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Massive white tarpaulins are being used to protect Alpine glaciers from melting over the summer.
In northern Italy, the Presena glacier has lost more than one third of its volume since 1993.
Once the ski season is over and cable cars are berthed, conservationists race to try and stop it melting by using white tarps that block the sun's rays.
"This area is continuously shrinking, so we cover as much of it as possible," explains Davide Panizza, 34, who heads the Carosello-Tonale company that does the work.
From around 30,000 square metres (36,000 square yards) covered in 2008 when the project began, his team now places 100,000 square metres under wraps.
The tarps themselves are "geotextile tarpaulins that reflect sunlight, maintaining a temperature lower than the external one, and thus preserving as much snow as possible," according to Panizza.
Installation and removal of the tarps takes approximately six weeks each to complete. Similar systems are in place on a few Austrian glaciers as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2020, @11:47AM
That would be degrees.
Celsius in the civilised world, Fahrenheit in the USA. Either works within the context of the comment.