Written by Bernat Barira
Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina (Reuters) -The deep sound that explodes from inside the dramatic fall is about to happen. After seconds, a block of ice collapses about 70 meters (230 feet) – a 20 -storey building size – from Perito Moreno Glacier’s face to piles water below.
The scene attracted visitors to the most famous glaciers in Argentina for years. They stand on the platforms facing the ice, and wait for the next crack to divide the cold air Patagoni.
But recently, the size of the separate ice pieces – a process called “childbirth” – began to alert local guides and ice scientists, who are already concerned about a lengthy decline by the Paro Moreno, who was wandering in the direction in recent decades by maintaining its mass until the most warmer climates pronounced more than the melting of the ice.
“The events of the ice Ice of this size have not been very popular in Perito Moreno Glacier over the past twenty years,” said Pablo Quinteros, the official tourist guide at the Los Glasserez National Park in the southern province of Santa Cruz.
“In only the four years to six, we started to see a big Icebergs,” he told Reuters during a visit in April.
The face of the iceberg, which flows from the tops of the Andes to end in the waters of Lake Argentina, for decades more or less stable, as some years and others have advanced. But in the past five years, there has been a more stable decline.
“It has been in the same position or less over the past eighty years,” said Lucas Ruiz, the Argentine ice scientist Lucas Ruiz of the State Sciences Authority, whose focus is on the future of the iceberg in Patagagon in the face of climate change.
“However, since 2020, signs of retreat in some parts of Perito Moreno Glacier began.”
He said that the ice rivers could recover as they did before, but at the present time it was losing between one meter and two of the equivalent of water per year, which if not reversed can lead to a position in which the loss accelerates.
The state -backed 2024 report showed that Ruiz participated and presented to the Argentine conference, although the Berrito Moreno bloc was generally stable for half a century, but this period since 2015 witnessed the fastest and most length of the mass in 47 years, on average 0.85 meters per year.
Ice rivers disappear all over the world faster than ever, as the past three years have seen the largest ice mass loss ever, according to UNESCO’s report in March.
“You cannot understand the magnitude of that.”
Ruiz said that the tools used by the research team that he used to monitor the iceberg showed an increase in air temperature in an area of about 0.06 ° C in each contract and decreased rainfall, which means snow and ice accumulation.
“The thing with Perito Moreno is that it took some time, if it is permissible to speak, to feel the effects of climate change,” said Ruiz. Now, however, the accumulation of ice in the upper part of the ice rivers was superior by melting and gossip at the bottom.
“The changes we see today clearly show that this balance of forces … may be disrupted, and today loses the iceberg in both thickness and the region.”
Currently, the iceberg continues to be an amazing attraction for travelers, who are lowering boats to see childbirth and the huge ice mountains that float around the lake closely.
“It is crazy. The most interesting thing I saw at all,” said Brazilian Giovana Machado on the roof of a boat, which should be careful of sudden ice waterfalls.
“Even in the pictures, you cannot understand the magnitude of it, and it is perfect. It is amazing. I think everyone should come here at least once in their lives.”
Nicholas Cortis and Juan Bustante (Adam Jordan)
