Venezuela may be the first nation in modern history to lose all its glaciers, the BBC reported. Taking to X (formerly Twitter), scientific advocacy organization The International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICC), said that the South American nation’s only remaining glacier – the Humboldt, or La Corona, in the Andes – had become “too small to be classed as a glacier”. “This makes Venezuela the first country in the Andes mountain range to lose all its glaciers,” the organization added.
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 second highest mountain in the country, Humboldt Peak, resisted the onslaught of the weather. 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 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 near-freezing levels and winter precipitation causes significant accumulations of snow.
With the increase in global temperatures due to climate change, the melting of large ice masses is a continuous phenomenon that, among other things, contributes to raising sea levels around the world.
“It is the end of a glacial cycle. And in the intertropical zones, basically below 5,000 meters, almost all the glaciers have been disappearing,” said Maximiliano Bezada, a geological researcher at the University of Minnesota. “The case of Humboldt was iconic because it is at 4,800 meters and yet it remained for quite a long time, and that is a climatic anomaly.”
“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 is why it is the first country to run out of glaciers,” Melfo said.