Abstract ID: 28.7414 | Accepted as Talk | Talk/Oral | 2025-02-27 14:30 - 14:45 | Ágnes‐Heller‐Haus/Small Lecture Room

Glacier monitoring in Switzerland, like in other parts of the Alps, has recently faced significant challenges due to climatic extremes. New data sets and approaches for evaluating the measurements allow the development of data products that optimally meet today’s requirements by the public and the science in terms of near real-time and regional-scale information. Here, we provide insights into recent advances achieved in the framework of the Glacier Monitoring Switzerland (GLAMOS) programme, highlighting both the potential and limitations at local and regional scales.

The importance of obtaining real-time insights into the present state of glaciers has increased, particularly in relation to climate change communication (peak-interest in numbers about glacier melt is during heat waves) and the management of water resources. In recent years, we have established a network of on-glacier webcams that operate year-round, collecting daily data on local mass-balance changes. By incorporating these measurements into a distributed daily mass balance model, which is automatically optimized to align with all available information acquired during the hydrological year, a data-driven real-time assessment of up to 10 Swiss glaciers is performed approximately weekly throughout the year.

Determining seasonal to annual surface mass balance by direct measurements is limited to a few glaciers due to logistical reasons. However, regional mass-change estimates are increasingly important. Although geodetic mass balances from digital elevation models offer insights, their temporal resolution is restricted. We introduce a new data pipeline for evaluating glacier volume change and geodetic mass balance in Switzerland, using high-resolution elevation models from aerial imagery, covering all ca. 1400 Swiss glaciers every 3-6 years. This data, integrated with mass balance variations observed in situ through a novel extrapolation method, provides annual to daily mass balance series for each glacier from 1914 to 2024. For instance, Swiss glaciers have lost over 12 percent of their remaining ice volume in just the past three years (2022-2024).