Marmolada is losing ice, the mountains are becoming more unstable and water at high altitude is no longer a given. That is the picture painted by Legambiente Veneto for the seventh edition of the Glacier Caravan, the international campaign that sets off from France and once again shines a spotlight on the ever faster transformation of the Alps.
Climate change in the Dolomites is no longer just a matter of landscape. What is worrying are the knock-on effects: glacier retreat, degradation of permafrost, increased slope instability and shrinking water reserves available in summer.
Marmolada, an increasingly fragile glacier
Marmolada, together with Adamello and Mont Blanc, is for Legambiente one of the emblematic cases of the fragility of the Alpine arc. Driven by the heatwaves of recent weeks, the glacier continues to lose mass.
The ice now appears grey and deeply scored by meltwater streams, while its perimeter keeps shrinking. An image that starkly illustrates a transformation which, year after year, is changing the face of the mountains.
