Overview

• Legambiente’s Carovana dei Ghiacciai closed its summer campaign after surveying eight glaciers from August 17 to September 2, finding universal frontal retreat and thinning.
• New measurements report the Marmolada glacier’s front receded an average 7 metres versus 2024, Solda retreated 26 metres, Ventina is no longer measurable, and Bessanese has shrunk to 0.3 km² with 3.9 million m³ lost since 2010.
• Researchers link the ongoing decline to hotter summers and reduced winter precipitation, with debris cover and darkened ice expanding and proglacial lakes forming.
• Permafrost temperatures in European mountains have risen, in some areas by more than 1 °C over the past decade, and studies indicate parts of Germany may lose permafrost within 50 years.
• The findings are feeding updated predictive models as scientists and NGOs call for stronger emissions cuts, a national adaptation plan, and coordinated Alpine monitoring at the European scale.