LONDON - If you do not bastase the huge island of ice that broke off dall'Antardide to highlight the climate crisis on the planet, on a smaller geographical scale there are the animals that live on the Italian mountains to confirm this. Are the species that live in the Alps and in the central areas in so-called "limit", fleeing to higher altitudes in the hunt for cold, snow and ice. Of ptarmigan in Italy are 5,000 couples, a species considered on the brink of extinction with a population that is in continuous decline, the ibex in Gran Paradiso is decreased by about
The Calderone glacier in 2006 (Piero Angelini)
30% since 1990, the glaciers are in constant regression, the snow falling. The Alps and the Apennines Central appear on seating with climate change, definitely in a state of distress and profound transformation. It 'a study of the WWF to take stock of the portion of the peninsula that most influenced global warming, where the fragile balances are ready to jump in the presence of mercury continues to rise.
ITALIAN GLACIERS WERE REDUCED BY 40% IN 150 YEARS - The most visible effect of climate change is underway in the Alps, as is known, the regression of glaciers, glaciology, the Committee estimated that the mid-nineteenth century there has lost an area equivalent to 40%. In central Italy the first victim is the famous glacier Calderone, at 2800 meters above sea level on the Gran Sasso of Italy (d. 2912), which is slowly dissolving - considering glaciological dead - and with it its lead, to be the southernmost glacier of Europe, just because of the progressive rise in temperature of the Earth. In Lombardy, the last two years have been extinct 30 glaciers, including those smaller, more exposed to the south and lower altitudes, but also the largest and best exposed glaciers are no exception to the general trend as from 2003 are all in sharp decline of surfaces and thickness. The average loss in thickness of the Lombardy glaciers in the last 20 years was 2 meters per year, an eloquent example is the Glacier Alpe South (Valtellina, SO), who lost in the last 10 years about 16 feet thick.
A ptarmigan (WWF)
animals involved - Changes of this magnitude in the wild, of course, also change the lives of plants and animals. If the alpine flora to a recent study, which lasted three years, led by the University of Pavia and coordinated by WWF, found the "escape" upwards for animals under the new parameter is detected by the WWF, if possible, even more dramatic. The species that live in the cold, while trying to adapt to new conditions, are in serious trouble. The most emblematic cases concern the ptarmigan el'ermellino, characterized by a white dress during the winter, valuable as a defense against predators and totally useless, even dangerous in the absence of snow. The partridge is now considered on the brink of extinction and in Italy there are only 5 thousand pairs. The ibex, a sort of symbol of the Alps, seems to suffer so important to the climate changes.
studies carried out in the Gran Paradiso National Park (where there are 50 years of data on population dynamics of the ibex) and in collaboration with the National Research Centre in Turin (CNR), shows that since 1992, the population is decreased dramatically, from almost 4000 individuals to less than 2500. The data also highlighted that the mortality rate of the population does not correlate with the death of older individuals, but with a decline in average annual survival of small, varied from 70% to 25% in a few years. According to the researchers, global warming would have the ability to affect the mortality of ungulates through a small change in the state of the vegetation in the first months of their lives: in short, would be lost synchrony that allows kids to eat food ibex High quality and tackle suitable for the following winter.
Source: www.corriere.it
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