{"id":18096,"date":"2019-02-19T00:00:12","date_gmt":"2019-02-19T03:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.glaciareschilenos.org\/?p=18096"},"modified":"2025-03-07T10:05:39","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T13:05:39","slug":"the-worrying-retreat-of-glaciers-in-the-central-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.glaciareschilenos.org\/en\/science\/the-worrying-retreat-of-glaciers-in-the-central-zone\/","title":{"rendered":"The worrying retreat of glaciers in the central zone"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n\r\nThe heat waves in the center and south of our country demonstrate that climate change is real. Not only people are affected by high temperatures, but the environment is also affected. Likewise, our glacier heritage, guardian of millenary waters and sustenance of our daily life, has been damaged.<\/span>\r\n\r\nSeveral causes of glacial retreat exist, such as rare winter precipitation and high temperatures. According to the 2014 cadaster, which compared satellite images from 2000 and 2002, the increase in temperatures is the main cause. A new cadaster is currently in a functionality test and will be compared with images from 2015.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe ice masses in the central zone, located between the valley and the mountains of the <\/span>R\u00edo Maipo <\/span><\/i>basin, have experienced significant retreats in their fronts and higher levels of thinning, which causes the cold mass to shatter and fragment. Records between 2000 and 2015 reveal a thinning between 1 to 2 meters per year. Clear examples of this unfortunate phenomenon are the <\/span>El Plomo<\/span><\/i> glacier, which decreases its thickness by almost one meter per year; the <\/span>El Bello<\/span><\/i> glacier, which suffers from the same problem; and the <\/span>San Francisco<\/span><\/i> glacier, whose thinning fraction reaches 1.87 meters yearly.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe same happens in the <\/span>R\u00edo Tinguiririca<\/span><\/i> basin, in the sixth region, where they are thinning at a rate of more than 2 meters per year. At the same time, glacier fronts are retreating, such as the <\/span>Olivares Alfa<\/span><\/i> glacier (47.4 m\/year); <\/span>Esmeralda<\/span><\/i> glacier (23 m\/year), and <\/span>El Plomo<\/span><\/i> glacier (19.1 m\/year). The same happens in the <\/span>R\u00edo Aconcagua<\/span><\/i> basin with the Juncal glacier, with a decrease in both its southern and northern parts of 24 and 17.9 meters per year, respectively.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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Changes in the spatial extent of Olivares Alfa glaciers between 1955 and 2013. Source: Jeppe Malmros et al. (2016)<\/span>\r\n\r\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe area covered by glaciers in the <\/span>R\u00edo Maipo<\/span><\/i> basin is approximately 365 km<\/span>2<\/span> which represents 7.5\u00a0% of the total area.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe 2014 inventory indicates 24,114 glaciers in our territory, covering 23,641km<\/span>2<\/span>, and 76\u00a0% of them are in <\/span>Patagonia<\/span><\/i>; whose rate of retreat leads the world ranking.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s a concrete fact that the large ice masses are increasingly losing territory, being the ones that cooperate with the primary function of snow accumulation in winter, to release it later in the season of rare rainfall. Climate change is already revealing the symptoms of a serious disease for our territory and the world. It\u2019s everyone’s responsibility to face a heartbreaking scenario, which seems to be imminent. For this, we must apply preventive measures quickly, if we want future generations to know and marvel at the majesty of our natural architecture.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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San Francisco glacier, Marcos Cole, 2016<\/span>\r\n\r\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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Bello Glacier, Thomas Shaw, 2018<\/span>\r\n\r\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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Bello glacier, Thomas Shaw, 2018<\/span>\r\n\r\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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Yeso glacier, Thomas Shaw, 2018<\/span>\r\n\r\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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Yeso glacier, Thomas Shaw, 2018<\/span>\r\n\r\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nSource:<\/b>\r\n
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  1. \r\n
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    1. El Mercurio, Econom\u00eda y Negocios: https:\/\/digital.elmercurio.com\/2019\/02\/17\/C\/CD3HNE4C#zoom=page-width (last view: February 19, 2019) <\/span>[Chilean newspaper]<\/span><\/i><\/li>\r\n \t
    2. Barcaza, G. et al. (2017) \u2018Glacier inventory and recent glacier variations in the Andes of Chile, South America\u2019, Annals of Glaciology, 58, pp. 166\u2013180. doi: 10.1017\/aog.2017.28.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
    3. Farias-Barahona, D. et al. (2019) \u2018Geodetic Mass Balances and Area Changes of Echaurren Norte Glacier (Central Andes, Chile) between 1955 and 2015\u2019, Remote Sensing, 11(260), pp. 1\u201317. doi: 10.3390\/rs11030260.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
    4. Malmros, J. K. et al. (2016) \u2018Glacier area changes in the central Chilean and Argentinean Andes 1955-2013\/14\u2019, Journal of Glaciology, 62(232), pp. 391\u2013401. doi: 10.1017\/jog.2016.43.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
    5. Inventario de glaciares chilenos, Direcci\u00f3n General de Aguas (DGA): http:\/\/www.dga.cl\/administracionrecursoshidricos\/Inventario_glaciares\/Paginas\/default.aspx (last view: February 19, 2019) <\/span>[Chilean glaciers inventory, General Directorate of water]<\/span><\/i><\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      An\u00e1lisis de Unidad de Glaciolog\u00eda junto con Nieves del MOP arrojan resultados preocupantes sobre glaciares de la zona central<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":13810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"googlesitekit_rrm_CAow57LVCw:productID":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2632],"tags":[2635,2636,2689,2665,2681,2742,1270,3639],"coauthors":[3624],"class_list":["post-18096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-chile","tag-climate-change","tag-cryosphere","tag-environment-en-2","tag-glacier-en-2","tag-glaciers","tag-medioambiente","tag-metropolitana-region"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glaciareschilenos.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glaciareschilenos.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glaciareschilenos.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glaciareschilenos.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glaciareschilenos.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18096"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.glaciareschilenos.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18098,"href":"https:\/\/www.glaciareschilenos.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18096\/revisions\/18098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glaciareschilenos.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glaciareschilenos.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glaciareschilenos.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glaciareschilenos.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18096"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glaciareschilenos.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=18096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}