THE PYRENEES have lost almost 90 per cent of their glacier ice over the past century, according to scientists, who warn that global warming means they will disappear completely within a few decades.
While glaciers covered 3,300 hectares of land on the mountain range at the turn of the last century, only 390 hectares remain, according to Spain’s environment ministry.
The most southerly glaciers in Europe are losing the battle against warming and could be among the first to disappear from the continent over the coming decades.
“This century could see (perhaps within a few decades) the total, or almost total, disappearance of the last reserves of ice in the Spanish Pyrenees and, as a result, a major change in the current nature of upper reaches of the mountains,” the authors of the report on Spain’s glaciers said.