On thin glacial ice: New Austrian Glacier Inventory shows accelerating glacier shrinkage and 31&thinsp;% area loss within two decades

Hartl, Lea; Abermann, Jakob; Akgün, Ayla; Bertolotti, Giulia; Bolch, Tobias; Conzelmann, Svenja; Diaconu, Codrut-Andrei; Hansche, Iris; Hartig, Anne; Haut, Anna; Helfricht, Kay; Hynek, Bernhard; Kaucher, Marie Sophie; Kellerer-Pirklbauer, Andreas; Kogel, Ann Christin; Krippes, Julie; Lauria, Marcela Violeta; Mayer, Christoph; Otto, Jan-Christoph; Prinz, Rainer; Prölß, Sina; Rieg, Lorenzo; Schönleber, Lea; Schwaizer, Gabriele; Seiser, Bernd; Stocker-Waldhuber, Martin; Strudl, Markus; Verhounik, Martin; Zandler, Harald

doi:10.5194/tc-20-5157-2026

Articles | Volume 20, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-5157-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-5157-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 9

Research article

|

14 Sep 2026

Research article |

| 14 Sep 2026

On thin glacial ice: New Austrian Glacier Inventory shows accelerating glacier shrinkage and 31 % area loss within two decades

Lea Hartl, Jakob Abermann, Ayla Akgün, Giulia Bertolotti, Tobias Bolch, Svenja Conzelmann, Codrut-Andrei Diaconu, Iris Hansche, Anne Hartig, Anna Haut, Kay Helfricht, Bernhard Hynek, Marie Sophie Kaucher, Andreas Kellerer-Pirklbauer, Ann Christin Kogel, Julie Krippes, Marcela Violeta Lauria, Christoph Mayer, Jan-Christoph Otto, Rainer Prinz, Sina Prölß, Lorenzo Rieg, Lea Schönleber, Gabriele Schwaizer, Bernd Seiser, Martin Stocker-Waldhuber, Markus Strudl, Martin Verhounik, and Harald Zandler

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-5157-2026-supplement

Data sets

The Austrian Glacier Inventory GI 5, 2021-2023, as vector files [dataset] Anne Hartig et al. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.991106

GLIMS Glacier Database, NSIDC-0272 GLIMS Consortium et al. https://doi.org/10.7265/N5V98602

Model code and software

LeaHartl/inventories: inventories LeaHartl: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22145422

Short summary

We mapped glacier outlines in Austria using recent, high resolution imagery. The resulting glacier inventory provides an update on glacier area in Austria in 2021-2023. More than 30% of glacier area was lost and 95 glaciers have disappeared since the mid-2000s. Glacier recession is accelerating and regular updates to glacier inventories are needed to understand downstream changes to the hydrological system, quantify glacier mass loss, and support planning and adaptation measures.