Glacier shrinkage

Climate change: currants are already growing on the Pasterze

The Pasterze at the foot of the Grossglockner is Austria's largest glacier, but it is melting dramatically, allowing animals and plants to colonize it. Currant bushes have been growing there for some time (picture).(Bild: Georg Granig)

The Alpine Association has been observing dramatic glacier shrinkage in Austria's high mountains for decades. According to experts, the glaciers are likely to be history in around 40 years - with far-reaching consequences for the local ecosystems. Animals and plants are settling where there used to be ice. Larches and currant bushes can already be found on the Pasterze. 

"We now have a very large, stately currant bush in the glacier forefield, where there was still a glacier around 20 years ago," Barbara Pucker, Director of the Hohe Tauern National Park, told ORF. A larch forest is also already spreading.

Lake Pasterzen with considerable depth
The lake created by the glacier retreat, the Pasterzensee, is increasingly shaping the landscape. At 48 meters, it has a considerable depth. The lake is still cold, but Pucker assumes that numerous animal species will settle there over time.

Even if this winter was cold and the spring was wet, Andreas Kellerer-Pirklbauer, head of the Alpine Association's scientific glacier measurement service, assumes that the glaciers in Austria will continue to lose mass and length this year.

Glaciers only exist because of accumulated reserves
In the meantime, an average glacier retreat of more than 20 meters per year "is unfortunately nothing out of the ordinary", said Kellerer-Priklbauer at a symposium in July. There is no longer a glacier in Austria "that has a nutrient zone that can even come close to maintaining the existing ice mass. The Austrian glaciers only exist because of the ice reserves accumulated in the past".