Austria loses nearly third of glacier area, 95 glaciers disappear completely

Austria has lost nearly a third of its glacier area over the past two decades, with 95 glaciers disappearing completely, highlighting accelerating glacier shrinkage that could eventually leave some mountain ranges without glacial ice.

A comprehensive study conducted by researchers from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the universities of Innsbruck, Salzburg and Graz documented the scale of the losses after mapping Austria’s glaciers using high-resolution imagery. Lea Hartl, lead author of the study and a researcher at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, said the losses in recent years had been extreme.

Andreas Kellerer-Pirklbauer, co-head of the Glacier Measurement Service of the Austrian Alpine Club (ÖAV), reported unprecedented ice losses at high elevations following the heat of the past summer. Measurements at Pasterze glacier in Carinthia showed ice losses ranging from around four metres at an elevation of 3,000 metres to 10 metres at 2,500 metres.