9 mei 2024 om 19:44 Update: 1 uur geleden
Venezuela officially has no glaciers anymore. Due to rising temperatures, La Corona, the last remaining glacier in the country, has lost its status. The glacier has become too small and is no longer producing new ice.
According to scientists, the surface area of La Corona had already shrunk from about 4.5 million square meters to less than 20,000 square meters last March.
The ice surface is now less than 10,000 square meters, about the size of two football fields. That is the limit that glaciologists maintain to call it a glacier. The former glacier no longer produces ice.
La Corona has thus weakened to an ice field, says the ICCI, an international partnership of climate scientists.
Venezuela has had at least seven glaciers in the past century. These have all melted due to rising temperatures due to climate change. According to the ICCI, Venezuela is the first country to lose all its glaciers.
“Glaciers are valleys filled with ice, that is the official definition. That is why we can conclude that Venezuela has no glaciers left,” glaciologist Mark Maslin told BBC News.
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Improvement: In an earlier version of this article we wrote that the glacier now has the surface area of a football field. The surface area (10,000 square meters) is more similar to that of two football fields, so we have adjusted that.
