Zurich (Reuters) – A study by the Swiss University ETH on Monday that Switzerland’s glaciers reduce in size by 12 % over the past years the reason of melting is increasing temperatures and lighter snowfalls.

Research assistant Daniel Farinotti said at the ETH, “The last decade was worst decade that we have had in the last 150 years. We lost a lot of water.” He said, “The trend is definitely that glaciers are melting faster now. Since the end of the 1980s, they have lost more and more mass more quickly.”

Farinotti said it was still too early to predict that 2009 will develop for glaciers that are the main source of water for hydroelectric plants and important and attractive for tourist. Everyday about 6,000 tourists visited at the Jungfraujoch glacier. Farinotti said, “This year depends on the summer. We had a lot of snow in the winter of 2008/09. But the spring was very warm so I doubt that this year will be a positive year for the glaciers.”

In 1999, Swiss glaciers have lost 9 cubic km of ice that was the warmest period of past 150 years. In 2003, the most dramatic decline occurred when the glaciers shrunk by 3.5 %. The researchers are predicting that the temperature of Swiss Alps will rise in winter by 1.8 degrees Celsius and 2.7 degree Celsius in summer by 2050.