Marmolada, the glacier continues to shrink: 9 hectares lost in one year

The trend is negative. Because the Marmolada glacier is retreating and shrinking. Compared to last year, in its extension, 9 hectares less were recorded, i.e. 83 currently compared to 92 last year and "far away" from the 100 of 2023, on the western front, in a sign, a retreat of 120 meters was recorded in two years. This is what emerges from the eighth edition of the participatory Glaciological Campaign on the Marmolada promoted by the Geography Museum of the University of Padua, which saw the collaboration of researchers from the University of Padua, ARPAV, the Italian Glaciological Foundation, students and citizen volunteers from four different regions. «The 2026 campaign - underline the promoters - has allowed us to collect updated data, which is fundamental for continuing the monitoring of what remains of the main glacier of the Dolomites and better understanding the impact of climate change on a local scale».

The data collected this year, as underlined by Mauro Varotto, professor of the Department of Historical, Geographical and Antiquity Sciences and scientific director of the campaign, «exacerbates the trend already evident in recent decades, marking a new negative record of reduction in the surface of the glacier, which in one year lost 9 hectares, decreasing to a total of 83 hectares compared to 92 last year». «This is a record loss that we had only recorded in 2022 - he underlines, reporting the results of the analysis conducted on satellite images by Francesco Ferrarese -, with the tragic collapse of the glacier. If summers like the one just passed are repeated, the glacier could only have about ten years of life." About thirty people, aged 16 to 75, took part in the monitoring activities carried out on the glacier, including expert hikers, teachers, but also simple enthusiasts and the curious. «Overall, the frontal measurements record a retreat that has tripled compared to last year, - 23 metres, on average - underlines Giovanni Benetton, responsible for the measurements for the Italian Glaciological Foundation this year - and the most dramatic situation is that of the western front where in a signal we have recorded a retreat of 120 meters in two years, with a height of the front now over 2900 metres. The glacier is completely free of residual snow and the only one that remains is now the one under the geotextile sheets."

Then there is the temperature factor. «The summer of 2026 proved to be the hottest at altitude in the Dolomites since at least 1991, surpassing even that of 2003 in terms of persistence and average temperatures - comments Gianni Marigo of Arpav -. Taking August as an example, the deviation from the averages was more than 3 degrees centigrade. During the month, in Marmolada, in the Arpav Punta Rocca station at 3250 metres, only in 3 days was a negative minimum observed (-0.6°C absolute value) and no day with a negative average temperature was recorded". Not only that: «The intense processes of glacier ablation thus continued - he continues -, and there was no snowfall even at the highest altitudes; in the same way the degradation of the permafrost has continued, and on the Piz Boè station there is no frozen ground at any depth". To underline the educational aspect of the campaign and at the same time the importance of the glaciers Alberto Lanzavecchia of the University of Padua. And therefore the importance of observing the site, among the 150 that the Italian Glaciological Foundation "attends" every year. «2026 is proving to be a record year also on an Alpine scale, with losses of glacial thickness in this sector tripled compared to the average of the last decade and with the winter snow already running out at the end of July, weeks earlier than usual - concludes the person responsible for the Triveneto, Aldino Bondesansi -. In mid-August, in Marmolada, the surveys showed the crevasses upstream of the 2022 detachment niche filled with melt water, the same condition that our studies had identified at the origin of the collapse".