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The United Nations proclaimed 2025 as the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation and established 21 March as the annual World Day for Glaciers to sound the alarm that accelerating glacier melt risks unleashing an avalanche of cascading impacts on economies, ecosystems and communities. Several UZH glaciologists are significantly involved in the underlying research and participate in various international and national events.
Five of the past six years have witnessed the most rapid glacier retreat on record. In many regions, what used to be called glaciers’ “eternal ice” will not survive the 21st century, according to reports from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS), hosted at UZH's Department of Geography.
Glacier melt will unleash avalanche of cascading impacts
Press Release, World Meteorological Organization, 21 March 2025
On the first World Day for Glaciers, the WGMS presented the first “Glacier of the Year”. With this, it aims to highlight the beauty of glaciers around the world and to honor the dedication of glaciologists who have been observing them for decades as a contribution to an internationally coordinated monitoring effort. In 2025, South Cascade Glacier in Washington, U.S. was selected as Glacier of the Year. The glacier is one of five USGS Benchmark Glaciers, and scientists have been recording observations of its mass and condition since 1958. (Title image: U.S. Geological Survey)
Strengthened climate protection on a global level could preserve more than a quarter of the ice existing today in the Swiss Alps, write researchers – including several from the Department of Geography – in a new fact sheet published by the Swiss Academy of Sciences on the occasion of the first International Glacier Day on 21 March 2025.
During 2025, many international, but also national events and activities will address the role of glaciers in the global system.
In many regions, the “eternal ice” of the glaciers will not survive beyond the 21st century – with fatal consequences for millions of people. On the first World Day for Glaciers, the UZH-based World Glacier Monitoring Service is drawing attention to the marked acceleration of global glacier melt.
UZH News, 21.03.2025
A recent community effort published in the journal Nature in early 2025 and coordinated by the WGMS - the so-called Glacier Mass Balance Intercomparison Exercise (GlaMBIE) - found that between 2000 and 2023, glaciers lost 5% of their remaining ice.
UZH Media Release, 19.02.2025
What began in the 19th century with the first systematic and internationally coordinated glacier measurements has continued to this day. And it has taken on a special significance this year, the “International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation” proclaimed by the UN.
GIUZ Blog, 20.03.2025
