Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

SNOW

Cold weather turns Austria into an ice-skater’s paradise

The recent cold weather in Austria meant ice-skaters had perfect conditions on many lakes and some rivers over the weekend.

Published: 23 January 2017 10:54 CET
Cold weather turns Austria into an ice-skater’s paradise
Ice skating on Vienna's Alte Donau. Photo: Olga Wukounig

Consistently low temperatures have caused the ice to thicken in recent days and nights. In Vienna, hundreds of people spent the weekend skating on the Danube river. However, city authorities have urged people to be mindful of the risks – and have warned that none of the natural ice-skating surfaces in Vienna have received an official safety approval as the thickness of the ice has not been tested.

The MA 45 website (the city department responsible for Vienna waterways) warns that people should not underestimate the risk of skating on frozen rivers and lakes, “even on still waters like the Old and New Danube”. Ground water tributaries are still around 7C, even in extremely cold weather, making the ice cover deceptively thin. “Other risks include water level fluctuations as well as holes in the ice under bridges and around pillars,” according to the MA 45.

In Carinthia, in southern Austria, the Lake Wörthersee ice-skating team regularly checks how thick the ice is on the region’s lakes. It still isn’t cold enough to skate on Wörthersee (it hasn’t been cold enough to skate on Wörthersee since 2006), but other lakes in the state have been given the all clear. Längsee lake has particularly good ice and beautiful conditions. Olympic gold medallist and ski racer Matthias Mayer posted a picture of himself skating on Lake Afritz on Sunday. 

 

Zuhause ist, wo dein Herz ist! #AfritzAmSee #blauweiß

A photo posted by Matthias Mayer (@matthiasm_) on Jan 22, 2017 at 5:28am PST

Ice has formed on Carinthia’s third largest lake, Lake Ossiach, but is still thin in many places and skating is not allowed. However, 40 foolhardy skaters ventured onto the ice on Saturday. Helmut Weissensteiner, director of the Austrian Water Rescue in Sattendorf, said that they had taken a huge risk and could have drowned. Luckily there were no accidents.

The ice on Europe’s largest natural skating rink, the Neusiedler See, has been safe for the past two weeks, with walkers, ice runners and hockey players all enjoying the ice. Ice skating is allowed on parts of the lake, but skaters are still warned to avoid snow covered areas and areas where the ice has opened. In some places the ice is also rough and bumpy. For up-to-date information on conditions there check the website or call one of the local “ice” numbers listed on the website. 

The forecast for this week suggests that conditions will be perfect for ice-skating in the south and west of the country. It will remain cold, with lots of sunshine. According to the Central Institute of Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG), temperatures as low as -19C can be expected in the south and west, especially in the morning.

The north, east and south-east of the country can expect foggier conditions early this week, with not much sunshine. Towards the end of the week it will get sunnier, with a moderate south-easterly wind from Neusiedler See to the Vienna basin. Maximum daily temperatures will range from -4C to 4C.

 

CLIMATE

Germany could ‘lose last glaciers in 10 years’

Germany's glaciers are melting at a faster pace than feared and the country could lose its last ice caps in 10 years, an alarming report said Thursday.

Published: 29 April 2021 16:05 CEST
Germany could 'lose last glaciers in 10 years'
The glacier on Germany's highest mountain, the Zugspitze, covered in snow. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Sina Schuldt

“The days of glaciers in Bavaria are numbered. And even sooner than expected,” said Thorsten Glauber, environment minister of the southern region, home to Germany’s ice-capped Alps.

“The last Bavarian Alpine glacier could be gone in 10 years.” Scientists had previously estimated the glaciers would be around until the middle of the century.

But the melting has accelerated dramatically over the last years. Located in the Zugspitze area and in the Berchtesgaden Alps, Germany’s five glaciers have lost about two-thirds of their volume in the past decade.

Their surface areas have also shrunk by a third – equivalent to around 36 football fields.

Issuing a stark warning over global warming, Glauber stressed that the glaciers are “not only a monument of Earth’s history in the form of snow and ice”.

“They are thermometers for the state of our climate,” he added.

A global study released Wednesday found nearly all the world’s glaciers are losing mass at an ever increasing pace, contributing to more than a fifth of global sea level rise this century.

An international team of researchers analysing images taken by a NASA satellite said that between 2000-2019, the world’s glaciers lost an average of 267 billion tonnes of ice each year — enough to submerge Switzerland under six metres of water every year.

The report came as meteorologists in Germany said this April has been the coldest in four decades.

Like elsewhere in Europe, Germany has recorded wild weather in recent years. After a winter in which temperatures plunged well below freezing in February, the mercury rose to 25.9 degrees on April 1 before slipping more than 15 degrees for much of the rest of the month.

Environmentalists blame global warming for the shifts and have been urging governments to do more to halt the damaging trend.

READ ALSO: How Germany is reacting to top court’s landmark ruling

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement countries aim to keep the global temperature increase to under two degrees Celsius, and ideally closer to 1.5 degrees, by 2050.

Climate activists scored a landmark victory Thursday in a case against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government as the Constitutional Court ruled Berlin’s environment protection plan insufficient.

SHOW COMMENTS