Snow and ice on Mount Ararat: keep every observation tied to its date
Almost every description of Mount Ararat mentions its snow and ice. The difficulty is that these descriptions come from different years, seasons and methods. A snow line measured by barometer in September 1829, a traveller’s impression in 1876 and a glacier outline traced on a satellite image in 2013 are all real evidence, but they answer different questions. This page sets them side by side and explains how far each one reaches.
1829: Parrot’s measured snow line
Friedrich Parrot, who led the first recorded ascent, measured where the permanent snow began on the great cone. His translated account gives:
- 13,955 feet (about 4,254 m) on the eastern side, on 18 September 1829;
- 14,239 feet (about 4,340 m) on the north-western side, from observations on 18 and 27 September;
- a mean of about 14,080 feet (about 4,292 m).
Parrot found the eastern side “warmer” and explained it by the nearby Little Ararat, which radiates heat towards it, while the north-west side faces no such surfaces. His figures are barometric heights, so they share the uncertainty of his other measurements; his summit height was later revised downwards. They are best used as a record of where one careful observer put the snow line at the end of one summer.
1876: Bryce’s description of the faces
James Bryce, who climbed in September 1876, did not measure a snow line but described how the faces differed:
- the north-east side falls very steeply towards the Aras plain, with black precipices capped by beds of ice that he estimated at many hundreds of feet thick;
- the north-west side descends in long terraces and, in his view, held the only considerable fields of snow or névé;
- the south-east side, which he climbed, involved very little snow work in autumn.
These are qualitative observations from a single autumn. They help explain why nineteenth-century climbers chose particular sides, but they cannot be converted into areas or thicknesses.
1977–2013: glacier area from satellite images
The U.S. Geological Survey’s EROS Center publishes a series of glacier areas for Ararat, based on Landsat images (including early Return Beam Vidicon scenes) together with other satellite imagery, and describes the ice as Turkey’s largest glacier:
| Year | Glacier area |
|---|---|
| 1977 | 8.9 km² |
| 1987 | 8.7 km² |
| 1998 | 7.1 km² |
| 2000 | 6.7 km² |
| 2004 | 6.3 km² |
| 2008 | 5.6 km² |
| 2013 | 5.3 km² |
The same page reports that most of the loss took place on the southern, western and eastern sides. Between 1977 and 2013 the mapped area fell by 3.6 km², or about 40 percent.
Present-day official descriptions
Official Turkish pages describe the ice in general terms. GoTürkiye calls the summit snow-capped all year and covered with glaciers, the largest permanent ice mass in Türkiye. The Ağrı Governorship refers to a summit cap glacier and names July, August and September as the most suitable climbing months.
Neither page carries a date of observation. They describe the mountain’s usual character, not the snow on a particular day.
Why these records cannot be joined into one line
It is tempting to draw a single graph from 1829 to 2013. The sources do not allow it:
- Different quantities. Parrot measured the height of a snow line; the USGS series measures the area of glacier ice. One cannot be converted into the other.
- Different seasons. Snow cover changes through the year, so an observation made in September is not comparable with one made in another month, even in the same year.
- Different methods. A barometric height from 1829, a written description from 1876 and a satellite outline each carry their own error, and none of these sources states its uncertainty in a comparable way.
What the records do support is narrower: the summit has carried permanent ice throughout the documented period, and the mapped glacier area shrank between 1977 and 2013.
Using this page responsibly
None of these observations tells you what the snow, ice or rock surface is like today. Surface conditions change with each season and each storm. For current weather, use the Turkish State Meteorological Service’s forecasts and warnings for Ağrı and note the issue time; see season and weather. For the way hazard wording in sources should be read, see risk language. For the geology behind the ice cap, see geology and nature.
Sources
- Friedrich Parrot, Journey to Ararat, translated by W. D. Cooley, New York: Harper and Bros., 1846. Internet Archive. Read 14 September 2026.
- James Bryce, Transcaucasia and Ararat, 3rd ed., London: Macmillan, 1878. Internet Archive. Read 14 September 2026.
- USGS EROS Center, RBV Images Mount Ararat. Checked 14 September 2026.
- GoTürkiye, Mount Ararat (Ağrı Dağı) in Ağrı. Checked 14 September 2026.
- Ağrı Valiliği, Ağrı Dağı (page dated 14.09.2020). Checked 14 September 2026.
- Meteoroloji Genel Müdürlüğü, hourly forecast for Ağrı. Service reference; check the issue time when you use it.