Climate impact - Patagonia

Visible impact

We’ve now spent a little more than a week here in both the Chilean and Argentinean part of Patagonia. Most days we’ve been up early and come back late in the evening. We’ve visited glaciers and talked to people living and working in the area. This is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, but it has also made me very sad: climate change is no longer something abstract – the impacts of climate change are very real. The glaciers are melting at an accelerating speed and changes can bee seen from year to year.

Being a webbie here turned out to be pretty tricky, and the possibilities to update this weblog somewhat limited. Often there has been no electricity or Internet around.

The National Park of Torres del Paine, Chile
The first glacier we visited was the Grey Glacier. I was amazed to see it shimmer in different shades of blue. Big chunks of ice and little icebergs were floating by our camp by the Lake Grey, as these glaciers are so called “calving” glaciers. This means they discharge icebergs into the ocean or lakes, which also makes them more affected by climate change once pushed out of equilibrium.

Patagonia is by far the windiest I’ve experienced. You can sometimes lean against it without falling! Our tent was pretty well sheltered luckily, we could hear the wind in the trees, but the pegs stayed in the ground.

Susanne Mädler, German guide and climber, has been working at the Grey glacier for three years now. We went to the front of the glacier and she showed us the place where they climbed up on it only a year ago. That part of the glacier is now gone.

Listen to Susanne Mädler on the Grey glacier. Download soundfile, Mp3, 792kb >>

Susannes colleague Marco has witnesses the retreat of the glacier for many years now, being born in the area. He has worked as a guide on the Grey glacier for nine years, and the change has been dramatic.

On Monday we set off in the morning down the Serrano River. The sky was grey and the rain felt like little needles on our faces. The mountaintops were hidden in the clouds. The boat driver gave us some thick waterproof clothes to wear. They were great for about ten minutes. Then it felt like wearing a wet sponge! But when you travel through a beautiful landscape like this, you don’t really mind being a bit cold and wet for a little while.

We eventually arrived where we could see a part of the Balmaceda glacier that covered the top of a ridge. Learning that 15-20 years ago it reached all the way down to the lake once again made me feel very sad: that little piece of land has been covered by ice for thousands of years. Why do I have to be part of a generation that will see it all melt away?

I remembered how a teacher in school illustrated the history of our planet by unfurling a roll of toilet paper and attach it on the classroom walls. He then marked the different eras on it. At the very end, hardly visible, there was a very small field, more like a thin line: that was how long mankind has been around.

Changes on our planet normally happen very slowly. During the last hundred years however, changes have all of a sudden happened very fast: temperatures and sea levels rising, draughts, floods and melting icefields - we are actually changing the climate! Just think about it for a little while.

Currently we are in Calafate, Argentina, from where we have visited the glacier of Perito Moreno, the only glacier in tha area that is not retreating.

Posted by Irene at January 14, 2004 10:27 AM