Austrian glaciers are disappearing faster than researchers expected

Glaciers in Austria are retreating at a pace experts recently thought impossible, with consequences for water systems and mountain communities, glaciologist Andrea Fischer warned, ORF Tirol reported.

At the Jamtalferner glacier in Tyrol, Fischer stood on ice about 20 metres thick three years ago. Now a flower is growing among the rubble. The melt has accelerated sharply since summer 2023, and the record summer has pushed the region closer to what Fischer called “deglaciation”.

An Austrian glacier inventory published in the journal The Cryosphere documents the decline through 2023. Researchers led by Lea Hartl of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Innsbruck found that about a third of the country’s glacier area had disappeared since the mid-2000s. Nearly 100 smaller ice bodies had vanished completely by 2023.

The inventory recorded about 415 square kilometres of glacier cover around 2005, compared with roughly 285 square kilometres in 2021 to 2023. Since then, the retreat has accelerated further, Fischer said. At the Jamtalferner, one of Austria’s 30 largest glaciers in the past, the glacier tongue that was still substantial in the 1980s and 1990s has effectively disappeared.

As glacier tongues shrink and upper accumulation areas thin, glaciers contribute less to the water balance, Fischer said. Meltwater can affect river levels during dry periods, while rock sediment carried by rivers can damage hydropower turbines, accumulate in waterways and obstruct shipping. Fischer also said it can reduce the effectiveness of flood defences, while changing water temperatures and river ecosystems.

Retreating glaciers leave large amounts of loose debris that heavy rain can mobilise into landslides. Thawing permafrost at higher elevations adds to the instability, Fischer said, and such mass movements can reach inhabited areas.

Fischer called for continued, better-resourced monitoring of the remaining glacier areas to track the rapid changes.