Our study, focused on South Tyrol (NE Italy), develops an updated and comprehensive activity classification system for all rock glaciers in the current regional inventory. Using multisource products, we integrate climatic, morphological, and  differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar (DInSAR) data in replicable routines and multivariate statistical methods, producing a comprehensive classification based on the updated Rock Glacier Inventories and Kinematic (RGIK) 2023 guidelines. Results leave only 3.5 % of the features non-classified, as opposed to 13–18.5 % in previous studies.

Paleoclimatic glacial archives in low-latitude mountains are increasingly affected by melt, causing heavy percolation and removing snow and firn accumulated across months, seasons, or even years. Here we present a proxy system model that explicitly accounts for melt in ice and firn cores. Compared to traditional annual layer counting, the model significantly improved the interpretation and annual dating of the Mt Ortles firn core, in the Italian Alps, which includes the very warm summer of 2003.

A low latitude-high altitude Alpine ice core record was obtained in 2011 from the glacier Alto dell’Ortles (Eastern Alps, Italy) and provided evidence of one of the oldest Alpine ice core records spanning the last ~7000 years, back to the last Northern Hemisphere Climatic Optimum.  Here we provide  a new Alto dell’Ortles  chronology of improved accuracy that will allow to constrain Holocene climatic and environmental histories emerging from this high-altitude glacial archive of Central Europe.

Pseudo-relict rock glaciers look relict but contain patches of permafrost. They are poorly known in terms of permafrost content, spatial distribution and frequency. Here we use spring-water temperature for a preliminary estimate of the permafrost presence in rock glaciers of a 795 km² catchment in the Italian Alps. The results show that ~50 % of rock glaciers classified as relict might be pseudo-relict and might contain ~20 % of the ice stored in the rock glaciers in the study area.

Traditional inventories display high uncertainty in discriminating between intact (permafrost-bearing) and relict (devoid) rock glaciers (RGs). Integration of InSAR-based kinematics in South Tyrol affords uncertainty reduction and depicts a broad elevation belt of relict–intact coexistence. RG velocity and moving area (MA) cover increase linearly with elevation up to an inflection at 2600–2800 m a.s.l., which we regard as a signature of sporadic-to-discontinuous permafrost transition.