Overview
- On March 20, operators cut the Schneefernerkopflift cables with controlled charges and began dismantling the lift on the Nördlicher Schneeferner, ending Germany’s only glacier-based ski area.
- Drone and field surveys released this week show the four remaining Bavarian glaciers lost more than 25% of their area from 2023 to 2025, with Blaueis and Watzmann each down about 45%.
- The glaciers shed roughly one million cubic meters of ice and thinned by an average 1.6 meters per year—about double the 2018–2023 rate—according to teams from Hochschule München and the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.
- The Nördlicher Schneeferner lost 4.85 meters of thickness on average, and 7–8 meters along the lift line, and is expected by researchers to disappear by the end of this decade.
- Losses vary by site: Höllentalferner declined about 9% and may persist a few more years, while the Berchtesgaden glaciers show signs of collapse, with the acceleration linked to climate change and Zugspitze temperatures more than 2°C above the long-term mean.