From a Glacier's Perspective

April 13, 2021

Benito Glacier, Chile 2021 Calving Event Drives Further Retreat

Benito Glacier in 2000 and 2021 Landsat images. Locations 1-6 are current or former distributary terminus locations. Red arrow is the 2000 terminus location and yellow arrow the 2021 terminus location. A small cloud is obscuring an iceberg near terminus. Purple dots are the snowline. Benito Glacier is a temperate outlet glacier on the west side of the North Patagonian Icefield terminating in an expanding lake. The glacier is …

December 3, 2020

Soler Glacier Retreat and Lake Expansion

Soler Glacier in 1987 and 2020 Landsat images. Red arrow indicates 1987 terminus location, yellow arrow indicates 2020 terminus location on north side of glacier. Yellow dots indicate margin of lake and purple arrows indicate specific locations where glacier thinning is evident. Soler Glacier is an outlet glacier on the east side of the Northern Patagonia Icefield (NPI). The terminus response of this glacier has been slower and more limited …

April 15, 2019

Northern Patagonia Icefield High Equilibrium Line Altitude in 2019

Northern Patagonia Icefield Landsat view on 4/6/2019. Transient snowline indicated on individual glaciers with purple dots. Clockwise, L=Leones, So=Soler, N=Nef, Ca=Cachet, Co=Colonia, PN=Pared Nord, PS=Pared Sur, H4=HPN4, St=Steffen, A=Acodado, B=Benito, H1=HPN1, Sq=San Quintin. The Northern Patagonia Icefield from 1987-2015 decreased in area, while debris cover area expanded and the size of proglacial lakes expanded (Glasser et al 2016). The icefield area declined from 4113 to 3887 km2, debris cover increased …

April 28, 2017

Benito Glacier, Chile Retreats 2km 1987-2015

Benito Glacier comparison in 1987 and 2015 indicating the terminus position in 1987 red arrows, yellow arrows the 2015 terminus positions, purple arrows where glacier thinning is expanding bedrock areas, the snowline is indicated by purple dots. Glacier Benito is a temperate outlet glacier on the west side of the North Patagonian Icefield the glacier is south of Fraenkel Glacier and north of Acodado Glacier. Loriaux and Casassa (2013) examined the expansion of lakes …

March 26, 2015

North Leones Glacier Retreat and new Landslide, Patagonia, Chile

Jill Pelto, my daughter returning from fieldwork with UMaine in the Falkland Island took a picture last week out the plane window of Leones Glacier of the northern Patagonia Icefield. The picture illustrated two changes worth further examination, and the fact that if you have a glacier picture that you would like more information on let me know. The picture indicates outlet glaciers of the Northern Patagonia icefield fed by …

March 19, 2014

Verde Glacier Retreat, Chile

Verde Glacier is adjacent to Reichert Glacier and drains the north side of the Northern Patagonia Icefield. It is a small glacier compare to many outlet glaciers of the icefield that have been examined in previous posts, Reichert Glacier, Steffen Glacier, Nef Glacier, and Colonia Glacier. Here we examine Landsat imagery during the 1998-2014 period to identify the response of the glacier. The glacier flows from a pair of peaks …