Vienna - Four Austrian glaciers have increased in size in 2008, but the Austrian Alpine Club warned Friday that this was no sign of a new trend, as the majority of glaciers continued to melt in 2008.

"The last time we had a larger number of growing glaciers was in 1997," the Alpine Club's lead researcher Gernot Patzelt said.

However, the group's latest study found that 83 of 94 monitored glaciers continued to melt by up to 49 metres, as temperatures lay above long-term averages by 0.4 degrees in winter and 0.9 degrees in summer.

On average, Austria's glaciers shrank by 12.8 metres in length, more than one metre below the 10-year average.

The below-average decrease was due to the fact that large ends of several glaciers - called glacier tongues - had disintegrated in previous years, and that there were no such developments last year.

In recent years, some glaciers in Austria and Germany have been covered with protective textiles in summer to prevent them from shrinking even further.