Marbled, the glacier is dying. “No more than 15 years” – Chronicle

Padua, August 31, 2020 – Climate alert for the Marmolada glacier, which could ‘die’ in 15 years. The reduction in CO2 emissions induced by the coronavirus pandemic is good news for the planetary climate, but little to reverse a trend that seems to be out of control. The confirmation comes from annual measurements on the glacier of the Marbled conducted by geographers and glaciologists from the University of Padua.
“The glacier in the past 70 years now has lost more than 80% of its volume, going from 95 million cubic meters in 1954 to 14 million today – says Aldino Bondesan, coordinator of the Triveneto glaciological campaigns – and the predictions of its extinction are getting closer and closer: the glacier could not have more of 15 years of life “.

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Glacier measurements

Measurements have been made over the last 15 years by Mauro varotto, Scientific Director of the Museum of Geography of the University of Padua. “The surface of the glacier – observes Mauro Varotto – has grown from approximately 500 hectares estimated by Richter in 1888 ai 123 hectares in 2018. From 2010 to 2020, the forehead has moved back on average 10 meters per year on the 9 measurement signals. If we expand the trend of reduction of the surface of the last 100 years (3 ha / year), the end of the glacier is set for 2060; if we consider the contraction trend of the last 10 years (5 ha / year), the end comes before 2045; but the trend of the last 3 years is even more alarming (9 ha / year) and could lead to the disappearance of a large part of the glacier as early as 2031 ”.

Legambiente Tracking

Very similar results (only slightly more optimistic) come from the follow-up carried out in the fourth stage of the Legambiente Glaciers Caravan in La Marmolada, between Veneto and Trentino Alto Adige. Between 1905 and 2010 it lost more than 85% of its volume and the thickness went from 50 to a few meters. In the last decade there has been an acceleration of glacier melt phenomena and the trend that until 2000 allowed predicting depletion in one century has changed thereafter, so much so as to predict the disappearance of the glacier in the next. 20 or 30 years.

During the observations the effects of avalanches, landslides and rapid debris flows were observed, as a result of the recent denudation of the slopes and the extreme atmospheric phenomena that hit the region of the Dolomites. “The rigorous forecasts of the experts on the sudden disappearance of the glacier, now more than ever, must lead to innovative local development options with strong mitigation and adaptation actions for winter tourism as for all other areas”, says Legambiente, who yesterday he presented the results in Malga Ciapela, in the municipality of Rocca Pietore (Belluno), during a press conference with Vanda Bonardo, manager of Alpi Legambiente, Marco Giardino and Aldino Bondesan of the Italian Glaciological Committee, Luigi Lazzaro, president of Legambiente Veneto, and Mauro Valt di Arpa Veneto.