As Italy bakes in an early summer heatwave, attention has focused on the effects of drought on crops in the fertile Po Valley. But further north in the Dolomites, a mountain range in northeastern Italy, tragedy struck on Sunday when a glacier collapsed on Marmolada mountain, killing at least seven people. The mountain, reaching a height of over 3,300 meters, is the highest in the range. “This summer of 2022 risks being the perfect storm for glaciers,” said Giovanni Baccolo, an environmental scientist and glaciologist at the University of Milano-Bicocca in Milan, Italy. Baccolo noted the lack of winter snow and a very warm start to the summer as contributing factors. “No one would expect a glacier like Marmolada to react like this,” he told Reuters. “It’s a kind of climate fossil. Glaciers like Marmolada are considered quiescent, they’re just expected to recede.” Incredible helicopter footage of the mountain rescue of the main detachment in Marmolada.
Water lubrication in the base (or interstrata) and increased pressure in water-filled cracks are probably the main causes for this catastrophic event pic. twitter.com/2OXRExkdjy —@aametsoc Temperatures in the usually frozen Marmolada touched 10 degrees Celsius on Saturday, according to Veneto regional governor Luca Zaia. The huge mass of ice collapsed near Punta Roca, on the route usually used by hikers and climbers to reach the summit, the Alpine rescue unit said. “High altitude glaciers like Marmolada are often steep and rely on cold temperatures below 0C to keep them stable,” said Poul Christoffersen, Professor of Glaciation at the University of Cambridge. “But climate change means more and more meltwater, which releases heat that warms the ice if the water freezes again, or worse: lifting the glacier off the bedrock below and causing a sudden unstable collapse,” he added. I think that while we know how a glacier recedes, we don’t know much about how it disappears. What happened today in Marmolada involves a glacier that is considered relatively harmless. Nonlinear failure of small glaciers may become increasingly common 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 about 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 it may no longer be enough to read the signs from the glacier that have been read so far.”