Monitoring a shrinking glacier

Nature : The Exploradores Glacier in southern Chile is disappearing, slowly. Part of the Northern Patagonian Ice Field, the glacier is remote enough that it would be too costly to install and maintain satellite or radio transmission stations to report changes. To try to understand how weather conditions affect the rate at which Exploradores melts and how the water released flows through and out of the bottom of the glacier, Takane Matsumoto, a glaciologist at the Center for Ecosystem Research in Patagonia, makes regular journeys to the glacier to gather data on temperature, precipitation, humidity, and wind speed.About 100 glaciers in Chile are being monitored, and of those, almost 90% are in retreat, according to Chile’s Center for Scientific Studies in Valdivia. Glaciologist Neil Glasser of Aberystwyth University in the UK and colleagues have estimated that the Northern Patagonian Ice Field has lost more than 100 cubic kilometers of ice since 1870. The melt rate has increased in recent decades, and it remains to be seen how that will affect local water resources.