On Saturday, July 2nd, an unknown river, formed beneath the glaciers of Mount Marmolada in Italy’s Alps, broke free, lifting the glacial ice and carrying a chunk down 3,300 meters (10,830 feet). After a week of search-and-rescue missions, 11 people were confirmed to have died in this avalanche. A day of mourning was held to honor the dead, which included at least 3 Italians, 2 of them mountain guides. The tragedy was a turning point for Italy, a re-awakening regarding the impacts of climate change, and a symbol of climate change’s strong presence in the world.
Giovanni Baccolo, a researcher at the University of Milan said that “the specific event of the Marmolada will be remembered as a sort of epiphany that reveals the new conditions of the mountains and of alpine glaciers… some glaciers that were not considered a menace, now, they can potentially produce some problems.”
After the glacial collapse, parts of the mountain were closed off as rescue teams dove in, both to clear the way for search groups and to protect visitors from dangerous areas. Rescue coordinators used drones and helicopters to search the area, as Italy’s National Alpine and Cave Rescue Corps deemed the glacier unstable and too dangerous to search by foot. A few days later, a clearer forecast allowed experts and search dogs to venture to the lower part of the mountain, according to CNN. The threat of further ice-slippage loomed above these rescuers, a risk to their lives while they searched for others.
Prime Minister Mario Draghi visited the area on Monday, promising that the government would “reflect on what happened and… take action, so that what has occurred has a very low chance of happening [again] or can even be prevented.”
Glaciers that were once stable and reliable, offering Italians year-round skiing, are now incredibly unpredictable. Italy’s Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, linked the incident to climate change, a result of rising temperatures in the region. In the Alps, the average temperature has increased by roughly two degrees celsius, twice the global average. According to Politico, the springs are warmer, with temperatures consistently above zero, and the winters bring less snow that is needed to keep the glacier locked in place. In just ten years, from 2004 to 2015, the glacier volume has shrunk 30 percent, according to a 2019 study by Italy’s National Research Council. Glacier collapses like this are predicted to become more frequent, according to Paul Christoffersen, a professor of glaciology at the University of Cambridge.
According to the New York Times, there are climate change consequences on the shape of the continent, vegetation, animal life, water cycles, and national boundaries that were drawn along glacier lines. Most importantly, this incident exposes a threat to people simply living in glacial areas. Natural disasters such as this are not only difficult to predict but give very low odds of survival and rescue.
This accident begs the question of what can really be done? There are about 920 glaciers in Italy, almost all in the Alps, presenting a lot of threat as each begins to melt. Ideally, glacier monitoring would allow scientists to warn people before an ice chunk slips. However, monitoring is expensive, laborious, and not foolproof as scientists can only really see the glacier’s surface. Currently, only 70 glaciers are monitored and the deployment of new monitoring systems is too slow to catch up with the speed of climate change.
Until monitoring is better developed and deployed, all the government can do is warn people and close off dangerous areas – like a beach closure when a shark is spotted. Reassuring people and giving warnings will allow the government to gain the trust of the people and prevent more deaths as this threat accelerates. However, all this will still just be a bandaid on the long-term detrimental climate change effects. Italy, as well as the rest of the world, must start looking at rising global temperature as a serious threat and re-evaluate its policies to halt its damaging effects. For now, reviving the mountain that has problems flowing beneath its surface, seems to be the safest short-term solution.
