For the inhabitants of the Venezuelan state of Mérida, the glaciated peaks of the 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 that link them mythical white eagles.
However, none of the six glaciers that crowned the mountains remain.
The International Climate and Cryosphere Initiative (ICCI), a science advocacy organization, recently stated that the Humboldt Glacier — also known as La Corona, or “the crown” in Spanish — is already “too small to be considered a glacier classified’. In March, Venezuelan scientists had warned that the glacier had shrunk dramatically.
“Our tropical glaciers started disappearing since the 1970s and their absence is felt. It is a great sadness and all we can do is use their legacy to show children how beautiful our Sierra Nevada was,” says Alejandra Melfo , an astrophysicist at the Universidad de los Andes in Mérida, said in an interview with Noticias Telemundo.
Venezuela had six glaciers in the Sierra Nevada, about 5,000 meters 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 weather’s onslaught. Scientists believe its disappearance makes Venezuela the first country in the Americas – and the first country in modern history – to lose all its glaciers.
Glaciers are large bodies of ice formed by the accumulation of snow over centuries. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), they usually occur where the average annual temperature is near freezing and winter precipitation causes significant accumulations of snow.
An important aspect of glacier development is that temperatures during the remainder of the year should not cause the complete loss of the previous winter’s snow accumulation; this is how glaciers are maintained and how they grow. And that’s what failed in the Humboldt case.
“In the case of the Humboldt, it is a process of erosion that has been going on for years without stopping,” Melfo said.
With the rise in global temperatures due to climate change, the melting of large ice masses is an ongoing phenomenon that, among other things, contributes to sea level rise around the world.
“It’s the end of a glacier cycle. And in the intertropical zones, actually below 5,000 meters, almost all the glaciers have disappeared,” 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 persisted for quite a long time, and that is a climatic anomaly.”
Although the Humboldt Glacier was expected to last at least another decade, scientists had been unable to monitor the area where it is located due to political unrest 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 very few in the Sierra Nevada. I watched the glaciers of Pico La Concha and Pico Bolívar disappear. That is why it is the first country where there are no more glaciers,” says Melfo.
‘The consequences of higher temperatures’
Because of their large mass, glaciers tend to flow like very slow rivers. Although there is no universal consensus on how large a mass of ice must be to be considered a glacier, the USGS states that a generally accepted standard is approximately 25 hectares.
The case of the Humboldt Glacier is not the only one. Glaciers around the world are shrinking and some are disappearing faster, despite scientific projections. A 2023 study analyzed Earth’s 215,000 terrestrial glaciers in more detail than previous research and concluded that, if temperatures continue to rise, 83% of the world’s glaciers will be gone by the year 2100.
“Although the end of the glacier was something that was going to happen because of the cycle we are experiencing now, there is no doubt that global warming, a product of greenhouse gases, has of course accelerated the process of disappearance,” Bezada said.
According to a 2020 study, Venezuela’s glacier area alone went from 2,317 square kilometers to just 0.046 square kilometers between 1952 and 2019.
“There are several projects monitoring changes in the Sierra Nevada with temperature sensors buried in the ground and measured every six months. The evidence shows warming and, moreover, the plants that grow there are changing because climate change is already being felt in the peaks of the Andes,” said Melfo.
Researchers believe that the El Niño climate phenomenon has influenced the melting of the Humboldt Glacier because it causes warmer temperatures that accelerate the disappearance of tropical glaciers.
“The rate at which glaciers are melting is evidence of climate change. However, this is not new. Glaciers started disappearing a long time ago, but the speed has changed due to high temperatures,” says Melfo. “Outside the glaciers, we see rapid changes in the composition of species, plants and animals, and this is being 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 seventy years. For several scientists, that is one of the main reasons why Venezuela has lost all its glaciers.
“In the Andean zone of Venezuela there have been several months with monthly deviations above average, which is exceptional at those tropical latitudes,” says Maximiliano Herrera, climatologist and weather historian.
However, the melting of the glacier also offers an opportunity for further research. Melfo said the end of the glacier in Venezuela marks the beginning of a new process in the area and an event that will have to be investigated.
“Life begins to emerge and colonize the rocks. The lichens come first, then the mosses create the soil, organic matter is created and that creates the conditions for the plants to arrive, and then the animals come. an ecosystem put together; it’s called primary succession and it’s a unique process,” she said.
Meanwhile, what little ice remains on Humboldt will continue to melt. Mérida residents, including Melfo, say the glacier will continue to exist as long as its white remains can be seen from the city – which no longer happened with the other glaciers.
“For the residents of Mérida, perhaps the most beloved glacier was that of Pico Bolívar, which has been a remnant glacier since 2012. However, people kept saying it was a glacier until the last piece of ice visible from the city disappeared in 2020,” Melfo said. “I think the same thing will happen with the Humboldt: down to the last piece of ice. disappears, we keep saying it’s a glacier.”
An earlier version of this story was first published in Noticias Telemundo.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com