Tiny Worlds on Ice Cryoconite - Dark Spots That Bring Glaciers to Life Have you ever noticed tiny dark specks scattered across a glacier? They're called cryoconite ("cold dust"), but they're much more than just dirt.

Wet Bulb Temperature: When Sweat Stops Working The most dangerous temperature isn't always the hottest one What is a wet-bulb temperature? It's a measure that combines heat and humidity. Normally your body cools itself by evaporating sweat.

Hot Glacier Summer What happens when the melt season begins? Summer means holidays, hiking, and long days. But for glaciers, it marks the start of their most challenging season.

The Super El Niño is Coming! The Pacific Is Heating Up. Glaciers Will Pay the Price. El Niño is a natural climate pattern that occurs when sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean become unusually warm.

Glaciers create their own weather Tiny cold worlds exist around glaciers. Many disappear when the ice disappears. Glaciers can cool the air around them: Cold dense air flows downhill from glaciers, lowering temperatures in nearby valleys and alpine landscapes.

Less Glaciers, less Groceries Why glaciers are a hidden ingredient - and farms are increasingly missing it We often think of glaciers as distant, frozen landscapes. But their meltwater feeds some of the world’s most important agricultural regions.

It’s not too late… To join us! Most people care about glaciers. Some people follow. A few people step in.

Peak Greed Argentina dismantled its landmark glacier protection laws. The consequences could be irreversible. On April 9, 2026, after nearly 12 hours of debate, Argentina's Chamber of Deputies voted 137–111 to reform the landmark National Glacier Protection Law.

Geoengineering won't save our glaciers. Here's why. As the cryosphere continues to deteriorate a growing chorus of voices is turning to geoengineering as a solution.

Witnessing the Melt: Art as Climate Testimony Meet our Panelists: Sarah Bachinger @sebachinger.bsky.social is a photographer and visual artist whose work explores the fragile beauty of alpine and polar landscapes.

Witnessing the Melt: Art as Climate Testimony Meet our Panelists: Katy Didden @kedidden.bsky.social is a poet whose work explores the deep timescales and powerful forces shaping our planet.

Witnessing the Melt: Art as Climate Testimony Meet our Panelists: Néfur Néfur is a vocalist, composer, and performance artist whose work brings the cryosphere into the realm of sound.

In Focus: Slovenia A collaboration between CIPRA Slovenija and Glacierwatch Slovenia might seem small on a map, but it carries the essence of Alpine wildness in its dramatic peaks, emerald valleys, and glacial landscapes.

#WitnessingtheMelt: Art as Climate Testimony Glaciers are melting. We know the numbers. But what does that loss sound like? What does it look like? What does it feel like?

The Last Ice of the Pyrenees Europe’s southernmost glaciers reside between France, Andorra and Spain In the mid-19th century, the Pyrenees held about 52 glaciers; today, fewer than ~15 active glaciers remain, and many others are now ice patches, not moving glaciers.

Women and girls are shaping cryosphere science. From measuring glacier mass balance in the Alps to drilling ice cores in Antarctica, from modelling future sea-level rise to protecting polar ecosystems: Women scientists are advancing our understanding of ice, climate, and a rapidly changing planet.

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.