 "This is the first country in the world to lose all glaciers. Here’s how")
Record-high temperatures, deluges, droughts, and wildfires, the impacts of climate change are evident.
Due to the warming temperatures, this country just lost its last glacier, after it turned into an ice field.
Venezuela is believed to be the first nation in modern times to have completely lost all of its glaciers.
“In Venezuela there are no more glaciers,” Professor Julio Cesar Centeno from the University of the Andes (ULA) told AFP in March, adding, “What we have is a piece of ice that is 0.4 per cent of its original size.”
Let’s take a closer look.
Venezuela loses its last glacier
There used to be six glaciers in Venezuela, located in the Sierra Nevada de Merida mountain range, about 5,000 metres above sea level.
According to The Guardian, five of them disappeared by 2011, leaving just the Humboldt glacier, also known as La Corona, close to the country’s second-highest mountain Pico Humboldt.
A few years of political unrest in the nation had prevented scientists from keeping an eye on the Humboldt glacier, which was expected to last at least another ten years.
The glacier melted far more quickly than predicted, according to evaluations made recently.
It was now less than two hectares in size, the report said.
Its classification was thus reduced from glacier to ice field.
Impact Shorts
More Shorts“Other countries lost their glaciers several decades ago after the end of the little ice age but Venezuela is arguably the first one to lose them in modern times,” The Guardian quoted Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist and weather historian who maintains a chronicle of extreme temperatures.
“The glacier at Humboldt does not have an accumulation zone and is currently only losing surface, with no dynamic of accumulation or expansion,” said Luis Daniel Llambi, an ecologist at Adaptation at Altitude, a programme for climate change adaptation in the Andes, the report said.
“Our last expedition to the area was in December 2023 and we did observe that the glacier had lost some two hectares from the previous visit in 2019, (down from four hectares) to less than two hectares now.”
The loss of many ecosystems
The Venezuelan government has put in a thermal blanket in December as its final attempt to protect the glacier from further melting, according to BBC News.
The government has not stated if the cover has been unrolled yet, but it was transported to Humboldt Peak in December by helicopter in 35 separate sections, each measuring 2.75 by 80 metres, as per Wion News.
However, some experts believe it to be too little, too late.
Julio Cesar Centeno is among the specialists who firmly believe that the Humboldt glacier, also called La Corona, is irreversibly melting.
“The loss of La Corona marks the loss of much more than the ice itself, it also marks the loss of the many ecosystem services that glaciers provide, from unique microbial habitats to environments of significant cultural value,” The Guardian quoted Caroline Clason, a glaciologist and assistant professor at Durham University.
Compared to nations like Peru, where tropical glaciers are far more widespread, Venezuela’s glaciers played a far smaller part in the region’s water supply.
“The biggest impact for me of the disappearance of glaciers is cultural,” Llambi told the publication, adding, “Glaciers were a part of the region’s cultural identity, and for the mountaineering and touristic activities.”
“This is an extremely sad record for our country, but also a unique moment in our history, providing an opportunity to (not only) communicate the reality and immediacy of climate change impacts, but also to study the colonisation of life under extreme conditions and the changes that climate change brings to high mountain ecosystems.”
The reason behind melting glaciers
El Nino weather has been plaguing the planet recently.
According to specialists, the phenomenon causes temperatures to rise, which may hasten the melting of tropical glaciers.
Clason, while speaking to The Guardian, said, “That Venezuela has now lost all its glaciers really symbolises the changes we can expect to see across our global cryosphere under continued climate change. As a glaciologist, this is a poignant reminder of why we do the job and what is at stake for these environments and for society.”
Dr James Kirkham and Dr Miriam Jackson, glaciologists with the ICCI and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, were quoted by BBC as saying, “The latest projections show that between 20 and 80% of glaciers globally will be lost by 2100 (with significant regional variation), depending on the emissions pathway followed.”
The two added that even though “a portion of this loss is already locked in,” rapidly lowering CO2 emissions could save other glacial deposits, “which will have enormous benefits for livelihoods, and energy, water and food security.”
Glaciers in other countries at risk
As per The Guardian, Herrera claims that Slovenia, Mexico, and Indonesia will be the next countries to lose their glaciers.
Recent record-high temperatures in Mexico and Papua Island, Indonesia, are predicted to hasten the glaciers’ retreat.
According to Llambi, as glaciers continue to recede from the Andes, what is happening in Venezuela is a reflection of what will happen from north to south, first in Colombia and Ecuador, then in Peru and Bolivia.
Earlier, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report also highlighted that most glaciers in the high-mountain region in Asia had lost significant mass because of record-breaking high temperatures and dry conditions.
Criteria for ice body to qualify as a glacier
A widely acknowledged guideline of about 10 hectares is provided by the US Geological Survey, however, there is no global standard for the minimum size of a body of ice that qualifies as a glacier.
Dr Kirkham and Dr Jackson explained to BBC that “glaciologists recognise a glacier as an ice mass that deforms under its own weight.”
They told the outlet in a joint statement, “Glaciologists often use a criteria of 0.1 square kilometre [10 hectares] as a common definition, but any ice mass above that size still has to deform under its own weight [to count].”
With inputs from agencies
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