Italy’s Ventina glacier, once a towering symbol of the country’s natural splendor in northern Lombardy, now stands as a stark testament to the relentless march of climate change. For over 130 years, geologists have tracked the glacier’s ebb and flow with a simple, time-honored method: driving stakes into the ice to mark its extent, returning each year to measure the retreat. But in the wake of 2025’s blistering summer, that tradition has come to an abrupt halt. The terrain around the glacier has become so unstable—littered with rockslides and debris—that the stakes themselves are now buried, and in-person visits have become too dangerous to contemplate.
This week, on August 18, the Lombardy Glaciological Service made a sobering announcement: from now on, the Ventina glacier will be monitored not by boots on the ground, but by drones and remote sensing technology. According to Australian Associated Press, this shift marks the end of an era for glacier science in the region and highlights the urgent need for new tools in the face of a rapidly changing landscape.
The numbers are as dramatic as the landscape itself. Since 1895, when those first humble benchmarks were hammered into the ice, the Ventina glacier has lost a staggering 1.7 kilometers in length. The pace of melting has only quickened in recent years. In the past decade alone, the glacier has shrunk by 431 meters—nearly half of that since just 2021, as reported by the Lombardy Glaciological Service. It’s a story repeated across the Alps, but the speed and scale of Ventina’s retreat have shocked even seasoned observers.
“While we could still hope until the 1980s that there would be normal cycles (of retraction) or at least a contained retraction, in the last 40 years something truly striking has occurred,” observed Andrea Toffaletti, a member of the Lombardy Glaciological Service, as quoted by Australian Associated Press and Devdiscourse. His words echo the growing alarm among scientists who have watched the glacier’s slow fade turn into a rapid retreat.
What’s behind this dramatic transformation? The answer, experts say, lies in the twin forces of inadequate snowfall and record-setting hot summers. Glaciers, by their very nature, lose some ice each summer, with meltwater feeding mountain streams and rivers. But the recent summers have been so exceptionally warm that they no longer guarantee the survival of the winter snowpack—the vital layer of snow that must remain on the glacier’s surface at the end of each summer to keep the ice in balance.
“In order to regenerate and remain in balance, a certain amount of residual snow from the winter must remain on the glacier's surface at the end of the summer. And this is happening less and less frequently,” Toffaletti explained, underscoring the new reality facing Italy’s mountain glaciers.
The problem isn’t confined to Ventina. Italy’s glaciers, which stretch across the Alps and Dolomites in the north and the central Apennines, have been receding for years. The Alps, in particular, have emerged as a climate hotspot, recording temperature increases that are double the global average since pre-industrial times. The consequences have been devastating: over 64 percent of the volume of Alpine glaciers has been lost, according to the Lombardy Glaciological Service.
The global picture is equally sobering. In February 2025, the journal Nature published a study revealing that the world’s glaciers lost ice at an average rate of about 231 billion tonnes per year between 2000 and 2011. That rate has since accelerated, with glaciers shedding around 314 billion tonnes annually over the next decade. The Ventina glacier’s plight is, in many ways, a microcosm of this worldwide crisis.
For geologists and climate scientists, the shift to drones and remote sensing is both a technical necessity and a symbolic defeat. The old methods—boots crunching on ice, hands sinking stakes, tape measures stretched across ancient snow—were tactile, immediate, and deeply human. Now, as the ground grows treacherous and the glacier shrinks away, technology must bridge the gap. Drones can fly over unstable terrain, capturing high-resolution images and data that would be impossible, or at least perilous, to gather in person. Remote sensing techniques allow scientists to track subtle changes in ice mass and surface area from afar.
But as Toffaletti and his colleagues are quick to point out, no technological advance can reverse the underlying trend. The Alps’ glaciers are disappearing before our eyes, and with them, a host of environmental benefits. Glaciers act as natural reservoirs, releasing meltwater that sustains rivers, agriculture, and communities downstream. Their loss threatens not just picturesque vistas, but the very fabric of life in the region.
The retreat of the Ventina glacier is also a warning for the future. As the climate continues to warm, more glaciers will become inaccessible, not just for measurement but for tourism, recreation, and scientific study. The debris and rockslides now covering Ventina’s stakes are harbingers of a more unstable, unpredictable mountain environment—one that will challenge both residents and visitors alike.
Despite these daunting challenges, the Lombardy Glaciological Service remains committed to monitoring the glacier’s fate. The adoption of drones and remote sensing isn’t just a stopgap—it’s a way to ensure that the story of Ventina, and of all Europe’s glaciers, continues to be told. “The urgency for effective monitoring and response measures has amplified,” notes Devdiscourse, reflecting a broader consensus among experts that only by tracking these changes can we hope to adapt to, or even mitigate, the impacts of climate change.
There is, perhaps, a sliver of hope in this technological pivot. The data gathered by drones and satellites can be shared widely, informing not just scientists but policymakers, educators, and the public. Detailed imagery and time-lapse records make the glacier’s retreat impossible to ignore, adding a powerful visual dimension to the statistics and studies. In this way, Ventina’s story may yet galvanize action—locally, nationally, and globally.
For now, though, the glacier endures as a silent witness to a warming world, its fate intertwined with our own. The stakes may be buried, but the message could not be clearer: the time to act is now, before the last of the ice is gone.