Calderone glacier
Encyclopedia
The Calderone glacier located in the Gran Sasso d’Italia
Gran Sasso
Gran Sasso d'Italia is a mountain located in the Abruzzo region of central Italy. The Gran Sasso forms the centerpiece of the Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park which was established in 1993 and holds the highest mountains in continental Italy south of the Alps and is part of the...

 mountain group in Abruzzo
Abruzzo
Abruzzo is a region in Italy, its western border lying less than due east of Rome. Abruzzo borders the region of Marche to the north, Lazio to the west and south-west, Molise to the south-east, and the Adriatic Sea to the east...

, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 lies just beneath Corno Grande
Corno Grande
Corno Grande is part of the Gran Sasso massif, and is the highest peak in the Apennine Mountains and the highest on the Italian Peninsula, at 2,912 m above sea level....

, the highest peak in the Apennines
Apennine mountains
The Apennines or Apennine Mountains or Greek oros but just as often used alone as a noun. The ancient Greeks and Romans typically but not always used "mountain" in the singular to mean one or a range; thus, "the Apennine mountain" refers to the entire chain and is translated "the Apennine...

.

With the disappearance of the Corral de la Veleta glacier (37° N) in 1913, which lay in Spain's Sierra Nevada
Sierra Nevada (Spain)
The Sierra Nevada is a mountain range in the region of provinces of Granada and Almería in Spain. It contains the highest point of continental Spain, Mulhacén at 3478 m above sea level....

, "Il Calderone" became Europe's southernmost known glacier
Glacier
A glacier is a large persistent body of ice that forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. At least 0.1 km² in area and 50 m thick, but often much larger, a glacier slowly deforms and flows due to stresses induced by its weight...

 (42°28′N, 13°33′E) until the discovery of a number of small glaciers in the Prokletije
Prokletije
Prokletije or Albanian Alps is a mountain range in the Balkans that extends from northern Albania, to southwestern Serbia and eastern Montenegro. Its highest point, Jezercë in Albania at , is the tallest peak in the entire Dinaric Alps...

 in 2009. If present deglaciation trends continue, the Calderone will soon share Corral de la Veleta's fate.

In 1794, the Calderone had an estimated volume of over 4 million cubic meters; by 1916, the glacier’s volume had decreased to 3.3 million cubic meters, and by 1990, it had decreased to 360,931 cubic meters. :it:Ghiacciaio del Calderone In 1998 Italian glaciologists at a symposium in L'Aquila predicted that the Calderone would vanish within a few decades.
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