Add The New York Post on Google The newly launched Global Glacier Extinction Explorer has revealed the fate of every single glacier on Earth, and the grim results are worrying scientists.
Scientists at ETH Zurich and Vrije Universiteit Brussel created an interactive tool to learn when a glacier is expected to disappear under different levels of global warming.
When creating this map, scientists found that nearly half of today’s glaciers could disappear by 2100 if global warming remains at +1.5°C.
Extreme heatwaves and low winter snowpack have put European glaciers on track to match or break the catastrophic melt record set in 2022. The map also allows users to toggle between different temperatures — 1.5°C, 2°C, 2.7°C, or 4°C of warming — and the color of the dots on each glacier reveals its extinction fate.
Dark red indicates the glacier is already extinct, orange means it will become extinct between 2027 and 2041 and light blue means the glacier is expected to survive through 2100.
The map is based on 2024 projections by researchers at ETH Zurich, which suggest that under +1.5°C of global warming, around 2,000 glaciers could disappear every year.
“Every fraction of a degree matters”, according to Dr. Lander Van Tricht, who analyzed the research.
Even though 2100 isn’t around the corner, 2026 has already shown substantial glacier depletion that was consistent with the findings from the 2024 study. Between low winter snow and summer heatwaves, the European Alps have experienced “substantial” ice loss.
The Bella Tola Glacier near Saint-Luc in Switzerland was declared extinct last month, a prediction made in 2024 that fell directly in the extinction period predicted. Another Swiss glacier, Urirotstock Glacier, was declared extinct this summer, which Dr. Van Tricht said are examples that makes glacier extinction “concrete.”
Views of the Earth with key depicting the state of glacier extinction. Global Glacier Extinction Explorer In 2025, Swiss glaciers melted at an enormous rate with a 3% drop in total volume. This shrinkage caused ice mass in Switzerland to drop by one-quarter over the last decade.
Italian researchers from Ca’Foscari University of Venice estimate that glaciers outside Greenland and Antarctica contain 150,000 cubic kilometers of ice, and if they melted, global sea levels would rise by at least 12 inches.
Dr. Van Tricht said the glaciers projected to disappear in the study are already vanishing today, and he urgently expressed through his study findings that this problem “is not distant” or “end-of-century” but is happening presently.
