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A New Glacier Inventory for the Southern Patagonia Icefield and Areal Changes 1986–2000

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Global Land Ice Measurements from Space

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Abstract

A revised glacier inventory comprising glacier changes between 1986 and 2000 have been compiled for the Southern Patagonia Icefield (SPI) based on Landsat TM and Landsat ETM+ imagery acquired on January 14, 1986 and October 27, 2000, respectively. Elevation data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) and Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM) were used to interpret ice divides. The 1986 ice area of the 48 major SPI glaciers is 11,022 ± 412 km2, which represents 85 % of the total SPI area of 13,003 ± 282 km2. Our results agree in general with Aniya et al. (1996), although there are large differences in the basin limits for a few glaciers. Area loss of 489 ± 377 km2 is obtained for the period 1986–2000 for the whole SPI, of which 68 % corresponds to the 48 major glaciers (333 ± 106 km2). Major (> 5 km2) area loss is detected in 20 glaciers (268 ± 87 km2), which accounts for 80 % of the total area loss of the major glaciers between 1986 and 2000. Smaller (< 5 km2) but significant area losses have occurred within 17 other glaciers, all of which have retreated more than 100 m. While our new results confirm the general retreat of the SPI reported earlier (Aniya et al. 1997; Rignot et al. 2003), we show that 9 glaciers within the latitudes of 49°48′–50°25′S had relatively stable frontal positions between 1986 and 2000, 8 of which were previously retreating over the period 1944/1986. Independent evaluation of ice thickness changes within the SPI (Rignot et al. 2003) show that significant thinning exists for only 2 of the 9 glaciers with stable fronts (excluding Moreno Glacier which we regard as stable). The stable frontal positions of the 13 glaciers might be due to the recent increase of precipitation in the central–south sector of the SPI. Although enhanced precipitation has not yet been detected by observations, it is to be expected based on the intensification of the westerly circulation, as has already been observed in the Southern Hemisphere since the mid-1960s (Marshall, 2003).

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Acknowledgments

This work was partly supported by the Centro de Estudios Científicos (CECs). CECs is funded by the Chilean Government through the Millennium Science Initiative and the Centers of Excellence Base Financing Program of CONICYT (Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica de Chile). Partial support was provided through FONDECYT project 1090752. The manuscript was completed while G.C. was staying at the Institute for Planetary Geodesy, Technological University of Dresden, thanks to an award from the Humboldt Foundation, Germany. Kerstin Binder helped with Fig. 27.1. We acknowledge the ice2sea project, funded by the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme through grant number 226375, ice2sea manuscript number 138. ASTER data courtesy of NASA/GSFC/METI/Japan Space Systems, the U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team, and the GLIMS project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro de Estudios Científicos, Valdivia, Chile

    Gino Casassa, José Luis Rodríguez & Thomas Loriaux

  2. Fundación Huilo Huilo, Santiago, Las Condes, Chile

    Gino Casassa & José Luis Rodríguez

  3. Universidad Católica de Temuco, Temuco, Chile

    José Luis Rodríguez

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  1. Gino Casassa
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Arizona Dept. Hydrology & Water Resources, Tucson, Arizona, USA

    Jeffrey S. Kargel

  2. Dept. Hydrology and Water Resources, Global Land Ice Measurements from Space University of Arizona, Tuscon, Arizona, USA

    Gregory J. Leonard

  3. Texas A & M University Department of Geography, College Station, Texas, USA

    Michael P. Bishop

  4. University of Oslo Dept. Geosciences, Oslo, Norway

    Andreas Kääb

  5. University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA

    Bruce H. Raup

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Casassa, G., Rodríguez, J.L., Loriaux, T. (2014). A New Glacier Inventory for the Southern Patagonia Icefield and Areal Changes 1986–2000. In: Kargel, J., Leonard, G., Bishop, M., Kääb, A., Raup, B. (eds) Global Land Ice Measurements from Space. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-79818-7_27

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