Tirol’s last Allgäu glacier loses its status

The Schwarzmilzferner, the last glacier in the Allgäu Alps on the Austrian side, has lost its glacier status after a hot summer, ORF reported. The ice lost more than four metres in thickness and about half its volume.

Glaciologist Christoph Mayer of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences said over the weekend that the glacier would most likely disappear completely after next summer. He and his colleagues have monitored it closely for 26 years and have recorded marked ice losses since 2016.

The decline has accelerated since 2022, Mayer said. A glacier must flow to meet the definition, and the Schwarzmilzferner no longer does.

The ice field lies at about 2,450 metres on the southeast side of the Mädelegabel and Hochfrottspitze. It is not an isolated case: several smaller glaciers in the Alps disappear each year, Mayer said. Even heavy snowfall in winter cannot make up for the losses, as summers have become too hot. He expects the entire Eastern Alps to be ice-free between 2060 and 2070.