Secrets Of The Ice

16/12/2025

How fast are we losing glaciers? Faster than many realise.

A new study in Nature Climate Change looks not just at how much ice is lost, but at how many individual glaciers disappear completely.

The results show that global glacier loss will peak around mid-century (the 2040s–2050s). At that point, between 2,000 and 4,000 glaciers worldwide could vanish every year, depending on how much the climate warms.

The first wave is dominated by small glaciers, especially in regions like the Alps, Scandinavia and the Caucasus. In many of these areas, more than half of today’s glaciers are expected to disappear within the next 20 years.

Crucially, climate policy still matters. Limiting warming to 1.5 °C could leave around half of today’s glaciers still in existence by 2100. Under current climate pledges, only about one in five would remain.

This study is a reminder that glacier loss is not a distant future problem. Entire glaciers — familiar features in the landscape — are on track to disappear within our lifetimes.

Read more here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-025-02513-9?

09/12/2025

Norway’s southernmost glacier, Breifonn, is vanishing before our eyes. ❄️📉

A recently published scientific study has traced the retreat of Breifonn from the Little Ice Age to today. The numbers are striking. During the Little Ice Age, Breifonn covered about 5.8 km². By 1955, its main part had already shrunk to 3.3 km². In 2024, that same area has collapsed to just 0.17 km² — a loss of 94% of its surface compared to 1955. The figure below shows the glacier outlines through time, each line marking another step in its rapid retreat. It’s a stark visual reminder of how quickly high-mountain ice is disappearing in southern Norway.

Why is Breifonn melting so fast? Because temperatures in the Norwegian mountains have risen in recent decades due to human activity, especially the emissions of greenhouse gases. Warmer and longer summers bring more melt. When a glacier loses more ice than it gains year after year, it simply wastes away, and that is exactly what is happening to Breifonn. The glacier is now so small and thin that researchers estimate it may disappear completely within the next few decades.

Glaciers advance and retreat naturally over long timescales, but the speed of loss we are seeing today is far beyond natural variability. Breifonn’s story is a sobering reminder of how quickly the ice in our mountains is changing. The ice is going, and it’s going fast ❄️

You can read the Breifonn paper here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/annals-of-glaciology/article/tracing-the-rapid-loss-of-breifonn-norways-southernmost-glacier/A84EA59D45C3B4161C407FD22F85C54D

03/12/2025

Our new editorial is out — and it’s a call to take the ice seriously. ❄️📄

Up on Langfonne, the ice you see in this photo is far more than a backdrop for archaeology. It is an archive: layer upon layer of snow and cold preserving a record of past climates, ecosystems, and human activity that exists nowhere else.

And that archive is vanishing.

The editorial argues that while the artefacts melting out are spectacular, the loss of the ice itself may be even more important. When an ice patch disappears, we don’t just lose the objects it protected — we lose thousands of years of environmental history. Once gone, this record can never be recreated.

Langfonne has already lost more than 70% of its area. Other ice patches are following the same trajectory. The editorial calls for long-term planning, resources, and international cooperation to document these ice archives before they are gone forever.

This is a turning point. If we act now, we can still save extraordinary knowledge from the melting ice. If we wait, it will simply disappear.

https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JGA/article/view/34267/32561

11/11/2025

🎬 Ok, here we go! A video has now been released about the spectacular discovery of a 1,500-year-old reindeer trapping site emerging from the ice on Aurlandsfjellet in western Norway. The film takes you right into the field — to the moment the archaeologists discovered the beautifully preserved wooden structures and artefacts from this unique find! English subtitles!

10/11/2025

BREAKING NEWS! Holy smoke, our colleagues in Vestland County, Norway have just announced the insane discovery of a 1500-year-old reindeer trapping system melting out of the ice! And there are also stunning artefacts😮

High on the Aurlandsfjellet mountain in western Norway, at 1,400 metres above sea level, the ice is revealing something no one knew existed — the remains of a mass trapping system built of wood.

Archaeologists from the University Museum of Bergen and Vestland County Municipality have documented hundreds of wooden branches and posts around an ice patch. They are the remains of a large construction used to funnel wild reindeer into a wooden pen where they were trapped and killed.

This is the first time such a wooden mass trapping system has melted out of the ice in Norway, and it is likely unique in a European context. Among the finds are well-preserved reindeer antlers with cut marks, iron spearheads, wooden shafts and bow fragments, an ornamented oar(!), and a beautifully carved antler clothing pin(?) shaped like a small axe❤

💬 “A 1500-year-old mass trapping facility literally melting out of the ice before our eyes is probably unique in both Norwegian and European contexts,” says archaeologist Leif Inge Åstveit of the University Museum of Bergen.

The site dates to around the mid-500s CE, when colder conditions set in across Scandinavia. These cooling periods likely helped preserve the wooden structures in or around the ice. Whether the site has been completely sealed in ice ever since, or occasionally exposed for short periods during warm spells, remains uncertain. But today it is melting out once again in a rapidly warming climate.

Photos: Thomas Bruen Olsen, University Museum of Bergen.

Links to the original story (in Norwegian):
https://www.uib.no/universitetsmuseet/180352/ut-av-isen
https://www.vestlandfylke.no/nyheitsarkiv/2025/sensasjonelt-og-unikt-arkeologisk-funn-massefangstanlegg-i-tre-fram-fra-isen/?

27/10/2025

The ice is retreating – and revealing the past as it goes.

This photo shows an Iron Age arrowhead lying on the surface of the melting ice at Lendbreen in the Jotunheimen mountains, This is one of many discoveries we have made as Norway’s ancient ice recedes.

According to the new Climate in Norway 2100 report, glaciers in Jotunheimen and Breheimen may lose around 70% of their area during this century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. Even with lower emissions, many smaller glaciers will disappear completely.

For us in glacial archaeology, artefacts like this are powerful reminders of what is at stake. Each artefact that emerges from the ice carries a story from the past, but the ice that preserved it for millennia is vanishing before our eyes.

Glaciers are more than ice. They are the memory of nature itself and that memory is fading fast📉

https://klimaservicesenter.no/kss/rapporter/kin-2025 (in Norwegian only atm)

13/10/2025

LIVE from Brussels - We’re unveiling this year’s Grand Prix laureates, selected from among the winners 2025!

The fourth goes to… Glacier Archaeology Programme – Secrets of the Ice 🇳🇴

🏆 This groundbreaking research and outreach programme in Norway’s Innlandet County documented over 4,500 artefacts – half of the world’s glacial archaeological findings. By uniting scientific innovation, methodology, education, and public engagement, it highlights the urgent impact of climate change in high-altitude archaeology.

The project’s discoveries, ranging from 6,000-year-old hunting gear to rare prehistoric clothing and the world’s best-preserved ancient ski, have transformed our understanding of human activity in Europe’s high mountains.

The programme began after a local mountain walker discovered a well-preserved object emerging from the melting ice – an event that signalled the urgent need for systematic monitoring and illustrated the vital role of local communities in identifying new sites.

Learn more about this Grand Prix laureate👇
https://www.europeanheritageawards.eu/winners/glacier-archaeology-programme-secrets-of-the-ice/

13/10/2025

🏆 We won the Grand Prix at the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards 2025! ❄️

Earlier this year, Secrets of the Ice was honoured with a European Heritage Award in the Research category. At tonight’s ceremony in Brussels, it was revealed that our program also received the highest prize - the Grand Prix, as one of only five projects across Europe.

We are deeply honoured by this recognition – not only for our research, but for the collaboration, fieldwork, and dedication that make glacial archaeology possible. A huge thank you to all our colleagues, partners, and volunteers who help us uncover the past as the ice melts - and tell the stories that emerge as we melt back in time.

This award belongs to the whole Secrets of the Ice community. 💙

Kulturhistorisk museum
Norsk fjellsenter - der folk og fjell møtest
Innlandet fylkeskommune
Kulturarv i Innlandet
Klimapark 2469 og istunnellen

09/10/2025

🐕❄️ From ice to Europe’s most beautiful stamp!

In 2019, during the melting of the Lendbreen ice patch, we discovered the remains of a dog from the 1500s – complete with collar, leash, and even the remains of its last meal (fish). This touching find revealed the close bond between the dog and its owner 500 years ago.

Now the dog has reached a new audience: it has just been voted the most beautiful Europa stamp of the year. Designed by Kristin Slotterøy for Posten Norge, the stamp cleverly recreates the dog as if it is emerging from the ice – just like it did in real life.

This year’s theme for the Europa stamp competition was archaeology, with 57 countries taking part. The award is both a recognition of great design and a celebration of Norwegian history and glacial archaeology reaching far beyond our borders.

The dog on the stamp can currently be seen at the Norwegian Mountain Center in Lom.

Sometimes even a small stamp can carry a big story.

museum Kulturarv i Innlandet

06/10/2025

The BBC has just published a powerful story about the dramatic retreat of glaciers across Switzerland and beyond. Since 1850, glaciers have been shrinking. In the past few decades, the loss has accelerated to a pace that’s hard to comprehend.

In 2024 alone, mountain glaciers (outside Greenland and Antarctica) lost 450 billion tonnes of ice. In the Alps, some glaciers have retreated over two kilometres in a century. Where there was once ice, there are now rocks, lakes… and even trees.

Glaciers have always changed in size naturally, but scientists are clear: the speed of the current melt can only be explained by human-caused warming. The ice we are losing today is the result of past emissions of greeenhouse gases. The ice we can still save depends on what we do now.

As glacial archaeologists, we see both sides of this story every summer: the exciting discoveries emerging from the melting ice and the deep loss behind them.

How do you feel when you see these before-and-after images? Do they make you hopeful that change is still possible or fearful of what is to come?

They are melting like never seen before, changing landscapes around the world beyond recognition.

23/09/2025

A medieval puzzle in the ice!

Ten days ago, Olav from the Norwegian Mountain Center made a wonderful discovery at one of our ice sites – a fragment of a composite bow, part of the belly of the bow.

This site has already given us two other fragments of a composite bow, found in 2019 and 2021 (one belly and one back). One of the pieces was radiocarbon-dated to the second half of the 13th century AD. They are now exhibited together at the Norwegian Mountain Center.

And now – from the very same area – the fragment found by Olav has melted out! Another piece of the medieval bow puzzle has come to light🧩

Some parts of the bow are still missing, but perhaps the ice will reveal them in the years ahead. For now, we are simply thrilled to add a new jigsaw piece to the story of this extraordinary bow.

12/09/2025

Now what have we got here? It certainly looks like part of a composite bow, dating to the Late Iron Age or Medieval period!😍 Nice catch, Olav🙂