The ClimADA project on Adamello glacier

Building on the legacy of the ADA270 project, through which a 224-metre long ice core was extracted from the Adamello glacier in 2021, the ClimADA project, thanks to extensive collaboration between scientific and institutional bodies, coordinated by the Lombardia Foundation for the Environment has the important objective of reconstructing the climatic evolution of the last centuries, the anthropic impact in the high Alpine mountain area, and also the dynamics of the plant species, the history of the great fires which have occurred in the last centuries and in general of the anthropogenic impacts in high mountain areas.

With the ADA270 drilling, the already installed fiber optic probe and the appropriate integration with other information coming from conventional sensors, it is possible to develop the study of the behavior of the ice mass (through thermal and glacier deformation profiles) and to follow its evolution over time also as a function of the change in external environmental parameters, predicting their future fate also in the light of global warming projections provided by global climate models.

The Adamello glacier, the deepest in Italy, in fact represents one of the most powerful archives of the climatic, environmental and human history of the Italian Alps and in particular of Lombardy.

For more informations and updates visit the site ClimADA

OPTICE: Optics for ice, snow and mineral dust

OPTICE is a scientific multidisciplinary project aimed at determining and studying the optical properties of dust in the snowpack and ice cores and the optical properties of ice and snow crystals.

The research activity is driven by people having different backgrounds and experiences and we belive that multidisciplinary studies are essentials for the comprehension of the complex climate systems and the cryosphere.

Through the use of videos, documents, interviews, conferences and meetings in schools we think it’s possible to transmit adequate notions on the cryosphere and climate change as well as raise public awareness before ice and snow will be only a memory in the Alps.

For more informations on the project visit the OPTICE website.

Ice core activity form 1996 in the Alpine Area.

Two main sites where investigated along the last 23 years, the Colle del Lys, on the accumulation rate of the Lys Glacier (Italy-Switzerland border at 4250 m asl) in Valle d'Aosta and the Pian di Neve on the accumulation rate of the Mandrone Glacier (Adamello Group , at 3200 m asl).

The Colle del Lys represent a typical cold glacier area with ice at -11°C of temperature, representing the high accumulation rate site that permit seasonal records (1.3 m water equivalent). The Pian di Neve is a temperate glacier with strong melting (percolation zone/superimposed ice), representing the most common typology of glacier in the Alps.

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