1st April 2008 Tuesday: One unexpected highlight of visiting the Torre del Paine National Park was that we actually got to hold a piece of a glacier! And that glacier is the Glacier Grey. Glacier Grey is in the south end of the Southern Patagonia Ice Field. While in the Torre del Paine, we got quite some time to ourselves and we walked a short distance to the west side of the park to where we could see fragments of ice from Glacier Grey floating near to the shore!

 

 This is Grey Lake where Glacier Grey empties into

Glacier Grey coming into contact with the lake. Glacier Grey loses ice from its terminus as it enters the water, a process known as calving. Calving produces large free-floating chunks of ice.

 Look what’s there, a small iceberg which has broken off from the glacier 

 

The blue coloring is due to the ice’s absorption of red wavelengths of light and scattering of blue wavelengths of light as it is transmitted through the ice.

 Another blue iceberg that has broken off Glacier Grey. You can see the glacier behind.

 

 Pieces of ice coming onto shore

 

 

 Holding a piece of the ancient glacier!

 The ice is cold!

 Take the photo quickly, my hands are cold!

 

 This bird in the foreground kept hopping around the shore, trying to find food among rocks and pebbles

 

 Looks and feels cold, but the wind blowing towards us was actually quite warm

 

 Enjoying the moment

Glacier ice is the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth, and second only to oceans as the largest reservoir of total water. Rising temperatures in the regions and around the world are contributing to the slow demise of glaciers worldwide.

Below are two satellite photos of part of Glacier Grey flowing into Grey Lake. The top photo was taken in 2007 and the bottom one was taken in 1986. See how much ice has melted in a span of 20 years from global warming. The observed retreat means that ice loss has been greater than ice replenishment. There is no easy and quick solution to global warming, but each of us can do our part to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

 

 

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This entry was posted on Saturday, September 6th, 2008 at 11:31 pm and is filed under Chile, Patagonia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.