Calderone glacier melts weeks early

(ANSA) - Rome, August 16 - The famed Calderone Glacier on the Gran Sasso in Abruzzo has melted weeks early this year after a heatwave and drought.
    In what some see as a sign of global warming, Europe's southernmost glacier has disappeared for the first time before the end of summer.
    "The Calderone Glacier is no more and our refuge's stream has been dry since yesterday, which has never happened over the last 30 years," the managers of the Franchetti Refuge said on their Facebook page. Photos taken by local mountaineers show the Calderone basin dry, apart from three tiny patches of ice. The glacier lies between 2,650 and 2,850 metres up on Italy's biggest, but not highest, mountain.
    L'Aquila-based mountaineer Paolo Boccabella said "the situation is dramatic this year: the glacier has disappeared not at the end of summer but already in mid-August".
    Meteorologists said ice remained under the gravel.