Bavaria’s last remaining glaciers are melting at record speed – researchers

The last four remaining glaciers in the German state of Bavaria have lost more than a quarter of their surface coverage since 2023, according to researchers from the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and the Munich University of Applied Sciences. Measurements conducted in autumn 2025 show that the thickness of the glaciers’ ice sheets decreased by 1.6 metres on average per year between 2023 and 2025. This was twice as fast compared to the previous measurement period between 2018 and 2023, when the ice sheets thinned by 0.8 metres on average per year. Overall, the glaciers lost around one million cubic metres of ice in only two years.

Climate change is the main cause of the accelerated glacier retreat, the researchers stated. In 2024 and 2025, the German Alps saw record temperatures, with averages at the Zugspitze – Germany’s highest mountain – more than two degrees Celsius above the average annual temperature of the last 125 years.

The four glaciers in Bavaria are not retreating at the same speed, according to the researchers. The glaciers in Berchtesgaden in south-eastern Bavaria– the Blaueis and the Watzmann Glacier – lost more than 40 percent of their ice coverage. The Nördlicher Schneeferner in the south of the state thinned almost twice as much as the other glaciers, and lost more than a quarter of its coverage. However, the nearby Höllentalferner appears to be more stable, as it lost about nine percent of its ice coverage over the same period.

Last year, United Nations climate scientists warned that many glaciers worldwide will be gone before the end of the century, if they continue to melt with the same speed. They emphasised that about 70 percent of the world’s freshwater is stored in glaciers, and that their gradual disintegration will put freshwater availability at risk and increase flooding risks.