Glaciar Grande at Lago Torre (photos from 1990 and 2013)
As far as I know, no photos have been published comparing the dramatic changes this glacier has gone through in the last few years.
In the early 1990s the glacier still held a grip on the peninsula and island, but its loss of overall mass was becoming apparent on its "deflating" surface.
By 1999 local mountain guides were regularly taking tourists onto the ice for a short hike with crampons. The front of the glacier was becoming detached from the tip of the peninsula. Most noticeably from 2002 onwards was the fact that people had to walk a little further down the slope from the forest above in order to reach the ice.
More and more people enjoyed the experience of this "Glaciar Torre Ice-Trek" while the tongue of ice moved away from the island around 2005.
In november 2011 the ice remaining in the corner of the peninsula and the slope gave way. With its melting away the slope directly above it became so unstable it made scrambling down it extremely dangerous. Now only climbers going to Cerro Torre and other mountains approached via the glacier attempt to navigate the loose boulders and rocks to reach the ice.
The terminal part of this glacier has now all the signs and symptoms of a terminally ill one. The section on the right of the photo has become stagnant and is fast turning into a mass of rock cemented by ice, while the front in the central and left side recedes alarmingly and becomes thinner every year.
The older photo was scanned from Lonely Planet´s "Trekking in the Patagonian Andes" (1992 edition), the most recent one was taken by Mike Wrob last March (2013).
Hola Guido, congrats on the blog!!!
ReplyDeleteA recent study on the Torre glacier by the glaciologists from the IANIGLIA dated (C14 and dendrochronology) all identified moraines in the Torre valley and complemented this with historical photographs to mark the fluctuating rate of glacier retreat between 11th century and AD 2002. They found no traces of re-advance during the last century (20th) so your photos continue to record this dramatic retreat.
The full reference to the article and illustrations is: Masiokas, M.H., Luckman, B.H., Villalba, R., Delgado, S., Skvarca, P., Ripalta, A., 2009. Little Ice Age fluctuations of small glaciers in the Monte Fitz Roy and Lago del Desierto areas, south Patagonian Andes, Argentina. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 281, 351–362.
Cheers!
Hi Guido, Really neat photograph. I've been working on a project to repeat historic photographs throughout the Patagonian Andes for the last three years, and have repeated many photos very near the one you took. Take a look at our website for some of the ones we've repeated and see what others there are that need to be repeated. http://alpineamericas.com/andes-repeat-photos/
ReplyDeleteWe have historic photographs for this and other nearby areas going back to the 1880's. Contact me if you're interested in more info. Cheers,
Jonathan Byers
Alpine of the Americas Project