Italian glaciers face accelerated retreat

Italian glaciers continued to retreat due to climate change in 2024, Legambiente said.

Alpine glaciers are increasingly thinner and almost all in strong retreat across the entire Alpine arc, with significant impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity, said the fifth annual report of Carovana dei glaciai entitled "The effects of the climate crisis on glaciers, the Alpine environment and biodiversity", produced in collaboration with the Glaciological Committee and Cipra Italia and presented in Milan at the Bicocca University, CE Report quotes ANSA.

The "symbolic glacier" of 2024 is the Adamello, the largest glacier in the Italian Alps, which in 2024 recorded a loss of thickness in the frontal sector of 3 meters and melting effects up to 3100 meters above sea level, the report said. The circular collapses due to the contraction of the glacial mass are expanding.

A photo taken in September is emblematic: with the front of its tongue completely uncovered, despite the 6 meters of snow measured in late spring on the Pian di Neve del Ghiacciaio. The Careser glacier (Ortles-Cevedale Group) is not doing well either, with an average loss of thickness of 190 centimeters, and in Alto Adige the Vedretta Lunga Glacier (Val Martello) and the Vedretta di Ries Glacier (Valle Aurina) with a loss of thickness on the tongues between one and a half and two meters, just to name a few.