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The death of the last glaciers in Spain

2021-01-02T23:41:21.914Z


EL PAÍS accompanies the scientific team that studies the disappearance of the 19 ice masses of the Pyrenees, the last remaining in the entire Iberian Peninsula. In 30 years they will have disappeared


The same thing that happens in the Aneto is happening in the rest of the Pyrenean glaciers, the only ones that remain in the Iberian Peninsula and the largest in southern Europe.

Pico del Aneto

3,404 m

Peak of

The Maladeta

Glacier

The Maladeta

Glacier

from Aneto

Bachimala

SPAIN

Retriever

FRANCE

Aneto

Since 2011, the Pyrenean glaciers have lost 63 hectares of ice and some 19 million tons of water.

It is more or less the water that fits in a small reservoir.

Hell

Balaitus

Vignemale

Lost mount

The Munia

SPAIN

FRANCE

Aneto

In 1850 there were 52 glaciers in the Pyrenees.

In 2020 there are only 19. Their disappearance, which is expected in just 30 years, will not be an environmental disaster, as they store relatively little water.

It will be the end of one ecosystem and the beginning of another, although future generations will not be able to visit this unique landscape.

Pyrenees

200 km

The same thing that happens in the Aneto is happening in the rest of the Pyrenean glaciers, the only ones that remain in the Iberian Peninsula and the largest in southern Europe.

Pico del Aneto

3,404 m

Peak of

The Maladeta

La Maladeta Glacier

Aneto Glacier

Bachimala

SPAIN

Retriever

FRANCE

Aneto

Since 2011, the Pyrenean glaciers have lost 63 hectares of ice and some 19 million tons of water.

It is more or less the water that fits in a small reservoir.

Hell

Balaitus

Vignemale

Lost mount

The Munia

SPAIN

FRANCE

Aneto

In 1850 there were 52 glaciers in the Pyrenees.

In 2020 there are only 19. Their disappearance, which is expected in just 30 years, will not be an environmental disaster, as they store relatively little water.

It will be the end of one ecosystem and the beginning of another, although future generations will not be able to visit this unique landscape.

Pyrenees

200 km

The same thing that happens in the Aneto is happening in the rest of the Pyrenean glaciers, the only ones that remain in the Iberian Peninsula and the largest in southern Europe.

Pico del Aneto

3,404 m

Peak of

The Maladeta

La Maladeta Glacier

Aneto Glacier

Bachimala

SPAIN

Retriever

FRANCE

Aneto

Since 2011, the Pyrenean glaciers have lost 63 hectares of ice and some 19 million tons of water.

It is more or less the water that fits in a small reservoir.

Vignemale

Lost mount

The Munia

SPAIN

FRANCE

Aneto

In 1850 there were 52 glaciers in the Pyrenees.

In 2020 there are only 19. Their disappearance, which is expected in just 30 years, will not be an environmental disaster, as they store relatively little water.

It will be the end of one ecosystem and the beginning of another, although future generations will not be able to visit this unique landscape.

Pyrenees

200 km

The same thing that happens in the Aneto is happening in the rest of the Pyrenean glaciers, the only ones that remain in the Iberian Peninsula and the largest in southern Europe.

Pico del Aneto

3,404 m

Peak of

The Maladeta

La Maladeta Glacier

Aneto Glacier

Since 2011, the Pyrenean glaciers have lost 63 hectares of ice and some 19 million tons of water.

It is more or less what will fit in a small reservoir.

Bachimala

SPAIN

Retriever

FRANCE

Aneto

Hell

Balaitus

Vignemale

Lost mount

The Munia

SPAIN

FRANCE

Aneto

In 1850 there were 52 glaciers in the Pyrenees.

In 2020 there are only 19. Their disappearance, which is expected in just 30 years, will not be an environmental disaster, as they store relatively little water.

It will be the end of one ecosystem and the beginning of another, although future generations will not be able to visit this unique landscape.

Pyrenees

200 km

A glacier is a river of ice that flows downhill all year round.

In 1880, the writer Mark Twain calculated that if he sat in the middle of the Gorner Glacier in the Alps, he could reach the valley town of Zermatt.

Of course: it would take more than five centuries because the ice advances a few centimeters every day.

This slow flow is what defines it the most: a mass of high mountain ice that does not move is an already dead glacier.

The only remaining glaciers in Spain - the largest in southern Europe - are in the Pyrenees and all of them are already dead or dying.

At the time of Mark Twain, there were 52 glaciers in this entire mountain range that marks the border with France.

In 2020 there are only 19 left and it is possible that some of these have also stopped moving, living.

So they are melting

the Pyrenean glaciers

Volume loss (t = public ton)

10 km

N

Hells

The Neous

-0.271 t

Ossoue

-3,964 t

Gaube ouletter

Gabietous

-3,474 t

-0.738 t

Pettit Vignemale

-0.491 t

Taillon

Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park

-1,406 t

Lost mount

-1,273 t

Munia

Spain

France

Llardana

The Paul

-1.675 t

-2,343 t

Seil de la Baque

-0.483 t

Posets Maladeta Natural Park

Gate

-0.189 t

Crowns

-0.04 t

Aneto

Barrancs

-4,581 t

-0.298 t

Maladeta

Storms

-0.234 t

-0.219 t

Glacier extension in 2011

In 2020

France

Taillon

Mountain

Lost

Gabietous

Spain

Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park

2.5 km

N

Maladeta

Spain

Aneto

Crowns

Storms

Posets Maladeta Natural Park

2.5 km

N

So they are melting

the Pyrenean glaciers

Volume loss (t = public ton)

10 km

Hells

N

The Neous

-0.271 t

Ossoue

-3,964 t

Ouletter

by Gaube

-3,474 t

Gabietous

-0.738 t

Pettit Vignemale

-0.491 t

Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park

Taillon

-1,406 t

Lost mount

-1,273 t

Munia

Spain

France

Llardana

The Paul

-1.675 t

-2,343 t

Seil de la Baque

-0.483 t

Posets Maladeta Natural Park

Gate

-0.189 t

Crowns

-0.04 t

Aneto

Barrancs

-4,581 t

-0.298 t

Maladeta

Storms

-0.234 t

-0.219 t

Glacier extension in 2011

In 2020

France

Taillon

Mountain

Lost

Gabietous

Spain

Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park

2.5 km

N

Maladeta

Spain

Aneto

Crowns

Storms

Posets Maladeta Natural Park

2.5 km

N

This is how the Pyrenean glaciers are melting

Loss of volume from glaciers (t = cubic ton)

10 km

N

The Neous

Hells

-0.271 t

Ossoue

-3,964 t

Gaube ouletter

-3,474 t

Gabietous

Pettit Vignemale

-0.738 t

-0.491 t

Taillon

-1,406 t

National park

Ordesa and Monte Perdido

Lost mount

-1,273 t

Munia

Spain

France

Llardana

The Paul

-1.675 t

-2,343 t

Seil de la Baque

-0.483 t

Natural Park

Maladeta posets

Gate

-0.189 t

Crowns

-0.04 t

Aneto

Barrancs

-4,581 t

-0.298 t

Maladeta

Storms

-0.234 t

-0.219 t

Glacier extension in 2011

In 2020

France

Taillon

Mountain

Lost

Gabietous

Spain

Ordesa National Park

and Monte Perdido

2.5 km

N

Maladeta

Aneto

Crowns

Natural Park

Maladeta posets

Storms

Spain

2.5 km

N

This is how the Pyrenean glaciers are melting

Loss of volume from glaciers (t = cubic ton)

France

The Neous

Gaube ouletter

-3,474 t

Pettit Vignemale

Hells

-0.491 t

-0.271 t

Ossoue

Gate

Munia

Seil de la Baque

-3,964 t

Taillon

-0.189 t

-0.483 t

-1,406 t

Lost mount

The Paul

Aneto

-1,273 t

Gabietous

-2,343 t

-4,581 t

Maladeta

-0.738 t

-0.234 t

Llardana

-1.675 t

National park

Ordesa and Monte Perdido

Crowns

Natural Park

Maladeta posets

-0.04 t

Barrancs

Storms

-0.298 t

-0.219 t

PYRENEES

Spain

N

10km

Glacier extension in 2011

In 2020

France

Taillon

Maladeta

Mountain

Lost

Gabietous

Aneto

Crowns

Spain

Storms

Posets Maladeta Natural Park

National park

Ordesa and Monte Perdido

Spain

2.5km

2.5km

This is how the Pyrenean glaciers are melting

Loss of volume from glaciers (t = cubic ton)

The Neous

France

Gaube ouletter

-3,474 t

Pettit Vignemale

Hells

-0.491 t

-0.271 t

Ossoue

Munia

-3,964 t

Gate

Seil de la Baque

Taillon

-0.189 t

-0.483 t

-1,406 t

Lost mount

The Paul

Aneto

-1,273 t

Gabietous

-2,343 t

-4,581 t

Maladeta

-0.738 t

-0.234 t

National park

Ordesa and Monte Perdido

Spain

Llardana

-1.675 t

Crowns

Natural Park

Maladeta posets

-0.04 t

Barrancs

Storms

PYRENEES

-0.298 t

-0.219 t

5 km

N

Glacier extension in 2011

In 2020

France

Taillon

Maladeta

Mountain

Lost

Gabietous

Aneto

Crowns

Spain

Storms

Natural Park

Maladeta posets

National Park

of Ordesa y Monte

Lost

Spain

2.5km

2.5km

Last September, a team of scientists from the Pyrenean Institute of Ecology (IPE-CSIC) and the University of the Basque Country went to study the largest remaining glacier in Spain: the Aneto.

It is a long white tongue about two kilometers long that connects the Maladeta massif with the Aneto massif, passing through Maldito peak, three emblematic peaks of this mountain range.

Scientists have for the first time used a one-meter-wide drone that hovers over the ridges like a vulture.

His only eye is a camera that takes hundreds of photographs that reconstruct the mountain and the glacier in its entirety.

The retreat we see leads us to an imminent disappearance of these glaciers

Nacho López, principal investigator of the IPE

"The ice losses that we have seen are very important," explains Nacho López-Moreno, IPE researcher and project leader.

"The retreat that we see is especially worrying because it leads us to an imminent disappearance of these glaciers or to the fact that there are hardly any residual ice masses," adds this geographer from Zaragoza who has been studying these glaciers for more than 20 years.

His team has gone up and down these mountains, analyzing in detail the 19 remaining glaciers in the Pyrenees.

They are tough campaigns in which sometimes you have to haul heavy equipment, climb peaks of more than 3,000 meters to record aerial images or spend half a day probing the thickness of the newly fallen snow to calculate the true extent of the ice that is underneath.

It also takes skill to know how to launch the drone into the air and land it away from rocks and rivers, which can spoil days' work, as Jesús Revuelta, from IPE explains.

On other occasions, a much more precise and heavy laser scanner is used, but it requires going up in a helicopter, says Esteban Alonso.

When night falls the team tucks into sleeping bags until the next day.

The latest data from the team shows that the ice has lost 63.5 hectares since 2011 and about 19 million tons of ice.

A glacier feeds on snow that keeps it cold.

Snow that falls one year turns into ice the next.

The more snow that is kept from year to year, the more the glacier will grow.

None of the 19 glaciers in the Pyrenees is gaining extension, as the high temperatures, which in the high mountain peaks have risen twice the global average of the Earth, do not allow them to store much of the snow that has fallen from one year to the next.

None of them have grown in size since the 70s.

"For the glaciers of the Pyrenees to stop diminishing and begin to grow, it would take about 10 years of continuous low temperatures, but what is expected is the opposite, increasingly higher temperatures," explains López-Moreno.

That is why the last glaciers in Spain are practically condemned to disappear.

According to the calculations of this team, at the current rate many of them will die over the next decade and it is possible that there will be none left in 2050. It will be the disappearance of a unique landform: the perpetual river of ice that characterizes the high mountains of the Earth. .

Traits of the death of a glacier

Inclination

One of the features that a glacier is going to die is its verticality, like that of the Portillón glacier.

The steeper the less snow it can accumulate and therefore the less ice it can form.

Fragmentation

Some glaciers dismember before they die.

This is the case of Aneto.

At the top you can see an area that is almost completely separated from the rest.

Cracks

A glacier without crevices is a dying glacier.

Cracks like these are a sure sign that the glacier is relatively healthy.

The landscape of the future

Here we can see the future of the Pyrenees without ice.

The glaciers have been transformed into high mountain lagoons.

One type of ecosystem disappears and another emerges.

During this campaign, López-Moreno's team has documented many other features of agony in glaciers.

Your data will feed into the Pyrenean Observatory of Climate Change, a project funded by the EU.

In the glaciers of Aneto and Monte Perdido, the two largest on the Spanish side of these mountains, more and more rocks are emerging to the surface.

The stones act as radiators that accelerate the melting of ice, because they accumulate more heat from solar radiation.

The unmistakable sign that a glacier is going to disappear is when it stops moving down the slope.

It then transforms into a "ice cream", a static ice mass that, depending on its orientation, may survive for a few more years, but that will no longer be a glacier.

Keeping track of how many glaciers are left in these mountains is not easy.

Many of them are fragmented into two parts and each one of them evolves differently.

“In Monte Perdido there is already an area that does not move and that has very strong ice losses of about two meters thick per year.

On the other hand, the upper part accumulates much more snow and is healthier ”, explains López-Moreno.

“My theory is that Monte Perdido is going to be the last Pyrenean glacier to disappear.

In theory it will be in the middle of this century, but probably in 10 or 15 years a good part of the glacier will have already disappeared and what remains will be very degraded ”, he highlights.

The retreat and disappearance of the glaciers seems irreversible.

Desperate measures are being taken in Austria and Italy, such as covering the ice in summer with white fabrics of up to 100,000 square meters to alleviate the melting.

But it is a desperate fight.

The vast majority of the planet's glaciers are retreating at an unprecedented rate, in part due to climate change exacerbated by human activity.

In its latest report, the UN climate change panel warned that although the planet's average temperatures do not increase - something very unlikely - the glaciers in Europe, Asia and America will continue to decline, as they have already lost their balance point: accumulating as much ice in winter as that which melts in summer.

Every summer since 2001, the glaciologist Pierre René climbs nine Pyrenean glaciers on the French side to measure their length, surface area and volume.

This year's work confirms a desperate situation: the extent of the ice decreases about eight meters a year.

The Ossoue glacier is the jewel in the crown of this slope;

a tongue of ice and snow that descends through the beautiful Viñamala massif, crowned by its 3,298-meter peak.

The place is so spectacular that at the end of the 19th century Count Henry Russell had several caves built in the rock at the stroke of a peak.

In the caves he enjoyed the sunsets and gave parties to his friends.

These cavities have become a picturesque testimony to the disappearance of the ice, as many are already inaccessible in summer without using ropes.

René's data show that since 1850 the Pyrenean glaciers have lost 90% of their extent.

Since 2002, the Ossoue Glacier has lost 32 meters in thickness, like a 12-story building.

“In the summer of 2017 the glacier split in two and lost almost five hectares.

I did not expect this sudden regression, ”explains René, founder of the Moraine Glaciology Association.

The other great type of Pyrenean glaciers is much more anarchic.

They are much smaller ice masses than the big three: Monte Perdido, Aneto and Ossue.

"These

microglaciers

are five hectares or even less and are very unpredictable," explains Eñaut Izaguirre, geographer at the University of the Basque Country and member of the team.

His task, together with Ibai Rico, from the same university, is to reach the most difficult-to-reach spots and map them using a small four-rotor drone.

The work can be exhausting, with four-day campaigns sleeping in bivouacs, tents, vans ... The

microglaciers

show a huge variety, from some like Seil de la Baque, in the Perdiguero peak massif, which has lost twice as much thicker than the Aneto, to others that seem to be resisting well, with setbacks of about two meters per year, such as that of Tempestades peak, near the Aneto.

Their future is much more marked by orientation and topography - which can isolate them from sunlight - and by avalanches that fall from higher areas and can keep them alive for a little longer.

"We must encourage people to visit these places before they disappear, they are a heritage that is going to be lost soon," Izaguirre highlights.

The future of many of these glaciers is to transform into high mountain lagoons.

Some of the many turquoise lakes in the Pyrenees were small glaciers just a decade or two ago.

At the northern end of the Aneto glacier a new lake of liquid water has appeared that did not exist just a few years ago.

It is so recent that it has no name.

It is almost 3,200 meters high, which makes it the youngest lake and also the highest in the Pyrenees.

Moreno's team has begun to study the soils that appear in the recently deglaciated areas and the evolution of the water and sediments of the new lakes to follow live the transformation of an entire ecosystem: from perpetual ice to ground covered with plants and high mountain lagoons.

"We are studying how much it costs the soil to generate a new ecosystem after the retreat of the ice," explains IPE geologist Ixeia Vidaller.

The Pyrenees are the sad vanguard of a global phenomenon.

The glaciers in the Alps could have vanished in 80 years.

“Our intention is to study these glaciers to the end.

The sick must be visited and accompanied more the worse they are.

We think that here we still have years of research to document how a glacier behaves in the final phase of its life.

It is the anticipation of what is going to happen in other mountain ranges around the world ”, he concludes.

  • Credits

  • Format and animation: Mariano Zafra

  • Development: Jacob Vicente López

  • Design: Ana Fernández

  • Graphics: Eduardo Ortiz

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-01-02

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