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One of Slovenia’s last glaciers, long a symbol of its Alpine heritage and a popular spot for summer skiers, has dwindled to tiny ice fragments that researchers say could vanish within days.
Triglav glacier sits on the northeastern side of Mount Triglav, the national symbol of Slovenia and the country’s tallest mountain at 9,395.2 feet (2,863.65 metres).
It covered more than 40 hectares at the end of the 1800s, according to sightseeing company Triglav Tours, but had shrunk to just 14 hectares by 1946.
In recent years it effectively ceased to function as a glacier, with no fresh ice forming.
“Everything indicates that the very last remnants of ice will literally disappear within these coming days,” said Miha Pavšek of the Anton Melik Geographical Institute at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Only small ice fragments remain of the once-extensive Triglav glacier (Reuters)
“I’ve been monitoring it myself for 30 years,” Pavšek said.
“It seems that this major task, at least regarding the one under Triglav, is coming to an end this year.”
Spurred by climate change, the site saw below-average snowfall last winter. The snow melted unusually early, leaving the remaining ice exposed to summer heat for a longer period.
“Even a sheltered, shaded location could no longer save the remnants of these true glaciers,” Mr Pavšek said.
Glaciers are shrinking right across Europe, which is warming at a faster pace than any other continent.
One of the last pieces of glacier ice is seen on the highest mountain in Slovenia (Reuters)
Mr Pavšek warned that declining glaciers in neighbouring Austria might eventually lower water flows in the Drava and Mura river basins, which are key sources of irrigation in Slovenia.
“This will impact areas they irrigate, such as the Drava and Ptuj fields and parts of the Mura region,” he said.
Meanwhile, in Switzerland, glaciers in the alps lost 5.5 per cent of their ice volume this year, the second-biggest percentage drop on record due to heat waves and low winter snowfall.
“Alpine glaciers have no chance of surviving in the long term under such conditions,” the GLAMOS Swiss glacier monitoring service and Swiss Academy of Sciences said in a statement released last week.
The trend has worsened in recent years. Over the past five years alone, the volume of ice in Switzerland has declined by nearly a fifth, the experts said.
