I ghiacciai del Cervino nei rilievi del Comitato Glaciologico Italiano

In the Conca di Cervinia, the Inventory of Italian Glaciers (Italian Glaciological Committee - CNR, 1961) lists 13 glaciers, mostly small mountain glaciers. The average altitude of the fronts is around 3000 m: by virtue of this, these glaciers have suffered less than others from the effects of global warming, even if some are now considered extinct. The glaciers of the Conca di Cervinia have been the subject of annual surveys by the Italian Glaciological Committee for almost 100 years. Among the operators who took turns in monitoring, we remember in particular Manfredo Vanni (active between 1925 and 1971), Carla Origlia (1952-1977), Augusto and Marco Giorcelli (from 1980). Augusto Giorcelli, in particular, documented the last phase of relative glacial advance which took place at the beginning of the 1980s, followed by the rapid contraction of the glacial masses still in progress. In consideration of the morphological characteristics and the topographical location, for almost all the glaciers in this sector it is no longer possible to carry out direct measurements of frontal variation. The only exception is the Valtournenche Glacier (0.9 km2, Smiraglia et al., 2015), where a retreat of 230 m was measured from 2010 to 2020.