Venezuela’s Humboldt Glacier has come to an end

The Humboldt Glacier has disappeared and Venezuela has just become the first post-glacial nation in the Andes. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has published an image that confirms the fact and warns about the loss of large masses of ice due to climate change.

The South American nation had six glaciers until 1910. Together they covered an area of ​​1,000 square kilometers (km2). Humboldt became the last of these bodies since 2009. It was located high in the Sierra Nevada de Mérida, a mountain range in the northern extension of the Andes Mountains of South America. Despite its proximity to the equator, it had survived thanks to its altitude and the topography of the region. The icy mass earned its name by sitting on a slope at the base of Humboldt Peak, the second highest peak in Venezuela, only below Pico Bolívar. NASA explains that “glaciers in the tropics exist because of the cold, snowy climate found at high elevations.”

The environmental conditions were not sufficient to preserve the existence of the Humboldt. The helero had an area of ​​3 km2 in 1910. Experts calculated in 2015 that the area had decreased to 0.1 km2, equivalent to about 10 hectares. So far this year, the frozen area has shrunk to barely cover a tenth of it. “Although there is no universally accepted size criterion that defines a glacier, scientists agree that an ice field of this size is stagnant, meaning it is too small to flow downslope under the pressure of its own weight. According to that definition, Venezuela is now free of glaciers,” NASA points out.

The estimates are based on a pair of images obtained with the OLI and OLI-2 monitoring instruments integrated into the Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 satellites, respectively. The material was recorded in 2015 and 2024 during the melting season to prevent seasonal snow from influencing the accuracy of the data. “The loss of Humboldt is the latest blow to our planet’s shrinking tropical glaciers, which have been shrinking and disappearing as temperatures have warmed,” lamented the US agency.

Mexico, the next Latin American country that will run out of glaciers

There are more than 200,000 glaciers in the world that are at risk of disappearing due to climate change. A study by the University of Toulouse and the Federal Polytechnic School of Zurich warns that during the first two decades of this century, 298 gigatonnes of ice have been lost per year. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) points out that a third of the more than 18,000 glacier masses found in sites declared world heritage could disappear by 2050. It points out that glacial retreat will has accelerated since 2000 due to an increase in average global temperature, caused by high CO2 emissions.

Researchers suggest that by 2050, Mexico could become the next Latin American country to run out of glaciers. There are five settlements of this nature in the country. They are distributed in the Iztaccíhuatl volcano and the Pico de Orizaba. Together they cover less than 1 km2 of ice. The Earth Sciences Center of the Universidad Veracruzana and the University of Texas at San Antonio estimate that the Jamapa glacier, considered the largest in the nation, has lost 60% of its surface between 1950 and 2011. They predict that it will will be completely extinct in 2030.

UNESCO states that “half of humanity depends directly or indirectly on glaciers as a source of water for domestic, agricultural and energy use. Glaciers are also pillars of biodiversity, since they feed many ecosystems.” Its disappearance will aggravate water scarcity crises, increase the incidence of natural disasters and cause the displacement of various populations due to rising sea levels.