The Marmolada, the largest glacier of the Dolomites—a mountain range in northeastern Italy—could completely melt by 2040, scientists have warned. Rising temperatures and snow droughts are major contributors to this alarming trend.
Italian scientists, involved in the ‘Caravan of Glaciers’ campaign by Legambiente, an environmentalist group, and the International Commission for the Protection of the Alps (CIPRA), supported by the Italian Glacier Committee, shared these findings with the public. Monitoring efforts revealed that the Marmolada glacier is losing between 7 and 10 cm of depth daily.
A press release by Legambiente highlighted that, in the past five years, the Marmolada has lost 173 acres of its surface area, equivalent to 98 football fields, underscoring the severe impacts of the climate crisis. The glacier has receded by 1,200 meters since scientific measurements began in 1888, and experts claim it is now in an “irreversible coma.”
The release stated, “At this rate, by 2040, the Marmolada glacier will no longer exist.”
The climate emergency has severely impacted the Italian Alps, with winter droughts and high summer temperatures accelerating glacier melt. Two of Italy’s largest glaciers—the Adamello, located between Lombardy and Trentino, and Forni, in Lombardy—are also showing concerning trends. Forni has retreated 800 meters in the past 30 years and 2 km over the past century. The Adamello glacier, the largest in Italy, has retreated approximately 200 meters since 2016 due to global warming, according to Copernicus, the EU’s Earth observation program.
In 2022, a glacier collapse on the Marmolada mountain triggered an avalanche of ice, snow, and rocks, resulting in the deaths of 11 people.
As glaciers melt, tons of waste have resurfaced in the area, including perfectly preserved weapons, sledges, letters, diaries, and even bodies of soldiers from World War I.
