Impacts and Risks of Global Change - Impact of Global Changes on Mountains: Responses and Adaptation - page 36

may be an example. Based on the worldwide unique airborne laserscan data
set, it was shown that during the last 10 years, Hintereisferner with over 7
km² among the 10 largest glaciers in Austria, has lost more than 20% of its
volume (Bollmann et al. 2011) (see Fig. 3.1).
Maximum annual losses were recorded in 2002/2003 and 2005/2006.
The extreme summer temperatures of 2003 (see Schär et al. 2004) had an
enormous impact on Hintereisferner (Fig. 3.2), resulting ca. 5% loss in the
glaciological year 2002/2003 alone (Geist and Stötter 2007). As a further
consequence of these extraordinary thermal conditions, a surplus of
melt water at the basis of the ice-body caused a drastic leap of the glacier
dynamics thus resulting in a doubling of the velocity of Hintereisferner
(Bucher et al. 2006).
By studying long glaciological time series we obtain base lines for
interpreting past climate in high mountain areas where only few direct
recordings of weather stations are available (Vincent et al. 2004). Recent
comparisons of glacier and climate data led to the development of
models that allow an interpretation of glacier stands from the Holocene,
documented by moraines, to extrapolate the climate of the time (e.g.,
Kerschner and Ivy-Ochs 2008).
Figure 3.1. Cumulative mass balance of Hintereisferner for the glaciological years 2001/2002
to 2008/2009, elaboration by the authors.