In the Alps the glaciers are continuing to shrink unabated

On the occasion of International Mountain Day, celebrated on 11 December, the fourth was presented Legambiente report and the Italian Geological Committee, Glacier Caravan 2023, the final work of the campaign which monitored the health of six glaciers along the entire Alpine range from August to September.The report shows how the climate crisis is hitting the ice sheets of the Alps hard: 2023 was a record negative climate year, with heat peaks at high altitudes, zero temperatures on peaks above 5000 meters and 144 extreme weather events recorded in the Alpine regions since January.The number of extreme events from 2010 to 2022 rises to 632, with three regions – Lombardy, Veneto and Piedmont – among the most affected.

The Belvedere Glacier is one of those chosen for the study:located in the Monte Rosa group, it is the largest in Piedmont.Its surface area has shrunk by 20% from the 1950s to today.In the last ten years it has lost 70 meters of thickness.The persistence of climate warming is increasing geomorphological instability, through debris landslides, ice collapses and the formation of glacial lakes.The same thing is happening to Adamello glaciers, Lares and Lobbia, also part of the study.Circular crevasses, called "cauldrons", appear with increasing frequency on their surface, leading to sudden ice collapses.The Lares glacier is the one that has lost the most:over 50% of the surface in 60 years, going from 6 square km in 1960 to 2.8 km today.

Even glaciers Swiss and Austrians, visited for the first time by the Caravan, are retreating:according to the latest data from Glamos, the Swiss glacier monitoring platform, lost a total of 3.3 cubic km of ice in 2022.THE'Ochsentaler he is losing his icy tongue;they are all retreating faster and faster and their total disappearance seems ever closer, if the increase in temperatures exceeds 2 degrees.The report underlines how the progressive retreat of glaciers is leading to a significant geomorphological transformation, also with the formation of numerous new lakes.In Valle D'Aosta between 2006 and 2015, 170 new glacial lakes appeared, doubling the number of existing ones.Instability events at high altitudes have also doubled, with an increase in debris flows and landslides.Trentino-Alto Adige is among the most frequently affected regions.

Meteorologist and climatologist Luca Mercalli, In the speak of the consequences of climate change on glaciers, declared that «scientific data is proving it, 2023 will be the hottest year ever.In the last two summers our glaciers have lost seven meters in thickness."In a video intervention created during the conference The ice mountain, which took place at the Forte di Bard, Mercalli recalled that the global temperature increased by one and a half degrees. «The objective of the Paris agreements has been lost.Now we must aim not to exceed two degrees, the last threshold deemed bearable for the planet.The increase in temperatures brings extreme heat waves, and these in the summer of 2022 alone caused 61 thousand deaths in Europe, of which 18 thousand in Italy alone".

“Our glaciers are suffering,” continued the expert.This summer, with the freezing point reaching 5300 metres, it also reached the summit of Mont Blanc temperatures above zero.During monitoring in September, the glaciers were black from the loss of their winter snow cover.«In the coming decades the retreat will be increasingly greater, and the glaciers will be below 3,500 metres they are destined to disappear» declares Mercalli, adding that «the time wasted in the last thirty years has paid for itself.We absolutely must halve emissions and bring them to zero by 2050.We still have room for maneuver, albeit late."

Legambiente and CGI ask the government to accelerate the pace and start implementing real policies to combat the ongoing ecological and climate crisis.«The Alps and the Mediterranean they are areas particularly sensitive to climate warming, here more than elsewhere there is a marked acceleration of the effects of the advancing climate crisis" they declared Giorgio Zampetti, general director of Legambiente and Vanda Bonardo, national Alpine manager for Legambiente.

«Adaptation is a process of adjustment, not a one-time answer to an emergency.The concept of total risk, which for too long has remained confined to the knowledge of experts, must become a daily and usual reference for those who govern us.This is why we ask the Meloni Government for a serious commitment on the part of Italy in the fight against the climate crisis with more ambitious climate policies, adaptation policies and concrete actions that can no longer be postponed, including support for the full implementation of the Budoia Charter and the creation of a 'European alliance for glaciers'.

[by Monica Cillerai]