Glacier Extinction Map: See When Glaciers Around the World Could Disappear

The rapid loss of glaciers is becoming increasingly visible across mountain regions, with scientists warning that continued global warming could lead to the disappearance of thousands of individual glaciers. A new interactive website now allows people to explore the projected future of glaciers around the world and see when individual ice masses could potentially vanish under different warming scenarios.

The Global Glacier Extinction Explorer was developed by researchers from ETH Zurich and Vrije Universiteit Brussel. It is based on research published in Nature Climate Change that focuses on the future of individual glaciers rather than looking only at overall global ice loss.

Users can search different parts of the world through the interactive map and examine how glaciers could respond to varying levels of global warming. The tool is intended to make the consequences of climate change easier to understand at a local level, allowing users to examine glaciers in particular valleys and mountain regions.

The research indicates that glacier disappearances could reach their highest annual rate around the middle of this century. With global warming limited to 1.5°C, approximately 2,000 glaciers could disappear each year around 2041. Under a 4°C warming scenario, the annual number could rise to around 4,000 during the mid-2050s.

The difference between warming scenarios becomes especially significant by 2100. Nearly half of the glaciers existing today could survive under a 1.5°C warming pathway. At 2.7°C, only around 20% could remain, while fewer than 10% may survive if warming reaches 4°C.

Researchers stress that every fraction of a degree of warming can influence glacier survival. Limiting warming to 1.5°C could preserve more than twice as many glaciers by the end of the century compared with a 2.7°C warming trajectory.

The extinction dates displayed by the interactive tool are projections rather than fixed deadlines. Individual glacier behaviour can vary depending on factors such as size, elevation, shape and local climatic conditions.

Evidence of glacier disappearance is already emerging. In Switzerland, the Bella Tola Glacier was declared extinct in August 2026 after almost entirely disappearing. The Urirotstock Glacier was also declared extinct earlier in the summer.

Scientists say these cases demonstrate that glacier extinction is not simply a distant possibility. Many smaller Alpine glaciers are already approaching the end of their existence, with some disappearing in real time.

Glacier loss is not caused by a single unusually warm summer. Instead, glaciers decline through the cumulative effects of repeated snow and ice loss over many years. As warming continues, the long-term reduction in ice can eventually push individual glaciers beyond recovery.

The consequences extend beyond the loss of ice itself. Glaciers are closely connected to mountain ecosystems, water systems and communities, meaning their disappearance can have broader environmental and social significance.

The new interactive tool provides a way to visualise these changes glacier by glacier, making the potential impact of different global warming pathways more tangible. It also highlights how choices that influence future warming levels could determine whether many glaciers survive or disappear by the end of the century.