Retreat of Mediterranean glaciers since the Little Ice Age: Case study of Ghiacciaio del Calderone (Central Apennines, Italy)

Ghiacciaio del Calderone is the only glacier in the Italian Apennines and the southernmost glacier in Europe in a strong reduction phase. In this paper, the authors present a tentative synthesis of the evolution of the glacier, with a particular focus on evaluating the variations in area and thickness ranging from the end of the Little Ice Age to the present. The analysis was performed in a GIS environment, using available data for georeferation (mainly from recent topographic maps) and for the reconstruction (from historical documents and old topographic maps) of the variations of the..