Italy’s Ventina glacier, one of the largest in northern Lombardy, has receded so significantly due to climate change that geologists can no longer measure it using methods employed for the past 130 years.
Following this year’s intense summer heat, scientists discovered that the simple stakes, historically used as benchmarks to track the glacier’s annual retraction, are now buried under rockslides and debris.
This has made the terrain too unstable for future in-person visits. The Lombardy Glaciological Service confirmed on Monday that it will now utilise drone imagery and remote sensing to monitor the ongoing shrinkage.
Geologists report that the Ventina glacier has already lost 1.7 kilometres (1 mile) in length since the first measuring benchmarks were established in 1895.
The melting has accelerated dramatically in recent years, with the glacier losing 431 metres (471 yards) in the last decade alone, nearly half of that since 2021.
This serves as a stark example of how accelerating global warming is causing Europe’s glaciers to diminish, leading to widespread environmental impacts.
“While we could still hope until the 1980s that there would be normal cycles (of retraction) or at least a contained retraction, in the last 40 years something truly striking has occurred,” said Andrea Toffaletti, a member of the Lombardy Glaciological Service.
Italy’s mountain glaciers, which are found throughout the Alps and Dolomites in the north and along the central Apennines, have been receding for years, thanks to inadequate snowfall in the winter and record-setting hot summers. Glaciers always melt some in summer, with the runoff fueling mountain streams and rivers.
But the hot summers are “no longer able to guarantee the survival of the winter snowpack,” which keeps the glacier intact, Toffaletti said.
“In order to regenerate and remain in balance, a certain amount of residual snow from the winter must remain on the glacier’s surface at the end of the summer. And this is happening less and less frequently,” said Toffaletti.
According to the Lombardy service, the Alps represent a climate hotspot, recording double the global average of temperature increases since pre-industrial times, resulting in the loss of over 64 per cent of the volume of Alpine glaciers.
In February, the journal Nature reported on a study showing the world’s glaciers lost ice at the rate of about 255 billion tons (231 billion metric tons) annually from 2000 to 2011, but that quickened to about 346 billion tons (314 billion metric tons) annually over about the next decade.
