Calderone glacier in Italy melting away amid rising temperatures

GRAN SASSO D'ITALIA (Italy) • The Calderone ice formation in central Italy once laid claim to being the southern-most glacier in Europe - before it shrank and split into much-diminished glacierets. Now, as climate change drives global temperatures ever higher, the glacier risks melting away into the geological record books altogether.

Situated in a deep valley in the Gran Sasso d'Italia, a massif in the Apennine Mountains, the Calderone glacier first split two decades ago. It became the southern-most glacier in Europe after the Corral del Veleta in the Sierra Nevada in Spain melted in the early 20th Century.

But it has since been in headlong retreat - its volume falling by some 90 per cent between 1916 and 1990, says a 2010 study in the Journal of Glaciology.

"This was the southern-most glacier in Europe and that's why it was an icon and a symbol, but now it is shrinking more and more," said glaciologist Massimo Frezzotti. "We estimate it could disappear within the next 10-20 years," said Professor Frezzotti, who is president of the Italian Glaciological Committee.

He said the ablation season - a period, usually the summer, when glaciers lose more mass than they gain - effectively disappeared because temperatures have increased. "The duration of the ablation seasons became longer, the rainfall remained constant but there is a reduction in the snowfall and of course the mass balance of the glacier has shrunk more and more," he said.

Professor Massimo Pecci, who has been studying the Calderone glacier for the past 25 years, said: "Since 2000, we have been witnessing a gradual reduction of the thickness, of the area and a further fragmentation into smaller glacierets."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE