Shrinkage of the central Mediterranean cryosphere in a changing mountain environment

The summit area of the Apennines is quickly changing and the mid latitude cryosphere is contemporarily shrinking and degrading due to global warming. In such an environmental framework suffering of the sole glacier in the Apennine belt, the Calderone glacier, and general reduction of the cryosphere is widely inducing permafrost degradation; variation in time and spatial distribution of snow cover; instability involving both ice/snow and rock/debris; changes in the rhythms of precipitation and of melting, as well as of runoff; concentration/dilution/distribution of chemical pollutant compounds. Moreover, environmental changes seem to promote direct transition from the native and genuine glacial (periglacial to paraglacial) processes on a relatively reduced spatial and temporal scale. This is a synthetic state of the art study and research is presented that takes into account three different cryospheric components in the Gran Sasso d?Italia massif. Mountain Forum Bulletin 'Melting Mountains' July 2007