Patagonia alarm because of a major fracture in the southern icefield

Chilean researchers discovered an area of ​​209 square kilometers and 37 kilometers of north-south longitude that separated from the frozen surface, leaving a naked rock fault of about 100 meters in the southernmost zone of the ice field south (continental ice).

The discovery was made during an overflight by glaciology and snow unit staff for an update of the public inventory of glaciers in Chile, reported the & # inventaire inventaire des,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,. Ansa agency.

According to Glaciology and Snow official Gino Cbadasa, at the local newspaper El Mercurio, the fracture occurred on the HPS 40 glacier, which was previously connected by a tongue of ice to the plateau.

"This proves that these glaciers are fragmenting and that climate change is speeding up the process.In Patagonia, they are melting at a speed greater than its size in the world," said the expert.

In the previous cadastre, published in 2014 with data from 2002, the area that had been cut had been reached at about 400 meters, although some sections of rock have already appeared, said geologist Franco Buglio.

Alexis Segovia, coordinator of the inventory, pointed out that Campos de Hielos Sur is the most advanced area of ​​the cadastre (81%) and the antecedents show that the predominant tendency is the loss of ice and the fragmentation of the glaciers, to the exception of the Pío. XI – the greatest – and the Trinity.

Campo de Hielo Sur – an area bordering Argentina that has been in conflict for 20 years – is now binational. It is 362 kilometers long and an area of ​​37 kilometers in Chilean territory has been separated.

"The researchers believe that once the stone is left bare, it will absorb more radiation and become warmer, which will have an effect on the ridges and increase the separation distance, which will accelerate ice melting," writes El Mercurio. to researchers.

The experts explained that this should happen, but in hundreds of years, and that "climate change has accelerated the processes".

In fact, in October, when preliminary data from the cadastre was available, a loss of 220 km 2 of ice in 13 years (2002-2015) was observed. Given the accelerated merger, it was decided to update the new high resolution images obtained in 2018 and part of 2019.