Glaciers in the European Alps are becoming more unstable and dangerous, as rising temperatures linked to climate change are waking up what for a long time was seen as latent, almost fossilized ice sheets.
While Italy has been cooking in an early summer heat wave, attention has focused on the impact of the drought on crops in the fertile Po Valley.
But further north, in the Dolomites, a mountain range in northeastern Italy, the tragedy occurred on Sunday when a glacier collapsed on the Marmolada mountain, killing at least seven people. The mountain, reaching an altitude of more than 3,300 meters, is the highest in the mountains.
“This summer of 2022 runs the risk of being the perfect storm for glaciers,” said Giovanni Baccolo, an environmental scientist and glaciologist at Milano-Bicocca University in Milan, Italy.
Baccolo pointed to the lack of snow in winter and the onset of fiercely hot summer as contributing factors.
“No one could have expected a glacier like the Marmolada to react like that,” he told Reuters. “It’s a kind of climate fossil. Glaciers like the Marmolada are considered placid, they’re only expected to retreat.”
Incredible image of a helicopter from the mountain rescue of the basal detachment of La Marmolada.
Water lubrication at the base (or between the strata) and increased pressure in water-filled crevices are probably the main causes of this catastrophic event. pic. twitter.com/2OXRExkdjy
– @ aametsoc
Temperatures in the normally icy Marmolada hit 10 degrees on Saturday, according to Veneto’s regional governor Luca Zaia.
The huge mass of ice collapsed near Punta Rocca, on the route commonly used by hikers and climbers to reach the summit, the alpine rescue unit said.
“High-altitude glaciers like the Marmolada tend to be steep and rely on cold temperatures below 0 C to keep them stable,” said Poul Christoffersen, a professor of glaciology at Cambridge University.
“But climate change means more and more thawing water, releasing heat that heats the ice if the water freezes again, or worse: lifting the glacier from the rock below and causing a sudden unstable collapse.” , added.
I think while we know how a glacier recedes, we don’t know much about how it disappears. What has happened today in La Marmolada refers to a glacier considered relatively risk-free.
Nonlinear failure of small glaciers may become more frequent in the near future. pic.twitter.com/fKBsu0wWrY
– @ g_baccolo
Baccolo said those intrepid hikers heading to the mountains to escape the summer heat should be careful where they venture.
“The invitation I want to make to those who go to the high mountains this summer is to be much more careful,” he said. “The problem is that maybe it’s no longer enough to read the glacier signs that have been read so far.”