2024-03-25 11:37:23
(ANSA) – TRIESTE, MARCH 25 – “The Patagonian ice caps lose an average of one meter of ice every year, with significant effects on the region’s water resources and the surrounding ecosystem”. Furthermore, if “glaciers in the European Alps rarely” retreat more than 200 meters per year, “the majority of Patagonian glaciers exceed this speed and some reach several kilometers per year. Only the glaciers that originate from the large ice caps of Greenland and West Antarctica have such high values of sliding velocity.” Emanuele Lodolo, researcher at the National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics – OGS in Trieste explains it.
Lodolo participated in an international research group, led by Johannes Fürst of the Geographical Institute of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, and composed of several universities and research institutes, including the OGS, evaluating that the Patagonian ice sheets contain 5,351 cubic kilometers of ice (in 2000) and in some glacial valleys, they reach thicknesses of 1,400 meters. The study was published by “Communications Earth & Environment”.
“We knew very little about the Patagonian ice caps, two enormous glacial fields slightly smaller than those of the Veneto” explains Lodolo. “Until now we didn’t have much information about their thickness and the volumes involved, although they extend, respectively, for about 130 and 350 kilometers in the northern and southern ice sheets, and with widths exceeding 60 kilometers.”
The analysis of satellite maps and geophysical information acquired in the study showed that some glaciers in the sector of the eastern flank of the ice cap have retreated by several kilometers in recent decades; others remained essentially stable. These dynamics are influenced by the morphology and depth of the lake basins into which they flow: where they are deeper, the retreat of the glacial fronts has been more consistent and rapid. (HANDLE).
2024-03-25 11:37:23