World Wetlands Day - February 2nd 2026 Wetlands are shaped by the cryosphere, even after the ice is gone. Glaciers don’t just vanish when they melt. Their water becomes wetlands: Slow, living systems that store carbon, reduce floods, and shelter biodiversity.

Greenland - Kalaallit Nunaat Why its people, ice and water matter to us and our future Greenland is often reduced to “the big ice sheet”, but it is far more than that. It is a living landscape where ice, ocean, people, and climate are deeply intertwined.

🌱 Succession Plants reclaim land where glaciers retreat When a glacier retreats, it doesn’t just leave, it reveals. Beneath the ice lies raw mineral ground, once sculpted by centuries of ice movement.

Thank you! Happy Holidays & all the best for 2026 2025 has been an amazing year filled with many firsts. Our founding event gave us the chance to turn Glacierwatch into a viable non-profit organization, fueled by the enthusiasm & energy of our members & all the support we received through the year.

Life’s High Places are Losing Their Cool Glaciers Shaped these Ecosystems — now they are vanishing Mountains are more than majestic scenery. They are living, breathing ecosystems unlike anywhere else on Earth.

A Year Between First Ice and Last Ice Where do we stand at the end of the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation? As 2025 ends — and with it the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation (IYGP) — we take a moment to look back at the cryosphere’s year.

Breiðamerkurjökull (SE Iceland) 1984 | 2025 6 km frontal retreat over 40 years for the 4th largest glacier in Iceland (900 km² in 2010), an outlet of the Vatnajökull ice cap! 🧊🔥 The LIA max is tangent to coastline 🌊 See this paper: www.researchgate.net/publication/... GIF Author: Amir Hamedpour

We Demand A Right to Ice So that future generations can still benefit from the cryosphere tomorrow Ice is not a luxury, it’s a life-support system. Glaciers store freshwater, feed rivers in dry seasons, stabilise mountain ecosystems and cultures, and help regulate climate.

The Other Side of Black Friday We can beat overconsumption by swapping, sharing and repairing Black Friday isn’t just a sale day, it’s a concentrated burst of overconsumption. Sudden spikes in production, shipping & returns create extra carbon emissions, packaging waste and discarded goods.

We’re running out of time From Berlin to Belém - we call for tough action! There has been progress! We see renewable energy growing, cities, regions and entire countries aim to reach net-zero in the coming decades.

Polynyas: Open Water in a Frozen World Out in the polar seas, where the ocean should be locked under thick ice, patches of open water sometimes appear. These are polynyas - natural openings in the sea ice, created when warm upwelling water or strong winds keep the surface from freezing over.

🌑 Dark Mode 🌅 Arctic Winter: When the Sun disappears Above the Arctic Circle, the Sun can vanish for weeks or months. This “polar night” happens because of Earth’s tilt. Temperatures plunge, sea ice forms, and daylight fades to twilight or none. Life slows but doesn’t stop.

Are we cooked? The ice is thinning - but not our capacity to care, to act, to protect what’s left. We’re reaching the first climate tipping-points. Glaciers are collapsing, ice-shelves are floating away, heatwaves and wildfires froth. The stakes have never been higher. Yes, the situation is dire.

🐐 Between Rock and Vanishing Ice 🏔️ In Tyrol’s changing mountains, the Alpine ibex embodies both resilience and fragility. 🚠 High up in the rugged peaks of Tyrol, the Alpine ibex navigates a world in flux. Once buffered by permanent snow and slow-moving glaciers, their alpine home is changing fast.

⌛ The Last Chance Trap 🏔️ Glaciers are vanishing, overtourism can make it worse. For decades, glaciers have been shrinking at alarming rates. Between 2000–2023, glaciers outside Greenland and Antarctica lost ~5 % of their total volume. Central Europe was hit especially hard, losing ~39 %.

This week’s image highlights Sea Surface Temperatures (SST) in the Atlantic Ocean, monitored by satellites such as the Copernicus Sentinel-3 series. SST's are a key #climate variable & global averages have risen by 0.5 °C since 1982. Discover more at: bit.ly/3I9JjS0 @copernicusmarine.bsky.social

🏞️ Glacier Rivers: These Lifelines of Ice support entire Regions 💧 Did you know that many of the world’s great rivers start as meltwater from glaciers? From the Rhône in Switzerland to the Ganges in India, glacier rivers sustain people, animals, and entire ecosystems.

🏚️ Life on Thawing Ground 🧊 Permafrost in Peril 🌐 From Alaska and Canada to Greenland, the European Arctic and Siberia, thawing permafrost is cracking homes, shifting coastlines, and reshaping the places people hunt, fish, and gather. Permafrost holds roughly twice the carbon in the atmosphere.

Heat Protection Is a Human Right 😓 The right to stay cool is essential to our health & survival, yet it's often neglected. Glaciers—Earth’s natural air conditioners—make this right possible: they reflect sunlight, feed rivers during heatwaves, cool landscapes, and shield communities from extremes.

5️⃣ Explore Glaciers through our 5 Senses 🧊Glaciers speak to all our faculties

😢 Losing Tuvalu 🌺 Melting Glaciers and their effect on Pacific Islanders 😟 Imagine leaving your homeland — not for adventure, not for opportunity, but because the ocean is swallowing it.

🗓️ This was July - A Month of Climate Action 🌡️ The Climate Crisis doesn't stop in summer, and neither do we! 🔥 This July, we kicked off our summer campaign "Summer without Ice", joined Berlin Pride with a giant penguin, collaborated with activists, a members assembly and a workshop weekend.

🐧 POV: You are a penguin at Pride 🌈 Your habitat is melting but you are too gay not to dance at #BerlinPride

🛑 Earth Overshoot Day - We Live in Overdraft! From today until the end of the year, we will use more natural resources that earth can produce

⛔ No Pride with polluters! 🏳️‍🌈 Glacierwatch at Berlin Pride 🤔 Why is a climate group at Pride? ‼️ Because the fight for climate justice is the fight for queer liberation.

📍Repparfjord: When profit buries tradition In northern Norway, the Sámi community is fighting to protect Repparfjord (Riehppovuotna)—a vital reindeer migration area and part of their ancestral lands.

⁉️Why Care about Glaciers? Why should you care about glaciers - even if you’re nowhere near one? Glaciers might seem distant, but they help regulate the whole planet’s temperature. They reflect sunlight, store freshwater, and keep sea levels in check.

💧Melting Point 🇨🇭Switzerland lost 900 glaciers already - Nuriel Delmee wants us to remember them

Wir brauchen: Eis, Eis, Baby! Eis hilft uns, cool zu bleiben – ob als Gelato im Becher oder gefroren in den Bergen. Doch unsere Gletscher, das Kühlsystem der Erde, schmelzen rasant durch die Klimakrise. Mit Sommer ohne Eis fragen wir: Was bleibt, wenn das Eis verschwindet?

🧊 What’s Happening to Summer Sea Ice? Every summer, Arctic sea ice melts — but not like this. Since satellite records began in 1979, the Arctic has lost around 75% of its summer sea ice volume and about 40% of its extent (NSIDC, 2023).

The appearance of Bossons Glacier these days before the most violent June heatwave in history and highest 0°C isotherm this week end... 🥵 What will this glacier look like at the end of this hellish summer?! 😱 📷 Pascal Tournaire

🧊 When Ice Gets Dirty How Glaciers are losing their cool 🔬 They might look like specks of dirt — but dust, soot & ash settling on glaciers are having an outsized impact on the cryosphere. These particles, often invisible to the eye, are dramatically altering how glaciers absorb sunlight and melt.

The holes in Bossons Glacier tongue are enlarging! 😱 This means continuous serac fall from the ice cliff, that accumulate on a large fan downslope 🧊 So much change at this iconic place over last 3 years! 😭

🌊 From the Glacier to the Ocean 🏔️ How glacier melt affects sea pollution 🧊 When we talk about ocean pollution, we often picture plastic bottles or oil spills. But there's another source—one we rarely think about: Melting glaciers and sea ice are releasing decades-old pollution into the ocean.

🏔️ Blatten is everywhere A European disaster echoes a global crisis

BEFORE / AFTER Birch glacier collapse 😮😱 There WAS a glacier here! 🧊 Not only the front, but the entire ice mass has slid down the valley! 🌊 Glad Alain Amherd took two pics with the same angle! 📷🙏

🤨 Can Carbon Capture Save Us? 🏭 Technology promises to lead us to zero emissions - but can they deliver?

Thank you for your support and the amazing job with the panel discussion! 💙🩵🤍

⚠️New study shows that even warming of 1.5°C is too high to prevent long term global damage from the melt of Earth's polar ice sheets 🌊❄️ @geogdurham.bsky.social @iccinet.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🤔 Icefalls - explained 💧 Imagine a waterfall, but frozen. Sometimes glaciers move over cliffs, and where they drop down, icefalls emerge.

Plastic - Even Here! How Microplastics pollute even the most remote Glacier environments 🤔 How do Microplastics get into Glaciers? 🔍 Microplastics (tiny plastic particles under 5mm) reach glaciers through: 🌬️ Airborne transport: Wind carries particles from cities, roads, and landfills.

🏔️ If Glaciers were countries 📏 Understanding their Size helps understand what we are losing 🧊 We talk a lot about glaciers shrinking. But how big are they, really? Here's what it looks like if glaciers were countries.

🌴What do you mean there are Tropical Glaciers? 🧊 Tropical Glaciers: Ice in the Heat 🌄 When you think of glaciers, tropical rainforests probably don’t come to mind—but high above the equator, in places like Peru, Uganda, and Indonesia, tropical glaciers cling to life on lofty mountain peaks.

🌍 Earth Day isn’t just about reusable bags and shorter showers. It’s about demanding better from those with the power to make real change.

🤔 The Point of No Return? ℹ️ Explained: Cryosphere Tipping Points 🌀 What is a Tipping Point? A climate tipping point is when a small additional warming triggers a large, self-reinforcing change in Earth’s systems.

Incredible drone footage of the #Morteratsch glacier front ice cave! 😍🧊❄️ Yesterday, glaciologists measured winter balance (snow depth) with drones and the volume of the large ice cave. 🎥 @landervt.bsky.social

🎙️ Panel Discussion 🏔️ The Future of the Alps 🗓️ April 15th, 7pm CEST ‼️ Join us tomorrow for a panel discussion with activists, scientist, seasoned mountaineers and artists to dive into what the future holds for our European Alps.

👋 Meet the Panelists! 🎤 You need to hear about Ana Zirner! She is an author, mountaineer, and certified hiking guide known for her long solo journeys in the mountains. Raised in the Bavarian Alps, she is passionate about multi-day treks and summit tours.

👋 Meet the Panelists! 🎤 We’d like to introduce you to @lesliecoutterand.bsky.social. Leslie is a Franco-American filmmaker, speaker, and moderator dedicated to social and environmental justice.

👋 Meet the Panelists! 🎤 Have you met Tobias Büttel? This Alpine photographer documents our melting Alpine glaciers, to show future generations what we have lost, and to showcase the issue to a broad audience, thereby accelerating climate action.