Vanishing glaciers as icons of climate change

Glaciers as icons of anthropogenic climate are ubiquitous in media these days but not much of the science in background is transported with the pictures. Eastern Alpine glaciers are retreating much stronger and more obviously than the global mean, with first glaciers completely downwasting presenting striking evidence for a changing climate. Therefore, public interest is enormous, with many requests from international media, museums and schools. The FWF project P 29256-N36 ColdIce (2016-2019) brings the extreme sensibility of Eastern Alpine glaciers to current climate change very clearly to the point and provides a comparison to the baseline of late Holocene glacier- and climate history: The layer of cold ice covering the summit of the largest glacier of Eastern Alps is only a few meters thick, and diminishing about 1 m in an extreme summer. That means that we now lost the ice layers formed from the 1920 onwards on this high peak, and that the total climate archive will be gone in a few years without return all the information in it is lost. This first project result gained huge interest from national international media. Within the research project, the main focus has to be to do sound science, and only limited capacity can be given to media work. Within the proposed project, the media requests will be handled in a professional and very effective way by inviting all the journalists who had interest during the last two years and who expressed the wish to report the project results. In addition to these requests, a new museum established in Kaunertal close to the test site has expressed the wish to present an ice core from Weissseespitze to the public in their new exhibition together with the relevant scientific facts. The international project ice memory, which also is doing very professional media work in the European framework, expressed the interest to transfer one of the ice cores to Antarctica to be preserved for future generations, revealing climate information with methods not available today. In cooperation with The Naturpark Kaunertal, who offer their programs to about 1500 kids, the project results will be brought in a form suited for educational purposes including excursions and interactive learning. The ColdIce weather station is the highest station in Austria. It will be further maintained, and the data published to create further climate awareness- seen as major prerequisite for a transformation towards a more sustainable society, as outlined in the agenda 2030 of UN in the sustainable development goals. Only the one who knows his past has a future Alexander from Humboldt