How climate change is melting the Alps’ glaciers – in pictures

Most of the world's mountain glaciers are retreating because of the climate crisis, but those in the European Alps are especially vulnerable. Smaller and with less ice cover, this year they are on track for their highest loss of mass in at least 60 years of record keeping

From the way 45-year-old Swiss glaciologist Andreas Linsbauer bounds over icy crevasses, you would never guess he was carrying 10kg of steel equipment needed to chart the decline of Switzerland's glaciers.

Glaciologist Andreas Linsbauer and assistant Andrea Millhaeusler drill a hole at a measuring point on the Pers glacier, near the Alpine resort of Pontresina