Glaciers in Switzerland – the home to the most in the Alps – lost 5.5% of their ice volume this year, the second-biggest percentage drop on record due to heat waves and low winter snowfall, experts report, according to AP. 

“Alpine glaciers have no chance of surviving in the long term under such conditions,” the GLAMOS Swiss glacier monitoring service and Swiss Academy of Sciences said in a statement released Thursday. The trend has worsened in recent years: Over the past five years alone, the volume of ice in Switzerland has declined by nearly a fifth, the experts say.