Glaciers in the Alps disappeared in about 100 years?

While the glaciers used to retreat continuously, now – after extreme years like 2022 – gaps are appearing in the glacier tongues. “If the process continues like this, there can be no glacier left in the Ötztal in 30 years.”

Iron gives the Alpine glaciers at an altitude of 4,000 or 4,500 meters another 100 years or so before they are probably largely gone.

Stopping the melting probably impossible
The melting of the glaciers is currently unstoppable, but it can be mitigated, according to an expert from the Alfred Wegener Institute of the Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research.

Even if the current CO₂ content of the atmosphere remained stable – which it does not – this would mean a 50 percent loss of mass for glaciers around the world by the year 2100. But if CO₂ emissions remain at current levels, there is a risk of a loss of 80 to 90 percent. So if it were possible to reduce CO₂ emissions to zero, according to Eisen, the retreat of the glaciers could be reduced.

If it were even possible to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere in the long term, the glaciers could grow again. “But that’s not technically possible at the moment and probably not in the next 20 years.”

“Down with fossil fuels”
That is why the professor of glaciology says clearly: “We have to get rid of fossil energy so that we can stop the increase of CO₂ in the atmosphere and reduce it again in the long term. If we start doing this in 2050, it will be too late for the glaciers.”