Italy’s Marmolada Glacier Set to Disappear By 2040 As Temperatures Rise, Researchers Warn

The 3,343-meter Marmolada, known as the “Queen of the Dolomites,” is losing between 7 and 10 centimeters of ice every day. In the past five years, it lost the equivalent of 98 football pitches.

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The Marmolada glacier, the highest glacier of the Dolomites and an UNESCO World Heritage site, is disappearing and could melt away completely by as early as 2040.

The 3,343-meter glacier, located in the Alps mountain range in northeastern Italy and also known as the “Queen of the Dolomites,” is disappearing at a rate of between 7 and 10 centimeters a day, a recent assessment has revealed. It lost around 50% of its original surface in the past century and another 50% in the past decade. Since 2019, the glacier shrank by an additional 70 hectares or the equivalent of 98 football pitches.

Legambiente sounded the alarm in a press conference on Monday. In 2020, the environmental group and the international commission for the protection of the Alps (Cipra) launched the campaign Caravana dei Ghiacciai (Caravan of Glaciers) in partnership of the Italian Glacier Committee. Speaking with reporters after their latest expedition, the team of scientists behind the campaign said the Marmolada is a “suffering glacier” in an “irreversible coma.” The melting ice, they explained, is leaving a desert of white flat rock behind.

“[W]e have recounted the suffering of a dying glacier, marked by an acceleration of the melting process that has impressive numbers and that requires urgent responses starting from sustainable governance of the territory,” said Vanda Bonardo, national Alpine Coordinator for Legambiente and President of Cipra. But this, she explained, is just the latest example of how the climate crisis is impacting the Alps, one of Europe’s highest and most extensive mountain ranges.

“The Alps are a fundamental place at a national and European level, but they are also increasingly fragile due to the advancing climate crisis,” said Bonardo. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that temperatures in the Alps will rise by 1-3C by 2050.

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Scientists have repeatedly warned that the largest glaciers in the Alps, namely the Adamello and Forni, are experiencing similar challenges. The Forni Glacier is losing ice at a rate comparable to that of the Marmolada. Meanwhile, long-term measurements of the 3,539-meter Adamello indicate that its current surface is primarily composed of snowfall from the 1980s, highlighting the significant and ongoing decline in glacial mass.

68% of the world’s glaciers are set to disappear at the current global warming rate, with at least half of the loss taking place in the next 30 years, a 2023 study revealed. By 2100, central Europe, western Canada, and the US will have no glaciers left. Even under the most optimistic scenario of 1.5C of global warming set out in the Paris Agreement, 49% of the planet’s glaciers – not including the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets – would still melt completely, the study said.

Around 10% of the world’s land surface is currently covered by glaciers, which store 70% of the Earth’s freshwater. Melting glaciers contribute significantly to sea level rise. Between 2000 and 2019, meltwater from glacier and ice sheet loss alone accounted for 21% of the global sea level rise. Glacial melting also threaten water supplies for up to 2 billion people and increase the risk of natural hazards and extreme weather events such as flooding.  

With global warming and rising temperatures, these massive ice bodies are retreating at unprecedented rates. Between 1994 and 2017, glaciers worldwide lost nearly 30 trillion tons of ice and they are now melting at a rate equivalent to 1.2 trillion tons a year. Among the glaciers that are disappearing the fastest are those located in the Alps, Iceland, and Alaska. 

Featured image: Wikimedia Commons.