The Humboldt glacier has shrunk to an area of less than 2 hectares, leading to the downgrade in classification
Venezuela is thought to be the first nation in modern times to have completely lost all of its glaciers. The International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI), a scientific advocacy organisation, said on X (formerly Twitter) that the South American nation’s only remaining glacier — the Humboldt, or La Corona, in the Andes — had become “too small to be classed as a glacier”.
Hence, the glacier has been reclassified as an ice field.
Latest studies have found that the Humboldt glacier has shrunk to an area of less than 2 hectares. Hence, its classification was downgraded from glacier to ice field as the US Geological Survey says a commonly accepted guideline for a glacier is around 10 hectares.
The country had been home to 6 glaciers in the Sierra Nevada de Mérida mountain range. Five of the glaciers had disappeared by 2011, leaving just Humboldt. The Humboldt glacier was projected to last at least another decade but latest assessments have found the glacier melted much faster than expected.
Venezuela’s political turmoil has prevented scientists from monitoring the glacier site for a few years now. Still, experts believe that rising climate change and the recent El Niño climate phenomenon, which leads to hotter temperatures, may accelerate the demise of tropical glaciers.
Although the Venezuelan government has installed a thermal blanket to prevent further melting, experts say the attempt is futile.
According to scientists, Indonesia, Mexico, and Slovenia are next in line to become glacier-free, as the world has experienced record-breaking temperatures over the past couple of years.
Earlier, a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report also highlighted that most glaciers in the high-mountain region of Asia had lost significant mass because of record-breaking high temperatures and dry conditions.
In the end, if expert opinion is to be believed, the melting of the glaciers could well be irreversible and it’s imperative to protect them while we still can.
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