The sixth episode of the series “Noi Dolomiti UNESCO” [We are the UNESCO Dolomites] is a fifteen-minute report devoted entirely to a one-day account of the climate crisis in the Dolomites.
The “Noi Dolomiti UNESCO” images taken on the 8th of August document the now-terminal melting of the Fradusta glacier on the Pale di San Martino Plateau, the difficulty of managing water resources at mountain huts forced to take emergency measures, the bark beetle plague that is devastating forests, and the precipitation and heat balance of a year that is going down in history as the hottest and driest on record.
All this is thanks to the experience and expertise of our “travel companions”, National Research Council (NRC) glaciologist Jacopo Gabrieli, Rosetta Mountain Hut managers Roberta Secco and Mariano Lott, forestry specialist Dimitri De Gol, and manager of the ARPAV Avalanche Centre in Arabba, Gianni Marigo. They will share their hands-on experience of the effects of the climate crisis with us. As one of the greatest international cryosphere experts, Anselmo Cagnati said, when accepting the 2022 UNESCO Dolomites Special Award at Pelmo d’Oro, that the crisis is particularly evident in the mountains because of their distance from the mitigating effect of the sea; it is also occurring particularly rapidly because of the negative feedback given by melting glaciers and the overheating of the underlying rock.
