Schneeferner

The Schneeferner in the Bavarian Alps is Germany's highest and largest glacier. It is located on the Zugspitzplatt, a plateau south of the country's highest peak, the Zugspitze, that descends from west to east and forms the head of the Reintal valley. The meltwaters from the glacier seep away into the karstified plateau and surface again in the Reintal, where they feed the River Partnach. The Schneeferner is one of the northernmost glaciers in the Alps.

In the 19th century, towards the end of the Little Ice Age, a large glacier, the Plattachferner, covered almost the entire Zugspitzplatt between the Jubiläumsgrat arête and the Plattspitzen peaks. It covered an area of about 300 hectares (1.2 sq mi) and left behind large moraines during its subsequent retreat that are still visible today.

From about 1860 until the 1950s the glacier lost roughly 23,000 square metres (5.7 acres) of area each year and by the end of that period had shrunk to about 60 hectares (150 acres). During its retreat, the glacier split into a northern and a southern section towards the end of the 19th century. Later, the so-called Eastern or Little Schneeferner below the summit of the Zugspitze broke away from the northern section and has since totally disappeared.

Thereafter the glacier's retreat was less drastic and the remaining sections of the Northern Schneeferner tended to just shrink in thickness due to their location in a basin. In the 1960s and 1970s, favourable conditions even led to a growth in the thickness of the glacier.

Since 1980 the glaciers on the Zugspitzplatt have again been on the retreat. In 2006 the two remaining parts of the glacier still covered an area of 39 hectares (96 acres); in addition there were a couple of smaller firn fields.

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Wikipedia