The climate crisis is hitting Switzerland particularly hard, not least through its rapidly melting glaciers. Why is the country warming faster than most others on earth?
June 2025 was the second-warmest month in Switzerland since temperature measurements began in 1864.
And the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said this is far from the hottest we will experience: new records will be set in the future, as human-caused climate change will raise temperatures to new levels.
What about Switzerland?
According to the Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology (MeteoSwiss), in Switzerland, climate warming is proceeding twice as fast as the global average.
United Nations data also shows that Switzerland is among the world’s fastest-warming nations.
The reason is that Switzerland is landlocked so it doesn’t benefit from the buffering effect of the oceans, which are able to absorb large amounts of heat.
Additionally, the altitude and morphology of the Alps also play and important role in accelerating global warming.
Snow and ice are melting faster and faster, reducing the land’s ability to reflect sunlight back to space (called the “albedo effect”).
“The large proportion of mountain regions is among the main factors that explain why Switzerland is warming faster [than other countries],” Aude Untersee, a meteorologist at MeteoSwiss, told Swissinfo.
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Where are temperatures rising the fastest?
Since 1864, when the first nationwide measurements were taken, the north side of the Swiss Alps has warmed more than southern areas.
These regions, which initially had a colder climate, eventually “caught up” with the south, leading to higher temperatures there (+3°C) than in the south (+2.7C) over the past 150 years.
READ ALSO: Permafrost in Swiss Alps reaches warmest ever temperature
