(May 5th 2016) The University of Parma is also part of the ‘team’ of Italian Limes, a project that analyses the effects of climate change on the melting glaciers and the displacement of the watershed that defines the borders of Italy, Austria, Switzerland and France. The University participates in the Department of Physics and Earth Sciences: coordination is entrusted to Professor Robert French, who for several years, dealt with geophysics in glacial and periglacial environments. In early April, a new phase of the project kicked off: The Italian Limes team installed a number of sensors on the surface of the Grava Glacier at the foot of Mt. Similaun, 3,300 metres above sea level. The measuring devices will determine the evolution of the glacier geometry throughout the spring and summer of 2016. Representatives of the Italian Glaciology Committee of the National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics (OGS) and the Department of Physics and Earth Sciences of the University of Parma to take part in the expedition and provided the scientific coordination by performing precise GPS measurments and geophysical surveys of the glacier. The data collected will serve the installation exhibited at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlsruhe, inaugurated last April 16th and at the same time will help to better understand the dynamics of climate change in the Alps. The morphological change of the Garva glacier at 3,000 metres of altitude on the Similaun Mountain (where the famous mummy was discovered) also constitutes a remarkable case study of ‘mobile border’ between Italy and Austria through the detectors connected system to the GSM network, the border can be monitored and mapped in real time from any remote location. Visitors at the Reset Modernity! Exhibition at ZKM Karlsruhe in Germany, with an interactive installation can observe the flow of data coming in and able to print an updated map of the national border.
