Venezuela Becomes First Country to Lose All Glaciers

Context

Venezuela has lost its final glacier in the Sierra Nevada de Mérida mountain range. This loss marks a significant event, making Venezuela likely the first country in modern times to lose all its glaciers.

About

At one time, the country was home to six glaciers, but by 2011, five had vanished, leaving only the Humboldt glacier, also called La Corona, near Pico Humboldt.
Initially, scientists believed the Humboldt glacier would endure for another decade. However, the glacier had melted much faster than anticipated. Its size had dwindled to less than 2 hectares, prompting its reclassification from a glacier to an ice field.
Unfortunately, Venezuela is not alone in facing this crisis. Indonesia's Papua island, Mexico, and Slovenia are among the next countries expected to become glacier-free.

Fact Box: About Glacier

A glacier is a large, perennial accumulation of crystalline ice, snow, rock, sediment, and often liquid water that originates on land and moves down slope under the influence of its own weight and gravity.
Glaciers are classified by their size (i.e. ice sheet, ice cap, valley glacier, cirque glacier), location, and thermal regime (i.e., polar vs. temperate).
Glaciers form as snow accumulates and compresses into many layers of ice through a process called snow metamorphism.