Swiss glaciers have continued to melt at an alarming rate this year, and the snow cover on the largest glacier in the Alps has never been so small, warns the latest study. In total, Swiss glaciers have lost two percent of their volume this year, according to an annual study published by the Swiss Academy of Sciences.

This is in line with the average of the last ten years, but those figures are still "very worrying". In the last 60 years, Swiss glaciers have lost as much water as there is in Lake Constance, also called Lake Constance, 63 kilometers long, on the Austrian-German-Swiss border.

One of the most worrying measurements refers to the most impressive alpine glacier Alech.

Less and less snow on the largest alpine glacier

Since the measurements started a little more than 100 years ago, this year the weakest accumulation of snow so far has been recorded. Measurements were made at an altitude of 3,466 meters where there is always snow.

It is cold up there, but there is little accumulated snow even at that height. Of course this is a bad sign for the largest glacier in the Alps.

The glacier, which covers 86 square kilometers in the Swiss Alps, has an estimated 11 billion tons of ice, but its front has retreated about one kilometer since the beginning of the century.

The Alech Glacier is the most impressive among over 4,000 alpine glaciers.

A study by the University of ETH in Zurich indicates that 95% of these magnificent ice masses will disappear by 2100 if the emission of greenhouse gases is not curbed.

Two-thirds of the glaciers will disappear even if the measures adopted under the Paris Climate Agreement are respected, the study states.