On older lists of glaciers in the Alps, three small glaciers are registered at the southeast margin of the Eastern Alps. One of these is the glacier in the Kanin Mts, lying on the Italian territory, very close to the border with the new state of Slovenia which runs along the 3 km long ridge Visoki Kanin (2587 m)-Prestreljenik (2499 m). In the eighties of the past century, when it was still one continuous glacier, its size was 133 hectares (Desio, 1927). Afterwards, already divided into several icefields on the shady side below the ridge, it disintegrated into smaller icefields in the upper part of the Kanin plateaux (Kaninski podi) by 1994.
The smallest is the glacier on the north-facing slope of the main ridge in the Kamnik and Savinja Alps (Kamniško-Savinjske Alpe). It lies below the peaks of Skuta (2532 m) and Kranjska Rinka (2453 m), caught between the steep slopes in the narrow cirque. Because of the shade, it has been preserved in the altitude between 2160 in and 2000 m. Like in some previous years, it also retreated in the dry 1993 and 1994 years even deeper into the upper cirque and disclosed the darker stratified ice (Archives of the GIAM ZRC SAZU).
A third one is the Triglav glacier which has a similar location as the Kanin glacier, i.e. on the north-facing slope of the 3/4 km long crest between Mt. Mali Triglav (2738 m) and Mt. Veliki Triglav (2864 m) on the upper edge of the Triglav plateaux (Triglavski podi) (see the survey map!).
The Geographic Institute at the Center of Scientific Research of the Slovene Academy of Sciences and Arts (G1 ZRC SAZU) in Ljubljana has each year since 1946 performed measurements of the changes in the glacier surface. In 1954, Kredarica, a meteorologic station of higher rank, began to operate at a distance of 300 m from the lateral end of the Triglav glacier. It is located at the altitude of 2514 m, which is at the upper half of the glacier, the upper end of which lies at 2550 m, and the lower end at 2400 m. The station by the glacier represents a challenge to the statistical calculations of changes of the glacier's size in the light of climatic fluctuations which is the subject of this paper.
In the nineties of this century this small glacier retreated to the critical size and disclosed the bedrock which had not been visible until then. If the present climatic conditions prove to be exceptional, and after some years the glacier resumes its "usual" size, it is necessary to register the current situation and analyse the bedrock which might be withdrawn for decades from geomorphological analyses by the freshly advancing glacier. If it completely retreats, i.e. disappears, this study retains its significance for the knowledge about geo-ecological conditions in shady, lee locations in high mountains.
