Venezuela is first Andean country to lose all of its glaciers
Venezuela loses its last glacier, the Humboldt Glacier, due to natural erosion and climate change. This event highlights global glacier shrinkage and the urgent call to address climate change's environmental impacts.
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Venezuela has become the first Andean country to lose all of its glaciers, with the recent disappearance of the Humboldt Glacier in the Sierra Nevada. The loss of this glacier, once a source of pride and part of local legends, signifies a significant environmental change. Scientists attribute the disappearance to a combination of natural erosion processes and accelerated melting due to climate change. The shrinking of glaciers is a global phenomenon, with projections indicating that 83% of the world's glaciers could vanish by 2100 if current warming trends continue. The melting of the Humboldt Glacier is seen as a consequence of rising global temperatures and the impact of climate change. While the disappearance of the glacier marks the end of an era, it also presents an opportunity for studying the ecological succession that follows such events. The loss of Venezuela's glaciers underscores the urgent need for addressing climate change and its far-reaching consequences on ecosystems and biodiversity.
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17 commentsY cuando el momento llegue, honremos nuestras heridas / Celebremos la belleza que se aleja hacia otras vidas / Y aunque la pena nos hiera, que no nos desampare / Y que encontremos la manera de despedir a los glaciares
(When the moment comes, let us honor our wounds / celebrate the beauty that goes off to other lives / and although the sorrow stings, I hope it will remain / and that we find a way to say goodbye to the glaciers)
Checked the study because those numbers seemed suspect. That's 2.3 square kilometers, not 2300.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/152893/humboldt-gla...
We’re like a group of vandals just breaking things for the hell of it.
Such beauty and the home to many species, wiped out…
As far as Venezuela glaciers, consensus appears to be that they probably had melted completely around the time of the Holocene warm period c. 9000 years ago, and their reforming was evidence of the beginning of a long slow slide into another glacial era (which would have taken 70,000 years or so to reach the next glacial maximum, on the 100 ky cycle). That's now been put aside as we head full tilt back towards Pliocene conditions.
If this is an emergency, and it looks like it is, let’s start treating it that way. Clean energy is a solved problem.
Title inaccurate. This goes well beyond only 'Andean countries.'
EDIT: To the 4+ dol—I mean, people who have now downvoted this comment: 'the Americas' is commonly geographically understood to mean the land masses of both North and South America. There are glaciers present in both 'Americas.' The Andean mountains are only present in South America. Jesus, this place is stupid today.
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