Extreme meltdown: Southern Schneeferner on the Zugspitze no longer a glacier
Created: 09/26/2022, 17:56
By: Andreas Seiler
Exploring the thickness of the ice with georadar: the scientists Wilfried Hagg (left) and Christoph Mayer.
© Laura Smith
Extreme melt: strong ice loss continues - current measurements presented
Garmisch-Partenkirchen – Scientists from the Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research (Alfred-Wegener-Institut) sounded the alarm in August this year: The German glaciers, which are already dying, are suffering from an extreme meltdown - and 2022 is considered a record year in this regard (we reported ).
This is caused by climate change.
The consequences can no longer be overlooked in Werdenfelser Land: the southern Schneeferner on the Zugspitze massif loses its status as a glacier.
This is reported by the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.
There, the strong loss of ice continued.
"New georadar measurements from mid-September 2022 show the extent of the loss," says a press release written in cooperation with Munich University of Applied Sciences and the Schneefernerhaus environmental research station.
Only a few areas left: the ice remnants of the former southern Schneeferner on the Zugspitze massif.
© Wilfried Hagg
The ice thickness of the Schneeferner has decreased significantly in large areas and is no longer even two meters in most places.
Even at the deepest point, the ice thickness is now less than six meters - compared to around ten meters in 2018. "This suggests that the remaining ice will melt completely within the next one to two years," the researchers predict.
At the same time, the glacier area has reduced to less than one hectare, roughly halving it since 2018.
Due to the low ice thickness, no more ice movement can be expected, so that the Südliche Schneeferner is no longer considered an independent glacier.
The measurements, which first took place in 1892 and have been repeated regularly since the middle of the 20th century to record the mass changes in the Bavarian glaciers, are therefore being discontinued on the southern Schneeferner.
The remaining four glaciers in Bavaria will remain in the glaciological observation network until further notice.
These are the northern Schneeferner and Höllentalferner on the Zugspitze and the Blaueis and the Watzmanngletscher in the Berchtesgaden Alps.
The Bavarian Academy of Sciences, founded in 1759, is the largest of the state academies in Germany.
It has been committed to its tasks as a scholarly community, non-university research institution and place of lively scientific dialogue with society and politics for more than 250 years.
The academy is responsible for the Leibniz data center, one of the largest supercomputing centers in Europe.
" BAVARIA