Germany’s last glacier, located above the Bavarian resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, is getting a protective tarpaulin to help shield it from summer melting. Zugspitze, at 2,962 meters (9,700 feet) the highest mountain in Germany on the northern rim of the Alps, is having its ice sheet covered for a 17th year to reduce shrinkage from rain and sun in an effort to stave off global warming’s effects.

The Alps have suffered more than other glacial areas with half of the region’s ice fields having disappeared since the 1850s, according to the University of Zurich’s World Glacier Monitoring Service.

Covering glaciers with protective plastic, tarpaulins and special wraps is also done in neighboring Switzerland including Andermatt and Austria, where high-altitude ice fields provide skiers with summer pistes for training.

Workers from the Bayerischen Zugspitzbahn Bergbahn AG, the company that operates the ski lifts and cable cars on Zugspitze, will cover a soccer field-sized area with 30-meter-long tarps starting June 8, about five weeks later than last year.

Last winter’s snows will “likely” help form a new layer of ice on the glacier, said Frank Huber, director of the Zugspitze ski area on Germany’s southern border with Austria. Fences helped collect snow, which fell to a depth of 13 feet this winter, which workers will start to cover the glacier with.

The Zugspitz glacier is about 40 meters thick (131 feet). The tarpaulins are expected to save 80,000 cubic meters of snow this year.

Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the town closest to the glacier, hosted the 1936 Olympic Winter Games and was home to the classical composer Richard Strauss.

The glacial covering is taking place as negotiators gathered this week in Bonn to hammer out details of a UN climate-change treaty aimed at slowing global warming, saving glaciers, stemming sea-level rise and desertification.

The goal of a new accord, meant to replace the Kyoto Protocol, is to restrict world warming to an average of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since industrialization.

http://www.zugspitze.de/main_en.php