Switzerland’s glaciers set to lose this year’s snow and ice three months early after heatwave

The mass of ice that formed after this year's snow-poor winter in the Alps has almost melted. Monday is expected to be the tipping point for when the glacier's original mass begins to shrink this year.

The problem is when we have very high temperatures that last for a long time, says Mathias Huss, who heads the Glamos monitoring institute in Switzerland.

Over the past ten days, the ice on the Rhone Glacier in Switzerland has melted by one metre vertically.

We are seeing huge ablations, ice and snow melt rates across the Alps.

The tipping point for when the glacier begins to shrink has, on average, occurred in mid-August over the past century.