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An icy breeze hits your hands and face. The Perito Moreno Glacier, a 260-square-kilometer white mantle, stands out before the eyes of thousands of people on the tourist trails that surround it in Los Glaciares National Park in Argentina’s southern Andes region near the border with Chile. . This enormous mass of white and crystal blue ice, with walls almost 60 meters high, represents a retreat on the north side of the Canal de los Témpanos that is being studied with particular attention by the scientific community.
According to satellite monitoring and ground radar measurements, scientists warn: “Unlike other glaciers, Perito Moreno has not changed for a long time.” If you calculate the balance of its mass, the average over the last 50 years is zero. “It was a giant in equilibrium, gaining or losing very little mass, but recovering,” explains Lucas Ruiz, scientist at the Argentine Institute of Nivology, Glaciology and Environmental Sciences (Ianigla) and researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (Conicet ). Together with his team, he studies the behavior of the glacier using a methodology that calibrates a numerical model to detect the glacier’s mass changes over the long term. Measurements are made using the amount of snow accumulated, which is compared to the amount of ice lost from the front as ice falls.
Perito Moreno is one of the 49 glaciers that make up the Southern Ice Field, the largest area of ice in the entire Southern Hemisphere outside Antarctica. This large area covers 12,363 square kilometers and is located in the Patagonian Andes between Argentina and Chile. Glaciers are freshwater reservoirs formed by snow that does not melt.
The front walls of the Perito Moreno Glacier, more than 50 meters high, seen from the tourist trails.Lucas Ruiz
In Argentina there are more than 16,000 glaciers from north to south over a length of 3,500 kilometers in the Andes, 12 provinces and 39 water basins. “Having glaciers, especially in the mountains, is like driving a car with a seat belt. If something happens, if there are droughts, the glacier belt is the reserve of fixed water,” explains Ruiz. In this way, glaciers benefit the planet during the driest times of the year by providing water and losing mass. And when there is too much snow, the treasure of frozen water is recovered.
Melting glaciers and global warming
Since 2020, Ianigla researchers have observed a retreat of the Perito Moreno, which they interpret as a mass loss of more than 700 meters, about seven blocks. “We have to be very careful and say that we have to continue the observation to be more certain that the glacier is actually starting a phase of retreat because it has not yet lost its grip on the peninsula,” warns researcher Ruiz.
This naturally raises the question: Is this movement related to global warming? Temperature rise is a key variable for analyzing thaw contexts. Pedro Skvarca, scientific director of Glaciarium, a glaciological interpretation center in Argentine Patagonia, assures that 2022 was one of the warmest years in South America since records were recorded (1910). “There is another factor added to the temperature, which is an underwater moraine, a kind of rocky mountain on which the glacier rested, decoupled and separated,” explained this glaciologist in a presentation to the press at this center. Interpretation.
This phenomenon of mass loss in glaciers has also been observed in other regions of Argentina’s Patagonia region, such as the famous Upsala glacier near Perito Moreno, with which it shares Lake Argentino. Three years ago, a process of movement and weight loss began and in just eight months it retreated 300 meters in its eastern sector.
All the phenomena are related: the underwater moraine that has detached from the Perito Moreno Glacier, the loss of mass associated with the increase in summer temperatures, the pressure of subglacial water affecting the drilling of the base, all point to a change that must take place very closely. “I have already seen the disintegration of the Larsen ice barriers A and B in Antarctica. The world misuses energy and very few people are aware that something needs to be done. Nature alone cannot combat this damage,” Skvarca reflects worriedly.
Ianigla researchers measured snow accumulation using ground-penetrating radar in April this year. Lucas Ruiz
Ianigla’s Lucas Ruiz points to the role of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon dioxide concentrations in climate change. “It is largely due to the burning of fossil fuels that the concentration of these gases in the atmosphere is the highest in the last 2 million years, leading to abnormal warming that we call climate change,” explains researcher Ruiz. This statement is consistent with a study by the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation on the Argentine case of oil fields, which mentions the general environmental impact of volatile components released into the atmosphere.
Argentina made commitments to limit global warming with the signing of the Paris Agreement and is committed to the goals of net reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 through the National Plan for Adaptation and Mitigation of Global Climate Change and the Strategy for Resilient Development with Long-Term Low Emissions Greenhouse gas emissions. However, President-elect Javier Milei, who denies the existence of climate change, promised in his election campaign to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C by 2050, and also to restrict research. scientific.
Scientists, the guardians of the glaciers
Given the political uncertainty, scientists warn that more studies are needed and basic research to obtain data in remote places like glaciers is not cheap. “To carry out measurements in the accumulation zone of the large glaciers of the southern ice field, teams of several people have to be put together, helicopters have to help us, and there are also the risks of an expedition in a remote area,” says Ruiz.
Therefore, cooperation with other countries has become essential. Recently, an expedition between scientists from Germany, Chile and Argentina conducted studies using a German aircraft to better understand changes in the glaciers of Patagonia’s large ice fields.
There is no doubt that Perito Moreno’s greatest allies and protectors are them, the scientists. And respondents emphasize the urgency of caring for and examining them. “Glaciers are a kind of freshwater savings bank that is getting smaller and smaller. It is important to discuss how we can mitigate the effects of global warming,” concludes researcher Ruiz.