Overview
- Researchers from ETH Zurich and Vrije Universiteit Brussel launched the Global Glacier Extinction Explorer to let users query projected extinction years for every glacier under four warming scenarios.
- The map is built on a 2026 Nature Climate Change study and 2024 global glacier models that estimate a mid‑century ‘peak glacier extinction’ when annual losses top roughly 2,000 glaciers per year at 1.5°C of warming.
- By 2100 the study projects about half of today’s glaciers could remain at 1.5°C while only about 20% would remain at 2.7°C and fewer than 10% at 4°C, showing strong sensitivity to the amount of warming.
- Small Alpine glaciers are already disappearing after a hot, low‑snow 2026 season, with Bella Tola and Urirotstock in Switzerland declared extinct this summer and matching the modelled extinction windows.
- The tool is intended to help local planners and communities prepare for changes to water supply, ecosystems and tourism and to show how limiting warming can materially delay or prevent many local glacier losses.