Glaciers ‘unsalvageable in the short term’

“We are in a new climate regime,” says glaciologist Andrea Fischer at Tyrol’s Jamtal Glacier. The fact that the entire high alpine landscape around the now rather pitiful remnant of the once massive ice mass is in motion is really noticeable on the spot. According to Fischer, the rapid retreat of glaciers, which is surprising even to scientists, should also lead to a rethinking of warning systems, disaster funds and construction measures.

masses of water instead of ice
Today, if one penetrates to the still icy end of the Jamtal in the Silvretta group, it becomes clear that one is in an area where many things are being reorganized. For example, massive amounts of small-scale precipitation fell in the region in mid-August, similar to that of 2005, when bodies of water pouring down from the Inn mountains even threatened Innsbruck’s Old Town.

The current water masses caused a large-scale slippage of part of the lateral moraine of the glacier, which around the year 1850 still reached just before the Jamtalhütte at 2165 meters above sea level.

The streams that flow down the mountain flanks in the high valley are now clearly colored. “That’s not the usual color,” explains the researcher from the Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) in Innsbruck. Here a lot of sediment is washed away from the mountain. Further down the valley, excavators are working to clear the river bed as much as possible after the mass movements of the past few days. According to the glaciologist, what happens up there can affect the entire chain of power plants and therefore have an effect far into the valleys.

Image comparison illustrates melting
Once you cross the streams, which the expert has obviously shifted their bed several times lately, you reach the glacier gate, i.e. the lowest edge of the ice body. From the marking of the ice edge at the end of summer 2022, it is still a few meters to the rough line where the Jamtalferner now lies. The Alpine Club Glacier Report shows a height loss of 37.5 meters between 2021 and 2022 – the second highest value in the Silvretta Group after the Ochsentaler Gletscher (43 meters loss).

Image comparison 2022/1987:

The meltwater trickles incessantly along the edges of the Jamtalferner. It can clearly be seen that the ice body is also being eroded from below. The glacier stream almost roars – that’s how massive the outflow is at a daytime temperature of almost 15 degrees Celsius.

Fischer comes here about every 14 days: “It looks different every time.” The researcher and her team guide numerous glaciers in the Eastern Alps. Sometimes it is difficult to recognize them by their shape now, the changes are happening so fast. On the Jamtalgletscher – a reference glacier in the “World Glacier Monitoring Service” (World Glacier Monitoring Service, short: WGMS) – things have been going particularly fast lately. “We lose about ten centimeters of ice here every day,” a recent measurement showed.

Expert sure: “Not to save in the short term!”
From the point where the ice ended in 1980, it is now hundreds of meters as the crow flies to the current source of the glacial stream. The glaciologist estimates that it will rise much higher until there is nothing left of the once proud glacier in about ten years’ time: “In the short term it can no longer be saved. The glacier is therefore already a thing of the past. He is a shadow of himself and is on his last legs.” Only a very large volcanic eruption, which cools the earth considerably, could slow down this development.

It has only become clear in recent years that things can go so fast. The scientists had to put forward the end of the glaciers, these iconic structures in the Alps, “several decades” compared to previous predictions. They will be a thing of the past in the Eastern Alps by 2050 at the latest.

This year there is no snow at all in the upper parts of the glacier at more than 3,000 meters above sea level at the Jamspitzen and the Dreiländerspitz, which lies between Tyrol, Vorarlberg and Switzerland. In the past, two thirds of the surface was still covered with snow at the end of summer, and in autumn there was usually up to three meters of winter snow.

Nowadays there is only between three and four meters of snow in winter, which melts completely in summer. Summer snowfall, which used to halt the melt for weeks, is now almost absent.

Black instead of blue ice
Ultimately, under these climatic conditions, the Ferner has no chance to regenerate. On the contrary, it noticeably crumbles and breaks up into separate ice fields that are already very dirty ahead. As a result, things move quickly, Fischer explains.

There are no reports of such dirty ice in the glaciological literature of the 1970s and 1980s. White and bluish glistening ice still dominated there, as did snow and firn higher up for much of the summer.

The colored ice surface thaws faster because the dark rocks heat up much more in the sun. At the same time, the meltwater flowing out from below gnaws at the ice, the breaking of which can be heard again and again at the edges. These rapid changes can be seen as a kind of new era. Fischer: “The large-scale breakup of the glaciers is a new phenomenon that we have only been observing for three to four years.” There are no scientifically processed precedents for such a “transitional phase”.

Politics is on the train
Political decisions are now necessary in consultation with the experts, Fischer explains. In any case, a comeback for the Alpine glaciers, perhaps by the end of the century, is only possible if real measures to protect the climate are taken now.