{"id":60496,"date":"2024-05-19T18:27:22","date_gmt":"2024-05-19T18:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgkplanet.com\/?p=60496"},"modified":"2024-06-05T03:46:56","modified_gmt":"2024-06-05T03:46:56","slug":"the-bell-ringing-of-the-last-venezuelan-glacier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgkplanet.com\/en\/the-bell-ringing-of-the-last-venezuelan-glacier\/","title":{"rendered":"The bell ringing of the last Venezuelan glacier"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the beginning of May 2024, the disappearance of the Humboldt Glacier, the last ice mass of its type in our country, made news. It was located in M\u00e9rida, in the Sierra Nevada of the same name. The Humboldt was the last Venezuelan glacier… and the first to disappear in the world.<\/p>\n

Our mountains will no longer have their white coats. We will also not have any more ice melts, simply because the glaciers are no longer with us.<\/p>\n

The first mention we find of \u201cLas Sierras Nevadas\u201d is due to Father Pedro de Aguado[1]<\/strong><\/a>, one of the first historians of Venezuela:<\/p>\n

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\u201c(..) how the governor (Juan P\u00e9rez de Tolosa, c.1490-1549) sent Alonso P\u00e9rez de Tolosa, his brother, with people to discover the Sierras Nevadas, where M\u00e9rida, of the New Kingdom, is populated today.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Glaciers are not only beautiful landscapes to contemplate, do tourism or practice sports. Many people don’t know that glaciers are the world’s natural air conditioners. In addition, they are one of the largest reservoirs of fresh water on Earth. Its waters are the sources of a good number of the planet’s rivers. Water consumption for animals, plants and industrial use depends on glaciers.<\/p>\n

A glacier is defined as a significant volume of moving ice and snow, which originates from the compaction of snow. This happens when the annual snowfall exceeds that melted during the summer months, therefore, this happens with greater intensity and frequency in the areas closest to the poles.<\/p>\n

Glaciers originate from the compaction and crystallization of snow accumulated in cold places.<\/p>\n

A glacier takes thousands of years to form, however, due to the constant increase in Earth’s temperature in this 21st century, glaciers are melting in a few decades. The main cause of melting ice is global warming, as will its consequence, since the fewer the number of glaciers, the more global warming there will be, unless climate change can be reversed.<\/p>\n

The glaciers have been receding for more than fifty years. Human activity is most responsible for this, mainly due to the emission of CO2 and other gases, deforestation, pollution of the oceans, and having surpassed several of the nine limits of the Earth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The frozen formations located north of the Andes are known as \u201cequatorial glaciers\u201d, and until now they have been the most sensitive to the rapid decrease in their masses, precisely due to their tropical location, through global warming.<\/p>\n

The glacier \u201cissue\u201d will be in the news for a few weeks, but then, like so many other important issues, it will unfortunately fall into oblivion.<\/p>\n

What should remain reverberating is the Humboldt bell for other countries.<\/p>\n

According to UNESCO, these are the nations that still have glacial mass, but that will see their glaciers disappear before 2050:<\/p>\n