Melting glacier loses its secrets - 17th August 2022

In Europe’s highest mountains, temperatures have increased by two degrees Celsius over 120 years, about two times higher than elsewhere. In Austria, scientists are seeing the effect on the Jamtalferner glacier, which is disappearing at speed.

Scientist Andrea Fischer has been studying it for 20 years and she knows this year’s snow has already melted.

Andrea Fischer: "We are now at the beginning of the melting season and there is no more snow. No new substance can be formed. There is only melted snow and therefore it is not sustainable, because to be sustainable it has to be in balance with the climate. And what melts must be refrozen as ice." 

These glaciers hold essential information for science, which experts use to build up a picture of the Earth’s climate history. That’s because the ice includes plant fragments like leaves and sticks. Once scientists find out the age of the piece and how deep it was, they can learn when the glacier increased and decreased in size. Scientists can then create climate models for the future.

However, rocks can now be seen in the middle of Jamtalferner. 

Andrea Fischer: "And these grey surfaces, these rocky surfaces that appear here in the middle of the glacier, were already there two weeks ago this year. They're already more than a metre from the surface, and by the end of the summer, this summer, a lot of the glacier will be gone. All these surfaces, where we already see rocks, will no longer exist at that time."

Time’s running out for the glacier, so scientists are digging holes into the ice, to a depth of 14 metres. The information’s extremely valuable, but this is dangerous work. Earlier this year, a melting glacier killed 11 hikers in the Italian mountains.

Meanwhile, nature’s starting to hide the rocks where once there was ice. Now, more than 20 different species of plants are growing there.