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Last year the alpine glaciers lost on average no less than a tenth of their mass. Yet the bad weather of summer 2004 by no means alleviated the situation in the endangered regions. What has melted away is irretrievably lost, say the Swiss glaciologists. Glaciers are regarded as thermometers of climatic warming: the rising of the zerodegree border (air temperature) causes the glaciers to melt, and the rising of the earth temperature shifts the permafrost border with unforeseeable consequences, fears Michael Staudinger. The Austrian meteorologist knows what he is talking about. He is the scientific director of the Sonnblick Observatory, a research station built over 120 years ago on a crumbling peak in the Austrian central Alps. Nowhere else in the Alps is there a series of measurements on the development of the climate and the greenhouse gases which goes back so far. Since the measurements began the average temperature has risen by almost 2 degrees centigrade and this applies to the entire alpine region. The disappearance of the icecovered mountain peaks is changing the Alps, and this not only aesthetically. For example, on Germany's highest mountain, the Zugspitze, the operators of the ski lifts and snowboard slopes are already sounding the alarm. Great efforts, both technical and financial, are now being made to protect the snow on the northernmost glacier of the alps from melting. The warming of the atmosphere and with it the dying of the glaciers will probably continue - despite cold and wet summers.