Das Projekt "Die Auswirkungen von Klimaaenderungen auf Alpengletscher: Eine Modellstudie" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Geographisches Institut durchgeführt. The aim of this project is the design and coding of a basic glacier model. The model consists of a mechanical part for computing the stress and velocity fields based on a new numerical algorithm and a kinematic part for calculating the evolution of their geometry for a given climatic input. High resolution climate models have become realistic enough to reproduce topographically influenced climate. The resulting thermal conditions and mass balance distribution on glacier surfaces will serve as an input to the glacier model. Based on accepted scenarios, the evolution of the alpine glacierization for the next century will be computed. The glacier model will be tested with the known evolution of climatic condition and of many alpine glaciers during the past century. Leading Questions: What is the evolution of the alpine glacierization in the next century for various greenhouse scenarios?