Greenpeace photos chart Schlatenkees glacier’s rapid retreat

A Greenpeace photo series shows that the Schlatenkees glacier in East Tyrol has largely turned into a meltwater lake, ORF reported. The series documents the change from August 2019 to August 2026.

The glacier is part of the Venediger Group in the Eastern Alps. Photographer Mitja Kobal recorded how the once thick ice sheet in the basin steadily disappeared.

“Glaciers are a mirror of the climate crisis,” Greenpeace climate expert Jasmin Duregger said. The organisation said the loss of permanent ice was not only a consequence of climate change but also directly affected the alpine climate. Intact glaciers actively cool the atmosphere, while their disappearance contributes to higher local temperatures in high mountain areas.

Glacier area shrank by 25 percent

The retreat has been particularly rapid at the Schlatenkees. The Hohe Tauern National Park said the glacier’s area shrank from 9.1 square kilometres in 1998 to 6.8 square kilometres in 2022, a decline of 25 percent.

The Austrian Alpine Club last recorded the glacier’s length in 2023, when it had retreated by 93.7 metres, according to Greenpeace. In its glacier report for 2021 and 2022, the club’s glacier monitoring service described widespread “massive deglaciation” in the Austrian Alps. The Schlatenkees had the largest retreat in the report’s list of three glaciers, at 89.5 metres.

The Alpine Club attributed the retreat to high temperatures and low levels of precipitation. Greenpeace said those conditions broadly reflected this year’s weather.

Austria has about 900 glaciers left

Austria currently has about 900 glaciers, mainly in the central and eastern Alps. Greenpeace said they serve an important ecological function as water stores, supplying alpine rivers and helping stabilise water resources during summer months with little precipitation.

A partial result from the “Water in a Changing Climate” research project, published in March and commissioned by the Environment Ministry, also confirmed rapid melting. It found that between 70 and 80 percent of glacier mass could be lost by 2050 compared with 2024, depending on the climate scenario used. The study also indicated that melting in previous years had been stronger than earlier models predicted.

Greenpeace called for stricter environmental impact assessment rules for construction projects involving glaciers. Duregger also urged Austria to make a fair contribution to global climate protection and to adopt an ambitious climate law with binding paths towards climate neutrality by 2040.

Kobal, a Slovenian photographer based in Vienna, has received several awards. His Schlatenkees documentation took second place in the Photo of the Year category at the International Landscape Photographer of the Year Awards.