‘The extreme events scare me the most’: climatologist warns of Italy’s vulnerability to climate crisis

The view over the Italian Alps from Borgata Vazon, 1650m high in the Susa Valley. “I describe the mountains as the open-sky laboratory for climatology,” says Luca Mercalli. Photograph: Angela Giuffrida

The collapse of a glacier in the Dolomites and a landslide on the island of Ischia. Devastating floods, wildfires and record-breaking heatwaves. The worst drought of the Po, Italy’s longest river, in 200 years. Luca Mercalli, an Italian climatologist, has seen his fair share of extreme weather events in Italy within the past two years. But nothing prepared him for the scene in Mortegliano, a small town in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, the northern region bordering Slovenia.

Mercalli, the president of the Italian Meteorological Society, and noted for having stormed off TV debates after becoming frustrated by climate crisis deniers, was in the area by chance days after powerful storms wreaked havoc in northern Italy in late July, killing five people.