Two decades of glacier mass loss along the Andes

Simulation of Long-Term Changes of the Equilibrium Line Altitude in the Central Chilean Andes Mountains Derived From Atmospheric Variables During the 1958–2018 Period

“…A significant decrease of ∼ −68 ± 12 m (non-statistically significant) was detected between 1958 and 1976, and significant increases of ∼265 ± 32 m (p < 0.05) between 1978 and 2018 ( Figure 10A) and of ∼405 ± 55 m (p < 0.05) between 2000 and 2018 ( Figure 10A) were observed after applying the exponential filter (Equation 4). That increase agrees with the generalized glacier mass balance of −0.31 ± 0.19 m w.e./year, recently reported by Dussaillant et al (2019) between 2000 and the end of 2017 in the central Andes of Chile-Argentina (between ∼31 • S-∼37.5 • S).…”

Synergistic Use of Single-Pass Interferometry and Radar Altimetry to Measure Mass Loss of NEGIS Outlet Glaciers between 2011 and 2014

“…Ice sheet volume changes have been mainly derived with laser or radar altimeters [8,10,20] but on smaller ice bodies in the Andes or for small glacier catchments in the Antarctic Peninsula, volumetric measurements from InSAR and optical stereo DEM differencing have also proven to be a valuable method to deliver geodetic glacier mass balances [21][22][23][24]. However, because of the sparse data availability of high resolution InSAR acquisitions, it has been challenging to cover entire glacier catchments of larger ice sheet outlet glaciers with timely, spatially distributed surface elevation measurements.…”

Six Decades (1958–2018) of Geodetic Glacier Mass Balance in Monte San Lorenzo, Patagonian Andes

“…A sustained trend of rapid glacier retreat and depletion has been observed in most mountain and cold regions around the Globe (Zemp et al, 2019) including the Patagonian Andes (Davies and Glasser, 2012;Paul and Mölg, 2014;Masiokas et al, 2015;Falaschi et al, 2017;Dussaillant et al, 2019). The large, temperate ice masses of Patagonia are particularly sensitive to climate change as they are close to the melting point (Schwikowski et al, 2013), and are in fact currently among the greatest contributors to sea-level rise (Marzeion et al, 2012;Gardner et al, 2013;Foresta et al, 2018).…”

“…Quite the opposite, merely Martial Este (2001-ongoing;Strelin and Iturraspe, 2007;Buttstädt et al, 2009; see also WGMS, 2017) and Glaciar de los Tres (Popovnin et al, 1999, resumed in 2013 by the Instituto Argentino de Nivología y Glaciología of Argentina) have had glaciological mass balance programs recently. At a broader scale, glacier volume and mass changes been surveyed by means of the geodetic mass balance method (Rivera et al, 2007;Willis et al, 2012;Falaschi et al, 2017;Foresta et al, 2018;Braun et al, 2019;Dussaillant et al, 2019), which retrieves glacier elevation and volume changes by differencing a series of multi-temporal, often multi-sourced DEMs (Cogley, 2009). However, most of these mass balance assessments have utilized DEMs that represent the topography of glacier surface only from the year 2000 onwards (i.e., the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, SRTM).…”