Venezuela has lost all its glaciers
Venezuela becomes the first country in the Andes to lose all its glaciers, creating concern for the health of glaciers in other parts of the world, including Alaska.Venezuela has become the first country in the world to lose all its glaciers in the modern era. Despite being in the tropics, the southwestern region of Venezuela is situated in the Andes Mountain range, where low temperatures are regularly recorded. Until 1910, Venezuela had six glaciers covering a total area of 1,000 square kilometers. However, today, these have been reduced to small fragments of ice that no longer qualify as glaciers. The last remaining glacier was La Corona on Pico Humboldt, in the Sierra Nevada National Park, but it has now disappeared, transforming into an ice field.
La Corona, which once covered 4.5 square kilometers, has shrunk to less than 0.02 square kilometers, thus losing its glacier status, as generally, according to National Geographic, an area of at least 0.1 square kilometers is required to be considered a glacier. Now, at the summit of Pico Humboldt, only a patch of ice remains, lacking the ecological dynamics of a glacier. However, its disappearance is not a new phenomenon. Since the 1970s, the ice on Humboldt has been retreating, and due to rising temperatures caused by climate change, it accelerated dramatically since 2016. In fact, recent research by Nereo Ramírez shows that glacier coverage in Venezuela decreased by 98% between 1953 and 2019. The disappearance of glaciers in Venezuela has significant effects on mountain ecosystems, especially in the Sierra de Mérida. The disappearance of the Pico Humboldt glacier is allowing slow vegetation colonization in the rocky areas previously covered by ice. The formation of new soil and the adaptation of species to changing climatic conditions are uncertain, highlighting the urgent need for conservation measures. There were governmental efforts to try to save the glacier by deploying a geotextile blanket. However, this failed and raised concerns about pollution caused by the blanket’s degradation. The Venezuelan scientific community and the general population feel deep sadness over the loss of the glaciers. Mérida, the closest city, is known as the City of Eternal Snows. However, with the accelerated melting of the glaciers, that image is rapidly changing. This does not mean that efforts should not be made to preserve the remaining ice fragments. In fact, researcher Luis Daniel Llambi said in an interview with The Guardian that the remaining ice on Humboldt has significant cultural and scientific value, and many refuse to declare it extinct until it has completely disappeared. Beyond the Andes and Latin America, the disappearance of glaciers is a global problem. Projections show that the world could lose between 20% and 80% of its glaciers by 2100, depending on reductions in CO2 emissions. Rapid reduction of these emissions could save other glacier deposits, which would have enormous benefits for energy, water, and food security. In Alaska, one of the most glaciated regions of the world outside the poles, glaciers are also rapidly diminishing. During a 50-year interval between the 1950s and early 2000s, glaciers within national parks have been reduced by 8%. From 1985 to 2020, the area covered by glaciers in Alaska decreased by 13%. As this trend continues to accelerate, our efforts to conserve them must accelerate too. |