China
| is starting to look pretty silly.
| xandrius wrote:
| Let's forget how they make almost everything we and you
| own.
|
| Until not long ago, they very likely even processed your
| own trash.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Look at cumulative co2 emissions though, the US created 50%
| of the global cumulated co2 emissions alone
| kieranmaine wrote:
| You have to weigh up the negatives with the positives and look
| at trends. AI can gave you a more exhaustive list of positive
| developments, but some I've noticed:
|
| * "FERC: Solar + wind made up 91% of new US power generating
| capacity in H1 2025" [1] - The rollback of the IRA will reduce
| the speed of the US transition.
|
| * "Solar and wind growth exceeded global demand growth in the
| first half of 2025" [2]
|
| * Perovskite solar panels could lead to even lower solar costs
| [3]
|
| There's also increased investment in nuclear, exicting
| geothermal advances (eg. Fervo Energy), increasing EV sales, a
| massive expansion of battery storage, zero emissions concrete
| (https://sublime-systems.com/). There are lots of positive
| developments, so I'd recommend learning more about them to
| offset your current fears and introduce some hope.
|
| 1. https://electrek.co/2025/09/03/ferc-solar-wind-91-percent-
| ne...
|
| 2. https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-
| electricity-...
|
| 3.
| https://www.ft.com/content/a5095373-1762-41cd-a078-af533e264...
| timeon wrote:
| How does investing in new forms of energy help when old one
| is not decreasing? Demand for energy is still rising so those
| new forms are just covering (part of) new demand...
|
| > AI can gave you a more exhaustive list
|
| ...so maybe it should not?
| kieranmaine wrote:
| > How does investing in new forms of energy help when old
| one is not decreasing?
|
| In relation to electricity this is not the case for H1
| 2025, as shown in the article "Solar and wind growth
| exceeded global demand growth in the first half of 2025"
| [1]
|
| > ...so maybe it should not?
|
| Fair point.
|
| 1. https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-
| electricity-...
| kgwgk wrote:
| If you are so emotionally attached to solid water you may find
| some comfort in the positive note that the article closes with:
| "The overall summer melt this year was therefore only 15
| percent above the 2010-2020 average -- its lowest level in the
| past four years."
| boston_clone wrote:
| > If you are so emotionally attached to solid water [...]
|
| That's an oddly personal remark to be making when global
| warming is a concern for humanity.
|
| That final sentence is not a positive note, either: "we're
| still experiencing above average ice melt - but this year
| wasn't as bad and some other years!".
| kgwgk wrote:
| I found that the message I replied to was an oddly personal
| remark and I couldn't help it. Anyway, this year was better
| seems a positive note (to end a negative melody if you
| will).
| Hikikomori wrote:
| It varies a lot by each year, but the trend is clear.
| Article also say that swiss glaciers lost 40% of ice
| volume in 25 years.
| timeon wrote:
| > The overall summer melt this year was therefore only 15
| percent above the 2010-2020 average -- its lowest level in
| the past four years.
|
| That is not really comforting. Is your comment satire?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| China is building, domestically deploying, and exporting solar,
| wind, batteries, and EVs so fast that the world will have no
| choice but to rapidly move towards net zero simply due to
| economics. Existing excess atmospheric carbon emissions remain
| to be sequestered. China deployed 277GW of solar in 2024 and is
| accelerating, having deployed 212GW in the first half of 2025.
| 1GW of solar is being deployed globally every 15 hours. Clean
| energy and global electrification flywheel go brrrr.
|
| https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e...
|
| https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/china-energy-transi...
|
| https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/china-is-quietly-saving-the-wo...
|
| https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/08/21/china-clean-renewable-e...
| landl0rd wrote:
| Incorrect; energy dependence on a nuclear power with a
| general desire to displace existing hegemons isn't a wise or
| tenable policy.
|
| If you care about America using carbon-light power you should
| throw your weight behind nuclear, geothermal, and some
| wind/solar/battery manufactured domestically, by allies, or
| within our sphere of influence.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| The United States had a chance to lead, they tried to build
| domestically (Inflation Reduction Act), and it was
| sabotaged by governance choices. Someone else has
| demonstrated their ability to execute and deliver.
| Elections have consequences. Better luck next time.
| landl0rd wrote:
| Cool, I do, and I care more about her than about carbon
| because I and my people live here. So I will oppose any
| policy that cedes leadership or hegemony. See you at the
| ballot box, I guess.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| You should probably vote for someone who doesn't
| dismantle every attempt to preserve a future for your
| children and their children.
| netsharc wrote:
| So how's that going? Your unreliable leader is dissolving
| alliances left and right and tries to bully countries
| into submission. Faced with that, they'd rather deal with
| other assholes who are, although assholes, at least keep
| their promises. Leadership, hegemony, hah, how deluded do
| you want to get...
| dontlaugh wrote:
| If Americans cared about the world, they would abolish
| their military and voluntarily lower their emissions.
| graeme wrote:
| I hope so, but to do that it isn't enough to make renewables
| economical.
|
| You also have to make carbon uneconomical. China's CO2
| emissions have continued to increase rapidly along with
| renewables.
|
| Energy is really useful and we don't have enough to fulfil
| demand. Unless renewables + nuclear are cheaper than carbon
| and not supply constrained I'd expect both sources to
| increase in tandem.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > Energy is really useful and we don't have enough to
| fulfil demand.
|
| Enough sunlight falls on Earth in ~30 min to power humanity
| for a year. There is currently a capture constraint, not a
| supply constraint, which is currently being solved for.
|
| > Unless renewables + nuclear are cheaper than carbon and
| not supply constrained I'd expect both sources to increase
| in tandem.
|
| Renewables are cheaper than carbon, even when accounting
| for storage, unsubsidized. Some will say "what about
| seasonal!?" Not solved for yet; fossil gas for the gaps
| until solar, wind, transmission, batteries, and demand
| response/orchestration keep closing that gap. Nuclear will
| never be cheap unfortunately.
|
| https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/24-hour-solar-now-
| ec...
|
| https://www.surrey.ac.uk/news/solar-energy-now-worlds-
| cheape...
|
| https://www.authorea.com/users/960972/articles/1329770-sola
| r... | https://doi.org/10.22541/au.175647950.09188768/v1
|
| (think in systems)
| graeme wrote:
| Proof is in the pudding. Has China halted all coal
| construction because coal is unambigously more expensive
| than solar?
|
| We may at some point cross the cost curve and I hope we
| do but not obvious we are there yet.
| HK-NC wrote:
| >enough sunlight to power earth for a year
|
| Is that based on the entire surface of the earth, or just
| dry land?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| My understanding of the fact is entire surface. I can
| provide citations related to only usable solar and wind
| potential, if so desired.
| triceratops wrote:
| > China's CO2 emissions have continued to increase rapidly
| along with renewables
|
| China's emissions fell 2.7% this year.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45108292 Not per-
| capita emissions, total emissions.
| graeme wrote:
| I'd love for CO2 to be peaking, but the comments on that
| link suggest this is a single month's measurement and
| that month is not representative as there was a policy
| cutoff for end of the month that frontloaded solar
| investments.
| triceratops wrote:
| It's for 2025 up to May, and not just for a single month.
| Fair point about front loaded investments that may have
| moved the numbers. Nevertheless it's a positive sign.
| maxglute wrote:
| Ultimately cost is just one factor to prime driver like
| energy, energy security most overwhelming priority in
| energy trilemma (security, cost, sustainability)... Having
| dispatchahble power not tied to weather with abundance fuel
| source is always going to trump all other considerations
| for any serious grid. PRC got burn going ham on renewable a
| few years ago, few heat events that fucked over hydro
| production, increased AC demand and all of sudden you're
| dealing with opportunity cost of rationing factories that
| currently far exceeds $ differences in generation.
| Theoretically countries can size renewable rollout that
| minimum intermittent power + storage can reliabily power
| grid even with current tech, but that's like... multidecade
| megaproject.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > China is building, domestically deploying, and exporting
| solar, wind, batteries, and EVs so fast that the world will
| have no choice but to rapidly move towards net zero simply
| due to economics.
|
| I can't help but read "we're going to produce and consume
| more than ever" and I really don't see how it ends in a good
| way...
|
| Take transportation alone, 1.3 billion ICE vehicles to
| replace by EVs, there is nothing green about that. Not even
| talking about the absolutely massive mining operations we'll
| need to build solar and batteries. What about cement? Steel?
| Petrol derivate chemistry, medicine, fertilizers,...
|
| And then what? We continue building and consuming more and
| more shit forever? Who believes this can be "net zero"?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Well, not forever. Global population will peak end of
| century (sometime between 2055-2084) and then begin to
| rapidly decline based on fertility rate curves. Solar PV
| panels can be recycled 100% today, trivially, as can
| lithium and sodium batteries (these materials are abundant
| in the Earth's crust, but only so much will be needed to
| establish a circular supply lifecycle loop). I suppose we
| can argue about the scale of mining operations. Certainly,
| low carbon powered mass transit whenever possible vs light
| vehicles and aircraft. This is Africa and India's
| opportunity to "do better" based on what China has
| accomplished (having had the chance to ride their high
| speed rail and ride in their autonomous vehicles) with
| regards to urban planning, civil engineering, and
| infrastructure investment, being the last parts of the
| world that will develop.
|
| https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/Slides_London.pdf
| lm28469 wrote:
| > Population will peak end of century and then begin to
| rapidly decline based on fertility rate curves.
|
| If that's truly how it'll go we don't even need EVs and
| renewable to attain equilibrium. But something tells me
| we'll manage to fuck it up somehow
| Hikikomori wrote:
| It's good that ICE cars are replaced by EV over time. Even
| better if we have less cars overall and more mass transit.
| triceratops wrote:
| > Not even talking about the absolutely massive mining
| operations we'll need to build solar and batteries
|
| Less than we need for fossil fuels though.
| maxglute wrote:
| 50%+ of the world population is low to low middle income,
| and they're all going to want to increase emission by 4x
| for parity high income life styles. Realistically 8x since
| developing = catching up on infra build out, i.e. extremely
| emissions intensive fuckton of steel and concrete. IIRC 50%
| more than current consumption by 2050, i.e. consuming much
| more is basically locked in and that's based on presumption
| that developing countries are fucking inept and slow
| rolling development because they don't have a system to do
| a PRC modernization push otherwise we'd be looking at
| 200/300/400% increases in steel and concrete. Net zero is
| pipe dream, it's not going to happen. We can try to make
| the transition greener, but it's not going to be green.
| Ultimately, enviroment pilled brains need to remember,
| development/poverty reduction is going to be a net good
| that benefits far more people than climate change will fuck
| over / displace.
| onlypassingthru wrote:
| If you have a bucket list, start working on the things that are
| most vulnerable. Things you want to see may disappear within
| your lifetime, so go see it while you can.
| naldb wrote:
| Stop reading things that upset you.
| username223 wrote:
| I have believed for years that Americans would have a completely
| different attitude to global warming if the Lower 48 had more
| glaciers. In the Alps, you can easily walk to places where there
| are 100m of ladders to reach a hut that used to be at the level
| of the ice. In Canada, you can drive to places that used to be
| the toe of a glacier, then drive another half-mile to the parking
| lot, built at the edge of the glacier 20 years ago, then walk
| even farther on loose rubble. 1.5 of warming feels abstract and
| trivial. A giant piece of ice disappearing feels much more real.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Plenty of Americans can see and feel the effects of global
| warming, they just don't think addressing it is worth the
| effort.
| username223 wrote:
| Do they? Wildfires are some percent more likely and larger,
| but forests have always burned, and there are other factors
| like a century of fire suppression. Hurricanes are more
| violent and frequent, but there have always been hurricanes.
| Eggheads will tell you those things, but your day-to-day
| experiences of them are easy to dismiss. Watching a glacier
| die is visceral:
|
| https://maevethornberry.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Mer-
| de... https://drdirtbag.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2014/09/athabasca36...
| carefulfungi wrote:
| Most polls find that a substantial majority of Americans
| acknowledge climate change is real. However, whether it
| should be acted on with urgency polls differently by party
| affliation and by geographical region.
|
| Many climate change deniers I know have moved from "it
| isn't real" to "so what?" Or, perhaps more charitably, to
| "addressing climate change is not in the national
| interest."
|
| I don't think people who want to drill in national parks,
| privatize and raze old growth preserves, or exhaust
| fisheries without limits are going to be moved by seeing
| glaciers melt. They fundamentally have different values and
| place other interests over preservation and conservation.
| robmsmt wrote:
| Tragically common. A tragedy of the commons if you will.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Most Americans can see the effect but are unable to correlate
| it. The don't understand science. Most of them believe in a
| magical fairy in the sky.
| MoltenMan wrote:
| I mean it doesn't seem like Canadians have any different
| attitude (judging by carbon footprint) and they have glaciers.
| The truth is nobody really cares about global warming, just
| their own comfort at this moment :/ It's just the human
| condition.
| caturopath wrote:
| Whenever I try to read up on it, it seems like glaciers are
| receding at ~2x their without-climate-change rate. That's a
| huge increase, but it doesn't seem like there's something that
| a person can experience at a visceral level here that is based
| on fact and not just preconception.
|
| It's definitely striking, I can't deny that. I crossed the last
| remnants of an almost-extinct glacier last year that my guide
| guessed would be gone in 1-3 years: at the beginning of his
| career it was a real glacer with non-trivial extents,
| crevasses, etc.
| haroldp wrote:
| I grew up in a small town in rural Alaska that would have
| been completely under glacier ice when Columbus landed in
| North America. In the time between Captain Cook exploring the
| area in the 18th century and the next western survey a
| hundred years later, the coastline had been transformed by
| glaciers receding and revealing inlets hadn't been there for
| Cook to map. The glacier that was directly in between my town
| and the highway to Anchorage when I was a child is all but
| gone now, and there is a road.
| SpicyUme wrote:
| I live in one of the places in the lower 48 with relatively
| easy access to glaciers. The change in some of them is fairly
| noticeable for me over the last say 20 years. It tends to
| feel grim and helpless if think about it too much. But I hike
| so I have spent time closer to them than an average person.
|
| This researcher's account is interesting to see comparisons
| of EU glaciers over the last 100 years or so.
| https://bsky.app/profile/subfossilguy.bsky.social
|
| And this blog: https://glacierchange.blog/
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Americans are quite happy that the Wisconsin glaciation receded
| 11,000 years ago. We grow much of our food on former tundra.
| Ice is nice to look at it but it is death for life.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_glaciation
| dotancohen wrote:
| That ice melting absorbs the energy that would otherwise be
| warming the atmosphere and causing cataclysmic storms and
| crop failures due to heat. And that is exactly what is going
| to happen once the glaciers melt.
|
| The people worried about melting glaciers are not laminating
| the loss of pretty ice. They are worried about where this
| extra energy will go once there is no more ice to change
| phase and absorb it.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Sure, and I'm happy a meteor wiped out the dinosaurs so we
| mammals could take over... but I'd be a bit saltier about a
| new one hitting tomorrow.
| stouset wrote:
| I think we're further hamstrung by 2 sounding smaller than the
| 3.6 it is equivalent to.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| Sounds like free real estate! Humans have a pretty hard time
| living on glaciers AFAIK.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Glaciers provide a lot of fresh water, sustained over warm
| months, free of charge, to the places we _can_ live in. We need
| them to support life in hotter, drier, or more temperate areas.
| Here in BC, Canada they provide cool, oxygenated water for
| countless species including several pacific salmon and other
| fish species, which constitutes (or constituted, now; I 'm no
| longer sure of the status) one of the largest nutrient
| transfers on the planet.
|
| Glaciers are a crucial component of many ecosystems and ways of
| life. We can't live on them, but they make it so we can live
| where we do live now.
| lolc wrote:
| If you like to nerd out on data, the GLAMOS website publishes a
| catalog of all glaciers in Switzerland, with measurements for the
| larger ones: https://www.glamos.ch/en/factsheet#/B36-26
|
| Some years the glacier count goes down, because a glacier
| disappears. Some years the glacier count goes up, when a glacier
| shrinks and splits in two.
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