10.800 Jahre Klimageschichte am Rotmoosferner (Ötztaler Alpen)

Erratum: At 2:25, it should read "necessary" instead of "possible". This video was recorded on July 7, 2026, at the 1858 terminal moraine of the Rotmoosferner glacier in the Rotmoos Valley near Obergurgl in the Ötztal Alps. It shows the terminal moraine of the 1858 maximum extent and the peat bog directly in front of it, which has been dated to approximately 10,800 years old. The 1858 maximum extent was therefore the largest advance of the Rotmoosferner glacier in the past 10,800 years. This means that the climate history of the past 10,800 years took place within the 1858 moraine: The glacier was very likely completely melted for many centuries, if not millennia, during this period, for example, between 8,500 and 6,000 years ago. But it recovered and advanced several times again – never further than in 1858. It is a fact that the Rotmoosferner glacier – like Alpine glaciers in general – was smaller for long periods during the Holocene than it is today. This is often emphasized by "climate skeptics." But that doesn't mean we don't have a problem. If, as a model, the climate of the past 12 months were to persist for the next 30 years, practically nothing would remain of the current remnants of the Rotmoosferner glacier, because the Rotmoosferner no longer has an accumulation zone. We are therefore possibly close to the minimum extents of Alpine glaciers in the Holocene and wouldn't even need any additional warming for this to happen. The former forests, whose remnants we find in the retreating glaciers, could probably grow again in the current climate. They might not need any additional warming for this, but only a few decades or centuries. Geologically speaking, that would be just a snap of the fingers. ... And then, of course, there are the climate projections that predict further warming in the coming decades: Should these projections come true, we could leave the current temperature limits of the Holocene behind. I myself can't say anything about the future because I'm neither a glaciologist nor an atmospheric physicist. But as a ski tourism researcher, I try to gather and connect knowledge. It would be fascinating to travel back in time, 500 years into the future. Then, looking back, one could analyze, classify, and evaluate current global warming without emotion. Final remark: We are currently seeing, not only at the Rotmoosferner glacier, how vegetation is establishing itself in places that were icy just a few decades ago. The Alps are becoming greener and less white at a rapid pace. The vegetation line is rising, just as the boundaries of snow and ice are retreating upwards or—if the mountain is too low—disappearing entirely.