The Marmolada glacier, queen of the Dolomites and UNESCO World Heritage Site, continues to consume itself year after year. This was once again confirmed by the findings conducted by the University of Padua, which for over thirty years has monitored the situation with direct measurement campaigns on the field.
According to the group coordinated by Professor Mauro Varotto and by the researcher Giovanni Benetton, during the summer of 2025 the front of the glacier lost another 7 meters, a retreat even higher than that recorded last year (6 meters). Overall, in just twenty years, the retreat has reached the impressive figure of 250 meters, a sign of an irreversible trend.
The Marmolada glacier has already lost more than half of its surface compared to the beginning of the twentieth century: from the approximately 450 hectares of a century ago to less than 100 current hectares. A halving that proceeds at an increasingly accelerated pace.
The causes are known and documented:
If the trend does not change, the glacier is destined to disappear by 2050 – they warn scholars of the University of Padua. A fate shared by many other Alpine glaciers, but which appears particularly dramatic on Marmolada, given its symbolic importance.
The forecasts of other studies
The picture drawn by the Paduan geographers is confirmed in numerous other reports. The caravan campaign of Legambiente glaciers, for example, defined Marmolada a glacier in “irreversible coma”, even estimating a disappearance already by 2040, with an average loss of 7–10 centimeters of thickness per day in the hottest summers.
A figure consistent with what has been detected in recent decades: since 1888 the front has retired by over 1,200 meters, with a progression that in the most recent years has reached peaks of 90 meters per year.
The tragedy of 2022: an alarm bell
The collapse of the Seracco of 3 July 2022, which caused the death of 11 hikers, was an unequivocal signal of the fragility of Marmolada. A scientific investigation always coordinated by the University of Padua has clarified how the disaster was caused by a lethal combination of factors:
An extreme event, of course, but destined not to remain isolated in a context of global warming.
Marmolada is not just a glacier: it is a climatic archive that houses centuries of atmospheric and environmental history in its structure. His disappearance will mean losing an irreplaceable natural laboratory, as well as affecting ecosystems, landscapes and the same tourist attraction of the Dolomites.
As the scholars point out, stop this process now appears impossible. But reduce climalterant emissions, contain the increase in global temperatures and protect mountain water resources remains fundamental to prevent marmolada from being the first of a long list of irreparable losses.
Sources: University of Padua / Legambiente / Tgr Trentino Alto Adige
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