Chile, Puerto Natales, Balmaceda Glacier. Monte Balmaceda with its glacier along the Seno Ultima Esperanza (Last Hope Sound) in Parque Nacional Bernardo O’Higgins. It is Chile’s largest national park, covering 3,525,901 hectares of islands and icecaps, has few easy access points reachable only by sea, and Balmaceda Glacier at the Río Serrano’s outlet is one of them. Nesting colonies of seabirds and breeding colonies of southern sea lions, among U-shaped valleys with glaciers and waterfalls. Andean condors have been sighted in the area. Photo source: ©© Vtveen
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Glaciers play a vital role in Earth’s climate system, and it’s critical to understand what contributes to their fluctuation. Increased global temperatures are frequently viewed as the cause of glacial melt, but a new study of Patagonia’s Gualas Glacier highlights the role of precipitation in the glacier’s fluctuation…
As glaciers fluctuate, retreating or adding mass, they dramatically affect the water cycle, locking up fresh water as they amass, causing the sea level to rise as they thaw and retreat.
“Improving our understanding of the impact of climate changes on glacier variability is one of the most pressing aspects of present-day climate research,” says Bertrand, a postdoctoral fellow in WHOI’s Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry department and the Renard Centre of Marine Geology, University of Ghent…
