Fears Mont Blanc Glacier Might Fall, Last Ice Shelf In Canadian Arctic Collapses

After a renewed warning that a large part of a Mont Blanc glacier is at risk of collapse, residents of the Italian Aosta Valley have said they will evacuate their homes.

The call to leave the city of Courmayeur came on Wednesday morning after the Fondazione Montagne Sicura (Safe Mountains Foundation) announced that 500,000 cubic meters of ice were in danger of slipping off the Planpincieux Glacier in the Grandes Jorasses Park, just one of 4,000 glaciers the Mont Blanc massif.

The glacier, like so much all over the world, has been in gradual decline for many years. The same area was evacuated in September 2019 following a warning that 250,000 cubic meters of ice could fall – that is heal the size of the section now risks aborting. And in 2018, a man and a woman were killed at Courmayeur when their car was off the road, prompting an evacuation of the surrounding region.

Experts checking Planpincieux say a new section of ice runs the risk of collapsing and that the movement of the glacier mass was due to “anomalous temperature trends.”

About 75 people, tourists included, have left homes in Val Ferret, the neighborhood under the glacier and roads closed to traffic and pedestrians. In the case of a column, it would take less than two minutes for the masses to reach the municipal road below.

The towering ice block is the equivalent of Milan Cathedral, as “a football field with 80 meters of ice on it”, said Valerio Segor, director of the natural risk management service for the Aosta Valley region, said at a press conference in northwestern Italy city ​​of Courmayeur, near the French border.

Unfortunately, the glaciers in the Italian Alps are not the only ice masses to melt as a result of rising global temperatures. The last fully intact ice scale in the Canadian Arctic – the Milne Ice Shelf – has collapsed, losing more than 40 percent of its area in just two days at the end of July, researchers said on Thursday, August 6th.

“Above normal air temperature, offshore wind and open water for the ice rink are all part of the recipe for ice rink breaking,” said the Canadian Ice Service on Twitter when the loss was announced on Sunday, August 2nd.

“Whole cities are so big. These are large pieces of ice, “said Luke Copland, a glaciologist at the University of Ottawa who was part of the research team, told Reuters.

An area of ​​about 80 square kilometers has been demolished; by comparison, the island of Manhattan covers about 60 square kilometers. “This was the largest remaining intact ice shelf, and it’s basically disintegrated,” Copland said.

In August 2005, Ayles’ entire ice rink broke away from Ellesmere Island, leaving only five major ice sheets. The Ex-Markham Ice Shelf collapsed in August 2008, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf calved two ice islands between July 22 and July 24, 2008, the entire Ex-Ayles Ice Shelf calved to form an ice island on August 13, 2005, the Petersen Ice Shelf has lost more than a third of its area since August 2005, 60 percent of the Serson Ice Shelf calved in July 2008 and now of course the Milne Ice Shelf.

The Arctic has warned twice the global rate over the last 30 years, as a result of a process known as Arctic amplification, but this year temperatures in the polar region have been extreme.

Arctic amplification is a vicious circle that threatens smaller ice caps in particular; they can melt quickly because they do not have the bulk that larger glaciers need to keep cold. As the ice disappears, more bedrock is exposed, which then heats up and speeds up the melting process.

The polar ice cap hit its lowest level for July in 40 years. Wildfires in Siberia have burned an area larger than Greece and summer in the Canadian Arctic this year was an unusual 5 ° C above the 30-year average, Copland said.