@Walter Hinteler,
Italian researchers present alarming measurement data: The mightiest glacier in the Dolomites is likely to disappear soon: Rising temperatures causing the Marmolada glacier to lose 7-10cm of depth a day, according to scientists.
Italy’s Marmolada glacier could disappear by 2040, experts say
And in Germany? The Zugspitze has had its first frost-free month.
Wilfried Hagg, glaciologist and geographer at Munich University of Applied Sciences, sees the Nördlicher Schneeferner on the Zugspitze as being in a ‘deplorable state’. The 2962 metre high mountain has experienced the second warmest summer since records began, only 2003 was 0.2 degrees warmer. August was ‘by far the hottest’ and the first month ever in which there were no negative temperatures on Germany's highest mountain. ‘This means that the Nördlicher Schneeferner melted completely for a month, day and night,’ said Hagg.
By the end of the decade, the researchers estimate that the Northern Snow Glacier will be too small and thin to be categorised as a glacier. Then there will be no more ice movement. The Southern Snow Glacier was already stripped of this status two years ago. According to forecasts, the Watzmann and Blaueis glaciers near Berchtesgaden will also be declared extinct in two or three years' time. Only the Höllentalferner is likely to survive longer as the last German glacier - until around 2035.
(Source: dpa, SPIEGEL)