Why Argentina's surprise tourist attraction is falling apart
Seconds later, a colossal block of ice, equivalent to a 20-story building, shears off the Perito Moreno glacier, plunging 70 meters into the turquoise water below.
This breathtaking scene has drawn visitors to Argentina's iconic glacier for years, where they stand on viewing platforms, anticipating the next thunderous calving event.
However, the sheer size of these recently breaking ice chunks is causing concern among local guides and glaciologists.
Perito Moreno has long defied the global trend of glacial retreat, maintaining its mass despite rising global temperatures.
Now, alarm bells are ringing.
"Ice calving events of this size haven't been very common at the Perito Moreno glacier over the past 20 years," said Pablo Quinteros, an official tourist guide at Los Glaciares National Park in the southern province of Santa Cruz.
"It's only in the last four to six years that we've started to see icebergs this big," he told Reuters during a visit in April.
The face of the glacier, which flows down from Andean peaks to end in the waters of Lake Argentina, had for decades held more or less steady, some years advancing and others retreating. But in the last five years, there's been a firmer retreat.
"It had been in more or less the same position for the past 80 years. And that's unusual," said Argentine glaciologist Lucas Ruiz with state science body CONICET, whose research focus is the future of Patagonian glaciers in the face of climate change.
"However, since 2020, signs of retreat have begun to be seen in some parts of the Perito Moreno glacier's face."
He said that the glacier could rebound as it has done before, but that for the moment it was losing between one and two meters of water equivalent per year.
If not reversed, that could lead to a situation where the loss accelerates.
A state-backed 2024 report, co-authored by Ruiz and presented to Argentina's Congress, showed that while Perito Moreno's mass has been overall stable for half a century, the period since 2015 has seen the fastest and most prolonged loss of mass in 47 years, on average losing 0.85 meters per year.
Glaciers around the globe are disappearing faster than ever, with the last three-year period seeing the largest glacial mass loss on record, according to a UNESCO report in March.
Ruiz said instruments his research team used to monitor the glacier had shown an increase in air temperature in the area of around 0.06 degrees Celsius per decade and precipitation decreasing, meaning less accumulation of snow and ice.
"The thing with Perito Moreno is that it took a while, so to speak, to feel the effects of climate change," Ruiz said. Now, however, the accumulation of ice at the top of the glacier was being outpaced by melting and calving at the bottom.
"The changes we are seeing today clearly show that this balance of forces... has been disrupted, and today the glacier is losing both in thickness and area."
For now, the glacier remains an awe-inspiring attraction for travelers, who board boats to see the calving and the huge icebergs floating around the lake up close.
"It's insane. The most incredible thing I've ever seen," said Brazilian tourist Giovanna Machado on the deck of one of the boats, which have to be careful of sudden ice falls.
"Even in photos, you just can't grasp the immensity of it, and it's perfect. It's amazing. I think everyone should come here at least once in their lifetime."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
15 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Now scientists blame REDUCTIONS in air pollution in China for the acceleration in global warming
Reductions in air pollution might sound like a positive thing. But scientists now say that reductions in East Asia are actually to blame for the sudden, rapid acceleration in global warming. While air pollution kills millions, it also whitens clouds. In turn, this makes the clouds reflect more sunlight back into space - helping to keep our planet cool. As China and other nations slash their emissions, they are inadvertently removing the artificial shade that has been holding back the full force of climate change, experts from the University of Reading say. Co-author Professor Laura Wilcox, from the University of Reading, told MailOnline: 'This shading effect from air pollution has offset some of the warming we should have seen due to increasing greenhouse gases. 'As we improve air quality, we remove some of this shading effect, unmasking more warming from greenhouse gases. 'Reducing our aerosol emissions isn't causing warming directly, but revealing more of the effects of greenhouse gas emissions.' Since 1970, the world has been warming by around 0.18°C (0.32°F) per decade, but this suddenly increased to around 0.24°C (0.43°F) starting from around 2010. For some researchers, this led to the worrying conclusion that the planet's climate sensitivity - how much warming is produced by a given amount of CO2 - might be at the higher end of estimates. However, Dr Wilcox and her co-authors have proposed an alternative theory. They noticed that the sudden increase in warming coincided very closely with East Asia's rapid air pollution cleanup. In the last few decades, countries in East Asia have undergone dramatic transformations to clean up their air. China, where air pollution is responsible for one million premature deaths per year, was responsible for three-quarters of all global air pollution reductions in the last decade. This has led to a 75 per cent reduction in sulphur dioxide emissions over the past 15 years. When pollutants like sulphur dioxide are released into the atmosphere, they form a fine mist of tiny particles called sulfate aerosols, which drift up into the atmosphere. These particles reflect sunlight themselves and influence the way clouds form to make them whiter and more long-lasting. This acts as a 'cooling sunshade' which prevents some solar radiation from reaching Earth and being trapped by the greenhouse effect. While the cleanup is absolutely necessary to save millions of lives, it also has the unintentional consequence of producing a temporary spike in warming. Previous studies predicted that our planet would become 0.23°C (0.37°F) warmer, but the planet actually warmed by 0.33°C (0.55°F). Using 160 computer simulations, the researchers showed that the East Asian cleanup produced almost all of the extra warming over the last 15 years. These simulations showed that East Asia's rapid cleanup is responsible for 0.07°C (0.12°F) of this increase. Overall, there has been so much pollution in the air that it has kept human-caused warming in check by up to 0.5°C (0.84°F) over the last century. While this is a very small amount compared to total human-caused warming, around 1.3°C (2.2°F) since 1850, it shows that Earth's climate sensitivity is lower than some feared. From this, it might be tempting to conclude that climate change is not really as bad as some scientists had thought. Now that air pollution has been largely reduced, CO2 will once again take over as the main driver of global warming and will not stop warming the planet on its current trend (illustrated) until CO2 levels are reduced However, the researchers say their study proves the complete opposite. Lead-author Dr Bjørn Samset, from the CICERO Centre for International Climate Research, told MailOnline: 'In one sense it means that global warming is worse than before.' Air pollution has been hiding the warming that CO2 levels should have produced, and the planet is only now catching up to where it should be. The worst of the catch-up period may now be over, but the planet will continue to warm as greenhouse gas emissions take over as the main driver of change. 'The majority of the warming is still, and will continue to be, from greenhouse gas emissions, and the planet will keep warming until we manage to reach net zero CO2 emissions,' says Dr Samset. 'We were always going to need to face up to the full effects of global warming. 'In fact, in order to keep to the targets of the Paris agreement, we now have to work even harder to rapidly cut our greenhouse gas emissions, since the acceleration has put us closer to 1.5 degrees of global warming even quicker than feared.' The invisible dangers of poor air quality Poor air quality is the largest environmental risk factor for early deaths leading to an estimated 8 million deaths per year globally, according to recent analysis by the World Bank and the World Economic Forum. The World Health Organisation recently stated that almost every organ in the body can be impacted by air pollution and that due to their small size, some pollutants penetrate the bloodstream via the lungs and circulate throughout the entire body, leading to systemic inflammation and carcinogenicity. Exposure to air pollution can lead to strokes, ischaemic heart disease, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer, pneumonia, diabetes, cognitive impairment, dementia and neurological diseases. There is also some evidence linking air pollution exposure to the increased risk for adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as low birth weight.
The Independent
a day ago
- The Independent
Trump administration says it won't publish major climate change report on NASA website as promised
The Trump administration on Monday took another step to make it harder to find major, legally mandated scientific assessments of how climate change is endangering the nation and its people. Earlier this month, the official government websites that hosted the authoritative, peer-reviewed national climate assessments went dark. Such sites tell state and local governments and the public what to expect in their backyards from a warming world and how best to adapt to it. At the time, the White House said NASA would house the reports to comply with a 1990 law that requires the reports, which the space agency said it planned to do. But on Monday, NASA announced that it aborted those plans. 'The USGCRP (the government agency that oversees and used to host the report) met its statutory requirements by presenting its reports to Congress. NASA has no legal obligations to host data," NASA Press Secretary Bethany Stevens said in an email. That means no data from the assessment or the government science office that coordinated the work will be on NASA, she said. On July 3, NASA put out a statement that said: "All preexisting reports will be hosted on the NASA website, ensuring continuity of reporting.' 'This document was written for the American people, paid for by the taxpayers, and it contains vital information we need to keep ourselves safe in a changing climate, as the disasters that continue to mount demonstrate so tragically and clearly,' said Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe. She is chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy and co-author of several past national climate assessments. Copies of past reports are still squirreled away in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 's library and the latest report and its interactive atlas can be seen here. Former Obama White House science adviser and climate scientist John Holdren accused the administration of outright lying and long intended to censor or bury the reports. 'The new stance is classic Trump administration misdirection,' Holdren said. 'In this instance, the administration offers a modest consolation to quell initial outrage over the closure of the site and the disappearance of the National Climate Assessments. Then, two weeks later, they snatch away the consolation with no apology.' 'They simply don't want the public to see the meticulously assembled and scientifically validated information about what climate change is already doing to our farms, forests, and fisheries, as well as to storms, floods, wildfires, and coast property — and about how all those damages will grow in the absence of concerted remedial action,' Holdren said in an email. That's why it's important that state and local governments and every day people see these reports, Holdren said. He said they are written in a way that is 'useful to people who need to understand what climate change is doing and will do to THEM, their loved ones, their property and their environment." 'Trump doesn't want people to know,' Holdren wrote. The most recent report, issued in 2023, found that climate change is affecting people's security, health and livelihoods in every corner of the country in different ways, with minority communities, particularly Native Americans, often disproportionately at risk. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
The Independent
a day ago
- The Independent
Why cleaner air is actually accelerating global warming
Global warming has picked up pace since around 2010, leading to the recent string of record warm years. Why this is happening is still unclear, and among the biggest questions in climate science today. Our new study reveals that reductions in air pollution – particularly in China and east Asia – are a key reason for this faster warming. Cleanup of sulphur emissions from global shipping has been implicated in past research. But that cleanup only began in 2020, so it's considered too weak to explain the full extent of this acceleration. Nasa researchers have suggested that changes in clouds could play a role, either through reductions in cloud cover in the tropics or over the North Pacific. One factor that has not been well quantified, however, is the effect of monumental efforts by countries in east Asia, notably China, to combat air pollution and improve public health through strict air quality policies. There has already been a 75% reduction in east Asian sulphur dioxide emissions since around 2013, and that cleanup effort picked up pace just as global warming began accelerating. Our study addresses the link between east Asian air quality improvements and global temperature, building on the efforts of eight teams of climate modellers across the world. We have found that polluted air may have been masking the full effects of global warming. Cleaner air could now be revealing more of the human-induced global warming from greenhouse gases. In addition to causing millions of premature deaths, air pollution shields the Earth from sunlight and therefore cools the surface. There has been so much air pollution that it has held human-induced warming in check by up to 0.5°C over the last century. With the cleanup of air pollution, something that's vital for human health, this artificial sunshade is removed. Since greenhouse gas emissions have kept on increasing, the result is that the Earth's surface is warming faster than ever before. Modelling the cleanup Our team used 160 computer simulations from eight global climate models. This enabled us to better quantify the effects that east Asian air pollution has on global temperature and rainfall patterns. We simulated a cleanup of pollution similar to what has happened in the real world since 2010. We found an extra global warming of around 0.07°C. While this is a small number compared with the full global warming of around 1.3°C since 1850, it is still enough to explain the recent acceleration in global warming when we take away year-to-year swings in temperature from natural cycles such as El Niño, a climate phenomenon in the Pacific that affects weather patterns globally. Based on long-term trends, we would have expected around 0.23°C of warming since 2010. However, we actually measured around 0.33°C. While the additional 0.1°C can largely be explained by the east Asian air pollution cleanup, other factors include the change in shipping emissions and the recent accelerated increase in methane concentrations in the atmosphere. Air pollution causes cooling by reflecting sunlight or by changing the properties of clouds so they reflect more sunlight. The cleanup in east Asian air pollution influences global temperatures because it reduces the shading effect of the pollution over east Asia itself. It also means less pollution is blown across the north Pacific, causing clouds in the east Pacific to reflect less sunlight. The pattern of these changes across the North Pacific simulated in our models matches that seen in satellite observations. Our models and temperature observations also show relatively strong warming over the North Pacific, downwind from east Asia. The main source of global warming is still greenhouse gas emissions, and a cleanup of air pollution was both necessary and overdue. This did not cause the additional warming but rather, removed an artificial cooling that has for a time helped shield us from some of the extreme weather and other well-established consequences of climate change. Global warming will continue for decades. Indeed, our past and future emissions of greenhouse gases will affect the climate for centuries. However, air pollution is quickly removed from the atmosphere, and the recent acceleration in global warming from this particular unmasking may therefore be short-lived. Laura Wilcox is a Professor at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Reading
