Officials warn Mont Blanc glacier could collapse

Experts have warned that the famous Mont Blanc glacier is at risk of collapsing, with authorities closing roads and evacuating homes in northern Italy. 

Officials from the Fondazione Montagna Sicura, or Safe Mountains Foundation, in the Aosta Valley said up to 250,000 cubic meters of ice could slide off of the Planpincieux glacier, The Guardian reported.

Stefano Miserocchi, the mayor of the Italian town of Courmayeur, closed down a mountain road and banned access to part of the Val Ferret, a hiking destination outside of the town, in response to the news, The Associated Press reported.

{mosads}The mayor called it a precautionary measure and said there was no direct threat to residential areas or tourist centers, only the road that was closed, according to the AP.

The glacier spreads approximately 512 square miles across the mountain, and it has been moving up to 50 centimeters, or approximately 20 inches, per day.

Experts have been monitoring the glacier since 2013, and Miserocchi said the melting ice had “significantly increased.” However, they cannot predict when the ice will fully break away, according to The Guardian.

“There are currently no empirical models or methods that can enable quantitative predictions in the case of glaciers with sliding dynamics such as Planpincieux,” Miserocchi said.  

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said that the risk from the glacier collapsing should “force” world leaders to address climate change after the United Nations Climate Action Summit on Monday. He addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday in New York.  

“The news that part of Mont Blanc risks collapsing is a warning that should not leave us indifferent. It must shake us all and force us to mobilize,” Conte said, The Guardian reported.

A new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that glaciers outside of Greenland and Antarctica — but including those in Europe — are losing 220 billion metric tons of ice per year and that loss is accelerating.

The report also found that if nothing is done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow the destruction brought by climate change, glaciers around the world could shrink up to 36 percent between now and 2100, the AP reported.