DistantNews
Support us
🇦🇹 Austria /Environment & Climate

What comes after the glacier? “The phase of instability begins now”

From Die Presse · () German

Translated from German and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

In-depth Named sources Context piece
  • Researchers say Alpine glaciers are retreating faster than expected, with the Dachstein’s Hallstatt Glacier expected to lose its recognizable form within four years and melt almost completely by 2040.
  • The changes could affect Austria’s water supply, electricity generation, tourism and safety in the Alps.
  • Austrian researchers are examining Switzerland’s experience as the country prepares for a future without its glaciers.

The glacier stretches across the landscape below the Matterhorn, but the retreat is impossible to miss. Its ice is dirty and dust-covered, with rocks lodged in deep cracks and meltwater trickling through an opening in the wall.

Elke Lemmerer, a glacier researcher who has worked on the Dachstein glacier for 20 years, says the decline is happening alarmingly fast. From the edge of Switzerland’s Gorner Glacier, she points toward the Monte Rosa Hut, which stands far above the glacier tongue. She compares the view with the Hallstatt Glacier, where the ice now lies more than 40 meters below a hut that skiers once passed almost directly.

So this is how one imagines the high Alpine glacier world. But it is frightening how quickly the glacier is retreating here too.

· Elke LemmererShe described the rapid retreat of the glacier from a viewpoint overlooking the Gorner Glacier.

“The situation is similar, only in Switzerland everything is larger and more imposing,” Lemmerer says. Across the Alps, the melting is advancing faster than researchers had predicted. Klaus Reingruber, her colleague and head of research at Dachstein, says scientists underestimated the glacier’s dynamics.

I know this situation from the Hallstatt Glacier. When I started ski touring, people more or less walked past the hut, but now the ice lies more than 40 meters below it. The situation is similar, only in Switzerland everything is larger and more imposing.

· Elke LemmererShe compared the Swiss glacier’s retreat with changes she has observed in Austria.

The Dachstein measurement program is marking its 20th anniversary, but the celebration carries a grim undertone. The glacier landscape attracts nearly a quarter of a million visitors each summer, yet its future is already measured in years. Snow reserves from the previous winter had run out by early July, several weeks earlier than before.

The Hallstatt Glacier, the largest on the Dachstein, is expected to become unrecognizable in four years and almost entirely melt by 2040. The other, higher glaciers are also expected to disappear by the middle of the century because of human-caused climate change. Austria now faces questions about what follows: how the loss will affect water supplies, power production, tourism and safety in the mountains. Researchers are looking to Switzerland as a possible source of lessons.

The dynamics were underestimated.

· Klaus ReingruberThe Dachstein research director said the melting is progressing faster than scientists had forecast.
About this summary

Originally published by Die Presse in German. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

More Stories

From Our Blog