Scientists predict more landslides as global glacier melt is set to accelerate

The Marmolada glacier after collapsing in July 2022. Copyright Archivio Ufficio Stampa.

A major report published on Friday predicts more than half of all global glaciers could be lost by 2100.

The most comprehensive glacial projections to date, published in geoscience journal The Cryosphere, map the future of over 200,000 glaciers in various carbon emissions scenarios. Scientists say increasing melt rates will lead to more deadly landslides like the 2022 Marmolada glacier collapse in northern Italy that killed 11 people.

The report predicts global glaciers could lose up to 29 per cent of their total mass by 2100 in the most optimistic scenarios. Under higher carbon emission estimates, glacial mass could decrease by up to 54 per cent.

Dr. Giacomo Pellegrini is an environmental researcher at the University of Padua. His father comes from a village in the Dolomite mountains of northeast Italy, where the Marmolada glacier is located.

“In the past I remember... two, three meters of snow in the mountains. But now it's not so easy,” he said. “If it snows, especially in the village where my dad is from, Salesei di Sotto, which is exposed to the south, the snow melts quickly.”

In July 2022, 11 mountaineers were killed after a 64,000-tonne portion of the Marmolada, the largest glacier in the Dolomites, broke loose. Experts said the collapse was intensified by unusually high seasonal temperatures.

Dr. Pellegrini said he had lost “a couple of friends” in avalanches and landslides. The risk is now “higher because it’s warmer,” he said, “now in these years we are seeing a lot of landslides.”

According to Italian environmental organisation Legambiente, the Marmolada has shrunk by over 70 hectares in the past five years – a surface area equivalent to 98 football pitches. The glacier has lost more than 80% of its surface area in the last 150 years.

Dr. Fabien Maussion, co-author of The Cryosphere report and associate professor in Bristol’s Glaciology Centre, said rising temperatures are largely responsible for melt projections.

“What’s happening right now is that snowfall in the winter is not compensating for the higher melt in the summer months,” he said. Dr. Maussion warned that accelerated glacial melt in Europe will lead to more landslides because glaciers “hold our landscapes together.”

According to the report, glacial permafrost, or frozen ground, acts as a glue holding the earth’s surface in place. As glaciers melt, permafrost underneath thaws allowing previously frozen land to slide.

The Cryosphere report forecasts that Central Europe could lose more than 75 per cent of all glacier mass by 2100, meaning glaciers like the Marmolada could soon be lost.

Publication date: 20 November 2024.