For the population of the Venezuelan state of Mérida, the glacial peaks of its Sierra Nevada have been a source of pride since time immemorial: the mountains are part of the regional identity and the origin of several legends in the area which relate them to the mythical white eagles.
However, none of the six glaciers that crowned the mountains survived.
The International Climate and Cryosphere Initiative (ICCI), a science advocacy organization, recently declared that the Humboldt Glacier – also known as La Corona, or “the crown” in Spanish – is already “too small to be classified as a a glacier.” In March, Venezuelan scientists warned that the glacier had shrunk dramatically.
“Our tropical glaciers have started to disappear since the 1970s and their absence is felt. It is a great sadness and the only thing we can do is use his legacy to show children how beautiful our Sierra Nevada was,” Alejandra Melfo, astrophysicist at the Universidad de los Andes de Mérida, said in an interview with Noticias Telemundo.
Venezuela had six glaciers in the Sierra Nevada, located about 16,000 feet above sea level. By 2011, five had already disappeared, but the Humboldt Glacier, located near the country’s second-highest mountain, Humboldt Peak, withstood the onslaught of climate. Scientists believe their disappearance makes Venezuela the first country in the Americas – and the first country in modern history – to lose all of its glaciers.
Glaciers are large masses of ice that have formed due to the accumulation of snow over centuries. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), they typically exist where average annual temperatures reach levels near freezing and winter precipitation causes significant snow accumulations.
An important aspect of glacier development is that temperatures during the rest of the year must not cause the complete loss of the previous winter’s snowpack, this is how glaciers are maintained and grow. And that is what failed in the Humboldt case.
“In the case of Humboldt, it is an erosion process that has been going on for years without stopping,” said Melfo.
With global temperatures rising due to climate change, the melting of large masses of ice is an ongoing phenomenon that, among other things, contributes to rising sea levels around the world.
“It’s the end of a glacial cycle. And in the intertropical zones, basically below 5,000 meters, almost all glaciers are disappearing,” said Maximiliano Bezada, a geological researcher at the University of Minnesota. “The Humboldt case was iconic because it is at 4,800 meters and yet it remained there for a long time, and that is a climate anomaly.”
Although the Humboldt Glacier was expected to last at least another decade, scientists have been unable to monitor the area where it is located due to political turmoil in the country.
“Venezuela’s glaciers are not the first to disappear, some have disappeared in Colombia and other countries. What happens is that Venezuela had few and all in the Sierra Nevada, I saw how the glaciers of Pico La Concha and Pico Bolívar disappeared. That’s why it’s the first country to run out of glaciers,” said Melfo.
‘The consequences of higher temperatures’
Due to their large mass, glaciers tend to flow like very slow-moving rivers. Although there is no universal consensus on how large an ice mass must be to be considered a glacier, the USGS states that a commonly accepted standard is about 25 acres.
The case of the Humboldt glacier is not the only one. Glaciers around the world are shrinking and some are disappearing faster, defying scientific projections. A 2023 Study analyzed the planet’s 215,000 land glaciers more comprehensively than previous research and concluded that if temperatures continue to rise, 83% of the world’s glaciers will disappear by the year 2100.
“Although the end of the glacier was something that would happen due to the cycle we live in, there is no doubt that global warming, a product of greenhouse gases, naturally accelerated the process of disappearance,” said Bezada.
Between 1952 and 2019 alone, Venezuela’s glacial surface went from 2,317 square kilometers to just 0.046 square kilometers, according to data a 2020 study.
“There are several projects that monitor changes in the Sierra Nevada with temperature sensors buried in the ground and measured every six months. The evidence shows warming, in addition, the plants that grow there are changing because climate change is already felt in the Andes peaks,” said Melfo.
Researchers believe that the El Niño climate phenomenon influenced the melting of the Humboldt Glacier, because it causes higher temperatures that accelerate the disappearance of tropical glaciers.
“The speed at which glaciers melt is proof of climate change. However, this is not new. Glaciers started disappearing a long time ago, but the speed changed due to high temperatures,” said Melfo. “In addition to glaciers, we are seeing rapid changes in the composition of species, plants and animals, and this is recorded. Denying climate change has become a very dangerous thing for everyone.”
The Andes region – a mountain range that runs through parts of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela – has seen a temperature increase of at least 0.10 degrees Celsius over the past seven decades. For several scientists, this is one of the main reasons why Venezuela lost all its glaciers.
“In the Andean zone of Venezuela there were some months with above-average monthly anomalies, which is exceptional in these tropical latitudes,” said Maximiliano Herrera, climatologist and meteorological historian.
However, the melting of the glacier is also an opportunity for further study. Melfo said that the end of the glacier in Venezuela marks the beginning of a new process in the area and an event that should be investigated.
“Life begins to emerge and colonize the rock. First come the lichens, then the mosses create the soil, organic matter is created and this creates conditions for the plants to arrive, and then the animals come. It’s called primary succession and it’s a unique process,” she said.
Meanwhile, what little ice remains in Humboldt will continue to melt. Residents of Mérida, including Melfo, say the glacier will continue to exist as long as the white remains can be seen from the city – which is no longer the case with other glaciers.
“For the people of Mérida, perhaps the most beloved glacier was Pico Bolívar, which since 2012 was a remnant of a glacier. However, people continued to say it was a glacier until the last piece of ice that could be seen from the city disappeared in 2020,” Melfo said. “I think the same thing will happen with Humboldt: until the last bit disappears, we’ll keep saying it’s a glacier.”
An earlier version of this story was first published in Noticias Telemundo.
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
