Century-long multi-source analyses highlight decreasing vulnerability for a small, debris-covered and avalanche-fed glacier in the eastern Italian Alps

Small, debris-covered and avalanche-fed glaciers are widespread in high-relief areas of the world. However, their climatic response is poorly known because they cannot be investigated with ‘traditional’ techniques, like the glaciological mass-balance method, and long-term observations series are very rare. This work documents changes in elevation, mass balance rate and surface cover in the last century (from 1920 to 2020) for the small, debris-covered and avalanche-fed Montasio Glacier, where recent investigations show unusual response to climatic changes, but it is unclear whether this response is a short- or a long-term characteristic. Glacier response is analysed primarily through Digital Elevation Models reconstructed from different types of data sources (maps, terrestrial and aerial images, point clouds). Glacier changes are analysed jointly with trends in the most relevant climatic variables. The glacier experienced phases of rapid mass loss between 1920 and 1948 (−0.49 m w.e. y-1) and between 1982 and 2006 (−0.36 m w.e. y-1). Smaller imbalance occurred between 1948 and 1982 (−0.14 m w.e. y-1) and, remarkably, between 2006 and 2020 (−0.03 m w.e. y-1). Whereas the 1948–1982 was a favourable time-window for most glaciers in the Alps, the last fifteen years were characterized by rapid warming and show a clear divergence between the behaviour of the Montasio Glacier and of the rest of Alpine glaciers. A century-long increase in debris cover, now 2–3 m thick in the lower half of the glacier, explains largely this divergence. Snow-rich winters in recent years also played a role, because the glacier reacts sensitively to changes in solid precipitation. Even in the case of possible decreased snowfalls and increased melt associated with warming temperatures during the next decades, the glacier is not expected to vanish soon, because it will likely survive under a thick layer of debris and shadowed by the north walls of the Mount Jôf di Montasio. On the other hand, the results of this study, paired with the current distribution of permafrost in the study area, suggest that the Montasio Glacier will unlikely evolve into a rock glacier or a glacial-permafrost composite landform.