Climate impact - Patagonia

Dancing ship

Had to stay away from the laptop today, fearing I would do something
terrible all over the keyboard. It is still rocking and rolling, so this
update is just to tell you we are still here.

We have left the fjords and are now crossing Golfo de Penas, heading
further north. There is not much sea, but the Arctic Sunrise loves to
dance. We don't have much option but to dance with her, with various results.

Today I learned the hard way that you have to wait for the right moment
when you open the fridge in the mess, find what you want and close it again
quickly. There is food in there just waiting to attack when the ship rolls
towards starboard side. We've made sure everything is secured. Well...
almost. Lying in my bunk feeling poorly, I could hear smaller objects such
as cups crash and fall, but also laughter from crew members stumbling into
each other. The cooks have done a brave job cooking with their pots and
pans flying around. Unfortunately some of us were incapable of having lunch.

Now and then we get a call from the bridge: "dolphins at the bow" or
"whales on starboard side". Of course you hurry outside, seasick or not!

Magellan Strait to HPS31

25th of January - here we are

Ice around the ship, woke up by the sound of the bow thrusters. As you can see it is a rainy day, hope it improves so that the visibility gets better. Talk to you soon, have to get my gear sorted.

Yesterday we left Punta Arenas. We had all been set to go for quite some time, and there was that little excitement in the air that you experience when leaving port. It was not all happiness though; we were very sad to leave the local Greenpeace team of Punta Arenas, a bunch of wonderful people that made our stay a nice experience.

Dolphins came and played around the bow as we sailed. I tried to take a couple of pictures of them to post for you, but all I got was some UFO like appearance in blurry waves.

We are now going through the Magellan Strait, which Cecilia has written a bit more about here below. Tomorrow we arrive to the glacier HPS 31. We are not really sure what to expect: will it be easy to reach? What will the weather be like? Will it have changed a lot since Jorge Quinteros was here 50 years ago?

I might be camping on the glacier for a couple of days, will back and tell you all about it. Hope this gets posted, sending updates via email from here on, and have no idea of what it looks like from your end.

--- Posted by Iréne

The Magellan Strait

Punta Arenas is the heart of the Magellan Strait. Looking from the sky, the Strait looks like a stretched and snaked where bays, fiords and coves are born. The Strait is about 600 kilometres long and its waters are a mixture of two oceans, the Pacific and the Atlantic. In a golden misfortune of winds and storms, in October 1520, Portuguese seafarer Hernando de Magellanes was the first European to sail the Strait. Later on, historians would call it Magellan Strait in his honour.

The city of Punta Arenas is the principal port of the Strait and main gate to Antarctic waters and ices. On board of Greenpeace ship ‘Arctic Sunrise’ we started to sail yesterday evening. The southern sunset was a spectacle of shapes and colours while we were leaving the port. It’s now summer time, where the nights grow longer with an ineffable dusk until midnight. The sea was calm, the wind soft and we couldn’t avoid being fascinated by the company of three dolphins who were playing and swimming fast under the bow.

This is how we started our trip to the Patagonia glaciers region. Chile has 75% of South America glaciers. The majority of them are retreating.  This phenomenon is a consequence of global warming and rains decreasing. Our purpose during this trip will be to document the retreat of the Patagonian glaciers. We are now sailing to the north channels and fiords.

Twenty thousand years ago this region was covered by ice. Nowadays,  the principal vestiges are the great South Patagonian Ice-Fields. The zone, without considering the Antarctica, represents the main reserve of fresh water of South America and it is characterized by a unique beauty throughout its 13,000 km2. The retrocession of ice during the last glacier era drew the Magellan Strait geographically, excavating the base and creating all the system of valleys, fiords and channels which identify the region. An irregular topography characterized by mountains covered with snow and ice mass that often fall directly into the sea.

This is the last part of our tour, and maybe the most important one. We are sailing towards the Fiord Peel to find the glacier HPS 31.

---Posted by Cecilia

Preparing the expedition to HPS31

Jorge Quinteros and José Pera are gearing up for the glacier expedition to the North Patagonian icefield. Quinteros crossed the ice 50 years ago. José, whom we met on the Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina, is an experienced glacier climber and guide. His dream is to follow in Quinteros footsteps and cross the glacier. Yesterday evening they set up tents in the hold of the ship to check that everything was in order. There are also crampons, ropes, harnesses and a million other things I hardly know what they are for.

Daniel Antunes geologist from the Chilean Ministry of Agriculture is also joining the ship to do GPS (Global Positioning system) measurements on the ice. Space based and aerial measurements are also done, but field measurements are required for more precise scientific positioning.

Jorge Quinteros spend 5 months in the area in 1954-55, and went across the icefield from the area with the very romantic name HPS31 to the Perito Moreno in Argentina. It took him and his companions Tilman and Marriot about 1,5 months, there and back. They stayed only for one hour at the Perito Moreno glacier before heading back, since they were afraid that the ship would leave without them on the other side. The worst part was sailing back to Valparaiso: they crashed into an iceberg and lost a propeller, and the sails were also lost. They experienced heavy storms and it was necessary to pump water out of the ship all the time. Fishermen saved them after about 15 days at sea.

Punta Arenas, aboard the MV Arctic Sunrise

Today I woke up aboard the MV Arctic Sunrise that we joined yesterday here in Punta Arenas, Chile. I can see Tierra del Fuego through the porthole of our cabin.

When we arrived there was a very long line of people on the quayside. After a while I realised they were all waiting to get onboard our ship! The port authorities say that about 2000 people visited the ship during the five hours we were open.

We are stuck here a couple of days waiting for some spare parts. This is an opportunity for me to edit all the material I’ve collected so far, and also to update this diary that has been sadly neglected.

It has been a busy couple of weeks in Patagonia. Yesterday feels like a week ago: so many new impressions! Two days ago we stayed at the Estancia Christina (estancia is a farm or a ranch), close to the Upsala glacier in Argentina. The only way to get there is by boat or horse.

Tourists arrive every day to see the glacier, but at large the estancia has not changed much since the first people came here in 1914. Pablo, one of the guides, said: “the estancia has not changed, but the glacier did”. Pablo has only worked here for two years, but he has already noticed how glacial retreat, how the distance from the ranch to the glacier increased.

Perito Moreno, Argentina

Yesterday we arrived in the Argentinean part of Patagonia, to the small town of Calafate.

Today we visited the glacier of Perito Moreno, the only glacier in the area that is not melting. It is also the most famous and visited glacier in Argentina. This might be due to the fact that the Argentinean president is from Calafate, and he often brings his visitors to the icefield. Calafate has more than doubled its inhabitants during the last ten years.

Equipped with crampons we started the glacier walk, led by glacier guide José Pera. He believes that the fact that the glacier is not melting is because the accumulation area (the area where the glacier builds up, where it snows 300 days a year) is very big, in relation to the melting area.

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.

Wearing a sponge

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 thick waterproof clothes to wear. They were great. For about ten minutes. We were travelling through one of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve ever seen, so I didn’t really mind being a bit cold and wet.

We eventually arrived at a part of the glacier that looked majestic up on the mountain. One of the boat drivers told me that 15-20 years ago it reached all the way down to the lake. His comment made me very sad: that little piece of land has been covered by ice for thousands of years, and in only a few years it melted away. Why do I have to be part of the generation that will see it happen?

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. Then he marked the different eras on it. At the very end, hardly visible, there was a very small field, more like a line, that marked how long mankind has been around. Changes on our planet normally happen very slowly. During the last hundred years changes have all of a sudden happened so 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.

Walking back

The boat that was supposed to take us back across Lake Grey couldn’t come due to the strong wind; the lake was a bit too choppy. We therefore set off on a three hour hike to a place where we could take a catamaran back. The sun was shining from a clear blue sky, and I was happy to do this beautiful walk instead of catching a boat straight away. We only brought the most necessary things in our smaller backpacks: the photographers took their camera equipment and I brought my laptop and the sound equipment (and my toothbrush!). We left the rest of our luggage in the camp, hoping it will arrive on the boat tomorrow afternoon.

Half way we stopped for a break, and as you can see Ricardo tried his wings! Luckily the wind was helpful and went in the same direction as we did.

Patagonian weather

I heard an expression today that describes the Patagonian weather: “if you don’t like it, wait for 20 minutes”. This is also by far the windiest place I’ve ever experienced. Our tent is pretty well sheltered luckily, you can hear the wind in the trees, but the pegs have stayed in the ground so far. The wind also prevents the snoring sound of certain team members from reaching our tent.

Today I talked to Marco from Puerto Natales (a small town not so far from here), who has worked in the area for nine years. He has since then seen great changes in the icefield, and they had to change the route for the trek and climb up on the Grey from the other side.

Quick changes

Susanne Mädler, a German guide and climber who has been working at the Grey glacier for three years. Today we went to the front of the glacier where she showed us the place where they started the ice climb only a year ago. That part of the glacier is now gone.

The Grey glacier

Today we travelled from Punta Arenas in very south of Chile, starting at six in the morning. Eventually we reached the National park of Torres del Paine, and the Grey glacier. We saw a lot of animals on the way: condors, lamas and foxes. The view on the mountains was just amazing.

Our guide Rodrigo "Trauko" Traub is an experienced mountain climber. He took us to a viewpoint, and pointed out where the front of the glacier was when he first came here. It has retreated a lot since. He took pictures of the Grey glacier in 1996, and showed us how far the ice reached at the time. There is an island right in front of the glacier that not too long ago was covered in ice. It is bare now.

Big chunks of ice and little icebergs are floating by our camp by the Lake Grey. The colour is just amazing: the whole glacier is shimmering in different shades of blue, the name of the glacier has nothing to do with its appearance. The only way to communicate with the outside world from here is by radio. There is of course no Internet, so all this will be posted whenever I get back to civilisation. As a webbie you are a bit limited! There is not much electrical power either.

At the moment we are seven people in our little team here in the “Grey refugio”. We share a little room here in the house. Tomorrow we are off camping outside, after having climbed the glacier. I arrived late last night in Punta Arenas and got only a few hours of sleep. My equipment is still in a mess. Have to sort it, but feel too tired. I’ll need it very soon, so I’d better take care of it now.