Venezuela is set to become the first modern nation to lose all its glaciers after climate scientists downgraded its last glacier to an ice field.
The International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI), a scientific advocacy organisation, announced on X (formerly Twitter) that Venezuela’s last remaining glacier, the Humboldt or La Corona in the Andes, is now “too small to be classed as a glacier.”
Over the past century, Venezuela has lost at least six other glaciers. The loss of glaciers is accelerating worldwide due to rising global temperatures from climate change, contributing to rising sea levels.
“There has not been much ice cover on the last Venezuelan glacier since the 2000s”, said Dr Caroline Clason, a glaciologist at Durham University. “Now it’s not being added to, so it has been reclassified as an ice field.”
Researchers from the University of Los Andes in Colombia reported in March that the Humboldt glacier had shrunk from 450 hectares to just two. Ecologist Luis Daniel Llambi informed The Guardian that the glacier has now shrunk even further.
While there is no universal standard for the minimum size of a glacier, the US Geological Survey commonly uses a guideline of around 10 hectares. A 2020 study suggested the Humboldt glacier fell below this threshold between 2015 and 2016, although NASA still considered it Venezuela’s last glacier in 2018.
Glaciologists Dr. James Kirkham and Dr. Miriam Jackson from the ICCI and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, respectively, stated that “glaciologists recognise a glacier as an ice mass that deforms under its own weight”.
In a joint statement they said: “Glaciologists often use a criteria of 0.1 sq km [10 hectares] as a common definition, but any ice mass above that size still has to deform under its own weight [to count].”
They indicated that difficulties accessing the Humboldt glacier in recent years may have delayed updated measurements.
Professor Mark Maslin, an earth system sciences expert at University College London, explained that the Humboldt ice field, now roughly the size of two football pitches, “is not a glacier”.
“Glaciers are ice that fills valleys – that’s the definition – and therefore I would say Venezuela has no glaciers whatsoever,” he explained.
In December, the Venezuelan government initiated a project to cover the remaining ice with a thermal blanket to slow or reverse the melting process. However, this drew criticism from local climate scientists who warned that the covering could degrade and contaminate the surrounding habitat with plastic particles, as reported by Spanish newspaper El Pais.
Prof Maslin emphasised that mountain glacier loss is “not directly reversible” because glaciers need sufficient ice to reflect sunlight and maintain cool air around them during summer months.
“Once a glacier’s gone, the sunlight heats the ground, makes it much warmer and makes it much less likely to actually build ice up over the summer,” he said.
Extreme weather researcher Maximiliano Herrera noted on X/Twitter that Indonesia, Mexico, and Slovenia might be the next countries to lose their glaciers due to their proximity to the equator and lower mountain altitudes, making their ice caps more vulnerable to global warming.
“The warm zones are just expanding upwards and outwards with climate change,” he said, pushing the point at which snow and ice can form year-round higher.
Although smaller glaciers like those in Venezuela do not contain enough ice to significantly raise sea levels, they play a crucial role in providing fresh water to local communities, especially during hot, dry periods.
Prof Maslin noted that while some glacier loss is inevitable, rapidly reducing CO2 emissions could preserve remaining glacial deposits. This preservation is vital for maintaining livelihoods and ensuring energy, water, and food security.
“Once you get rid of that, the problem is you’re then purely reliant on spot rainfall,” he said.
Dr Kirkham and Dr Jackson said: “The latest projections show that between 20 and 80% of glaciers globally will be lost by 2100 (with significant regional variation), depending on the emissions pathway followed.”
They said that even though “a portion of this loss is already locked in”, rapidly lowering CO2 emissions could save other glacial deposits, “which will have enormous benefits for livelihoods, and energy, water and food security”.
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