Italy Covers Glacier with Sheets to Slow Melting
In northern Italy, the Presena glacier has lost more than one third of its volume since 1993. Once the ski season is over and cable cars are berthed, conservationists race to try and stop it melting by using white tarps that block the sun’s rays. “This area is continuously shrinking, so we cover as much of it as possible,” explains Davide Panizza, who heads the Carosello-Tonale company that does the work. From covering around 30,000 sq metres in 2008 when the project began, his team now places 100,000 sq metres under wraps. The coverings are “geotextile tarpaulins that reflect sunlight, maintaining a temperature lower than the external one, and thus preserving as much snow as possible. On the border between the Lombardy and Trentino Alto Adige regions, workers unroll the sheets in long strips, covering an area at an altitude of 2700-3000m.
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