Vanishing Glaciers: The Forni Valley

The rate of melting of glaciers around the world has almost doubled over the past twenty years. According to scientific studies and reference forecasting models, half of the mass of Alpine glaciers will have disappeared by 2050, regardless of how we behave until then. If we manage to limit global warming below 2 degrees, a third will survive by the end of the century. Otherwise, the glaciers in the Alps will run out.
The latest 2016 edition of the Italian Glacier Inventory reports a 13% reduction in their surface in just 12 years. The intense areal reduction of the glacial masses of the Italian mountains is reflected in all the other sectors of the European Alps and on the other mountain ranges of the earth and is one of the clearest and most evident signs of the climatic variations in progress and in particular of the increase in the average air temperature.

The mountain ranges of the Lombardy region hold the largest number of glaciers in Italy, many of which are classified as extinct or in danger of extinction. These are masses of ice of different size and classification – the dimensions can vary up to over 10km – and are very important for the thermal and hydrographic balance of Europe.
Among these, the Forni glacier was the largest Italian valley glacier and the only one of the Himalayan type. Located in the Ortles-Cevedale group in Alta Valtellina within the Lombard sector of the Stelvio National Park, the Forni was born from three collecting basins with three separate glacial tongues confluent at an altitude of 3000 m in a single ablation tongue. At the beginning of the XIX century it had its maximum expansion peak and went into the valley floor up to altitudes close to 2000 m.
Its size, the particular positioning within the horizon of the Forni Valley and the gigantic glacial tongue that made it accessible to anyone, soon transformed it into a privileged destination for mountaineers and a naturalistic attraction for the rich Lombard bourgeoisie of early twentieth century.

The anomalous torrid heat of the summer of 2015 radically changed the morphology of the glacier: at the end of August the entire mass split into three sections – one valley and two mountainous – and from that date the collapse of the lower sector which still continues today.
The fragmentation into three volumes was a trauma that completely altered the landscape of the entire Forni Valley and its perception, as well as changing the hydrogeological nature of the ice colossus itself. The areal regression of the glacier is about 8 km in the last 150 years and the frontal regression is about 2km. In 1867, the year of its first mapping, the total area measured 19 km2: today it measures just over 11 km2. The scenarios based on climatic models show that – unless there are sensitive and improbable changes in the current trends – in the middle of the century the glacier could retain about 20% of its current volume, and could shrink to 5-0% at the end of the century. 

In the current climate scenario, the increase in the average air temperature, the weakness of snowfalls and the abundance of rain, but above all the heat and light are decisive factors that slowly kill the glacier. But its areal reduction does not concern only the external surface, its shell of white and black ice exposed to light, but rather the dense network of tunnels and streams that live inside it.
«When you enter the core of a glacier along the conduits and caves dug by meltwater, you are completely captivated by the spectacle that surrounds us. Inside, hypoglacial tunnels and streams meander, bringing to life a different perception of the over time. Totally bewitched, you let yourself be carried away by the emotions that these evocative environments offer. The surreal colours and atmospheres of the structures created by the interaction between ice and water make us forget that we are in an environment unsuitable for human life, a place full of dangers that only a few people with the right knowledge can explore».

It’s the voice of Giuseppe Cola, glaciologist of the Lombard Glaciological Service. For over 40 years he has been studying and monitoring the state of health of the Forni glacier. The strenuous work of mapping the glacier retreat takes place at high altitude, following treacherous paths made of rock, snow and ice, climbing the slopes of bumpy moraines to reach specific observation points, such as a very exposed rock or an oblique wall, from which to infer the extent of the withdrawal.

The ephemeral and dangerous beauty of the surreal architectures of frost hidden in the belly of the glacier contrasts with the reality of its surface, a black shell of debris and mud solidified by the ice.
The black glaciers (or debris covered glaciers) are a consequence of the deglaciation phase in progress which sees not only the areal and volumetric reduction of the alpine glaciers, but also the parallel increase of the portions of rock emerging from the glacier surfaces. On the one hand, these accelerate and amplify fragmentation and glacial erosion and on the other are subject to degradation processes that produce further rocky debris that cloaks the glaciers, modifying their albedo and their ability to absorb or reject light.
Black water flows, mud and debris delimit the boundary of the glacial tongues of many alpine glaciers of the Ortles-Cevedale group (in addition to the Forni, the Cedec and the Sforzellina for example) and mounds of damp rock soil the shy white crevasses that furrow the surface. In addition to the increase in debris volume, various pollutants such as microplastics and black carbon consisting of pollutant dust that arrive from the plain carried by the wind have been found in the melt waters. «More incisive actions should be taken to limit the pollution of the Alpine environment and glaciers such as the abandonment of waste by mountaineers and hikers, as well as limiting the emission of pollutants, transported up to the Alps by atmospheric currents» says Cola.

The reduction of glacial masses will not only have environmental impacts, but also socio-economic and anthropological impacts. The Forni glacier and the others in Ortles-Cevedale represent an indispensable resource, not only from a water and energy point of view but also from a landscape, tourist and environmental point of view and its slow erosion seems to carry with it the knowledge and history of the communities that they have always lived next to them.

Vanishing Glaciers: The Forni Valley is a chapter of a series of photographic documentaries on the erosion of Italian Alpine glaciers and the changes triggered in the landscape and anthropology of neighboring communities by their apparently inexorable melting. The photographic series investigates some eroding in the Ortles-Cevedale group on the border line between the regions of Lombardy and Alto Adige in the southern Rhaetian Alps.