Italy’s Marmolada glacier could disappear by 2040, experts say

The Marmolada glacier has lost 70 hectares of its surface – the equivalent of 98 football fields – in the past five years. Photograph: Giulia Faccin/The Guardian

The Marmolada glacier, the largest and most symbolic of the Dolomites, could melt completely by 2040 owing to rising average temperatures, experts have said.

Italian scientists who are monitoring glaciers and the impact of climate emergency, and who took part in a campaign launched by environmentalist group Legambiente, the international commission for the protection of the Alps (Cipra), with the scientific partnership of the Italian Glacier Committee, said on Monday the Marmolada was losing between 7 and 10cm of depth a day.