The collapse of glaciers, global thermometers

The collapse of the glacier marbled –the “queen” of the dolomites Italians – and the avalanche of stones, ice and snow that killed at least 11 people when advancing at a speed of 300 kilometers per hour, has been a new warning sign of what can happen in much larger dimensions in the Himalayas or the Andes if he climate change continues to erode their ecosystems.

When the avalanche began, at the summit of Marmolada the thermometers marked 10º, extremes at 3,300 meters. According to Massimo Frezzottidirector of the Italian Glaciological Institute, in the last century its peak has lost 80% of its ice, a process that has accelerated since 2000.

The National Ricerche Council estimates that between 2004 and 2015 its glacier shrank by 30%. This year, the lack of snow left it unprotected from solar radiation. On July 8 something similar happened in the mountains Tian Shan in Kyrgyzstan, when the second glacier collapsed so far this year. In the previous days, temperatures exceeded 15º at 3,600 meters.

The images captured by a British mountaineer, Harry Shimminand you hung on Instagram they show an avalanche of tons of glacial ice from which it was barely possible to save. In 2016, within a few months of each other, two adjoining glaciers collapsed in the western tibet. One of the avalanches covered 7.7 square kilometers and reached speeds of 144 kilometers per hour, killing nine people and hundreds of animals.

Natural and anthropogenic hazards

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that the 220,000 glaciers of the world will disappear by the end of the century if the climate changewhich is altering the frequency, magnitude and location of almost all natural hazards of anthropogenic origin.

half of the glaciers Alpine and Pyrenean mountains could disappear by 2050 because their ice caps and blocks melt faster from the inside, which releases water that ends up breaking it at its base. According to him IPCCthe increasingly intense, frequent and early heat wavesthey are altering the snowfall in all the great mountain ranges and mountain ranges.

Renato Colucci, professor of glaciology at the University of Trieste, believes that current climatic conditions make glaciers that were created tens of thousands of years ago unsustainable. those of the Patagonia they expanded during a million years until occupying it almost completely. after the last glaciationabout 18,000 years ago, its retreat left large lakes, including the Chilean Llanquihue860 square kilometers, the Strait of Magellan and the fjords and channels of western Patagonia.

“Half of the Alpine and Pyrenean glaciers could disappear by 2050”

Argentine and Chilean scientists have discovered in the area what could be the deepest lake on the continent near the glacier of Viedma, an area unexplored until now because it was covered by ice that was believed to be perpetual. Since 2014 they have lost 5.5 square kilometers of surface. The lake next to the glacier sinks into a trench 900 meters deep, up to 650 meters below sea level.

In the dolomites, the melting is opening a window to the past, historical and geological. A century ago, during the so-called “white war” (1915-1918) fought by the Italians and Austro-Hungarians on the Alpine front of the Great War, the troops fought in temperatures below 35º below zero. 30 years ago you could ski on the marbled in summer.

Aragonese Pyrenees

The Pyrenean massifs Infierno, Monte Perdido, Posets and Maladeta, which are home to the southernmost rivers of perpetual ice in Europe, are particularly vulnerable. According to scrambled jesusresearcher at the Pyrenean Institute of Ecology (IPE) of the CSICbetween 2011 and 2020 the glaciers of the central Aragonese Pyrenees have gone from 2,060 hectares in 1850 to the current 210 and from 52 to 19 ice masses.

According to a study published in Nature in April 2021, mountain glaciers lost 298 gigatons (1 GT=1,000 million tons) of ice per year between 2015 and 2019 at a rate 30% times higher than in the previous five years. For your calculations, the study of Nature used the images captured by the earth satellite NASA, which since it was launched in 1999 circles the planet every 100 minutes.

“According to a study published in ‘Nature’mountain glaciers lost 298 gigatonnes of ice annually between 2015 and 2019»

The photos show the evolution of glacial ice masses. On average, glaciers have lost 4% of their ice mass since 2000, but those of Alaska 25%, those of Greenland 14% and those from the north and south of Canada 10%.

The smaller ones and at lower heights are the most vulnerable. The New Zealanders – who served as the setting for The Lord of the Rings trilogy– they are regressing at rates triple those prior to 2000. That of the Alpines is double the world average.

environmental bills

The disappearance of the glaciers has a price. In early summer, in Milan, Lombardy, the maximum temperatures reached 40º. The Po It is at the lowest levels of which there are records. The Pianura Padana It is the Italian agricultural heart. His crops of wheat, barley and rice in Piedmont and Lombardy use irrigation canals that carry water from the Alpine mountains to the plains of the valley and the Po basin.

If the drought continues, this year 30% of the crops will be lost. According to the European Drought Observatory, the lakes What Y Maggiore, are at levels that represent a fraction of the usual: 26% and 12.4%, respectively. The climate future is further ahead than previously thought possible, requiring urgent solutions.

A study by Media Matters for America showed that of all programs dedicated to climate change on US television, only 30% discussed possible solutions. Coldirettithe Italian agricultural confederation, for example, proposes to invest in building reservoirs to store rainwater, most of which, carried by rivers, is lost in the sea. According to Massimiliano Fazzinifrom the Italian Society of Geology, the transalpine country has 920 glaciers, almost all of them in the Alpsbut only about 70 are closely monitored despite the fact that since 2000, Italy has lost 25% of the water generated by its glaciers.

andean heights

Other solutions go through the courts, a field in which Peruvians are especially imaginative. It’s explainable. In the last half century, the Andean country has lost 51% of its glaciers, according to the National Water Authority. The Peruvian and Ecuadorian glaciers are tropical, like those of the Colombian Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta. Its snow-capped peaks rise to 5,700 meters just a stone’s throw from the warm, turquoise waters of the Caribbean. Its coastal mountain system, the highest in the world, houses all the planet’s thermal floors in the 17,000 square kilometers of the National Park of Tayronaincreasingly threatened by climate change and illegal mining.

“Island countries like Antigua and Barbuda and Tuvalu are considering suing other countries because their emissions threaten to wipe them off the map”

Given the passivity of governments, the defense of ecosystems has passed into the hands of native peoples, environmental organizations and social movements. the tide of climate litigation it is rising from one end of the world to the other. Island countries like Old and bearded in the Caribbean and Tuvaluan in the South Pacific, they are considering suing other countries because their emissions threaten to wipe them off the map by submerging their territories.

In November 2015, the Peruvian farmer Luciano Lliuya sued in court in Hamm (North Rhine-Westphalia) against RWEthe largest German electricity company, for its alleged responsibility in the progressive disappearance of glaciers Palcaraju Y Pucaranra in the Huascarán National Park of the Cordillera Blanca de Ancash. According to their allegations, the lagoon of Palcacocha, at 4,650 meters high, threatens to overflow and flood their “chacras” (farms, in Quechua). In 1941 the Palcacocha lagoon overflowed towards Huaraz, the capital of Ancashi, due to an avalanche of glaciers. 1,800 people died.

germanwatcha German environmental NGO, advises Lliuya. Christoph Balsits director, believes that the case, which has already entered its final phase, is going to set an important legal precedent on the responsibilities of large emitters in climate change.

Demand for liuya requires to RWE –which had a turnover of 24,500 million euros in 2021– assuming 0.47% of the adaptation costs, financing, among other things, drainage systems for the lagoon. That figure is based on a calculation based on RWE’s emissions since its founding, 124 years ago. According to a 2014 study by the Climate Accountability Institute, between 1751 and 2010 the largest emitters were Chevron USA (3.52%), ExxonMobil (3.22%), BP UK (2.47%), Royal Dutch Shell (2 .12%), ConocoPhillips USA (1.16%), Total France (0.82%) and BHP Billiton Australia (0.52%).

Damages

It will be very difficult, however, for developed countries to compensate anyone. at the summit of glasgow (COP26), did not support a proposal from countries of the Global South to create a fund that finances the protection of populations affected by hurricanes, forest fires, floods and other environmental disasters.

According to the Latin American platform Climate Litigation, in the last five years fifty legal proceedings have been initiated against contamination from mining, oil and other extractive industries. as he writes Maria Antonia Tigre in the Journal of Human Rights and the Environmentthe region is “quietly leading” a revolution in environmental law by proposing that international climate agreements –such as the one in Paris in 2015– be legally binding for States.