Witnessing The Inevitable Death of The Andean Tropical Glaciers

Their size is smaller than ever before in human history (and probably the last 130,000 years)

That’s me, exploring the crevasses of a vanishing glacier in Patagonia. This is not the tropics but we could be on a similar trend down here. (photo by the best photographer out there)

Glaciers cover 10% of the earth’s surface and contain almost 70% of the planet’s fresh water. In the Andes Mountain Range, you’ll find 4.5% of them and almost all of the world’s tropical glaciers. But Humboldt (or La Corona) Glacier in Venezuela’s Sierra Nevada de Mérida mountains doesn’t make the cut anymore. The International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI) has reclassified it as an ice field because it’s “too small to be classed as a glacier”. The glacier, where international skiing competitions once took place, is now an unburied corpse in an advanced state of decomposition.

And so, since May 2024, Venezuela has been officially glacier-free, a first of its kind in modern history not only in the tropical area of the Andes Mountain range but also globally. Slovenia in Europe has joined this undesired club (and some even say it was its original founder since at least 1969) while the IPCC expects 18–36% of global glacial mass to be lost across the 21st century due in large part to global warming.

The low altitude and latitude of both glaciers made them more vulnerable to climatic extremes and rising temperatures, and both…