NASA: Argentina - Santa Cruz province - Patagonia - Upsala Glacier Retreat - Comparison 2002-2013 - 11.04.13
Posted by Ricardo Marcenaro | Posted in NASA: Argentina - Santa Cruz province - Patagonia - Upsala Glacier Retreat - Comparison 2002-2013 - 11.04.13 | Posted on 9:25
This photograph by an astronaut on
the International Space Station highlights the snout of the Upsala
Glacier (49.88°S, 73.3°W) on the Argentine side of the North Patagonian
Icefield. Ice flow in this glacier comes from the north (right in this
rotated image). Dark lines of rocky debris (moraine) within the ice give
a sense of the slow ice flow from right to left.
A smaller, side glacier joins Upsala at the present-day ice front—the
wall from which masses of ice periodically collapse into Lago (Lake)
Argentino. In this image, the 2.7 kilometer-wide ice front casts a thin,
dark shadow. The surface of Lago Argentino is whitened by a mass of
debris from a recent collapse of the ice wall. Larger icebergs appear as
white dots on the lake surface at image left.
Remotely sensed data, including astronaut images, have recorded the
position of the ice front over the years. A comparison of this October
2013 image with older data (January 2004 and January 2001, as well as October 2009)
indicates that the ice front has moved backwards—upstream—about 3
kilometers (2 miles). This retreat is believed by scientists to indicate
climate warming in this part of South America. The warming not only
causes the ice mass to retreat, but also to thin. A study of 63 glaciers
by Rignot et al has shown that this is a general trend in Patagonia.
The water color in Lago Argentino is related to the glacier flow. The
lake receives most of the ice from the glacier and thus receives most
of the “rock flour”—rocks ground to white powder by the ice scraping
against the rock floor of the valley. Glacial flour turns the lake a
gray-green hue in this image. The darker blue of the smaller lakes
(image bottom) indicates that they are receiving much less rock flour.
Astronaut photograph ISS037-E-5104
was acquired on October 2, 2013, with a Nikon D3 digital camera using a
300 millimeter lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations
experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space
Center. The image was taken by the Expedition 37 crew. It has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab
to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest
value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely
available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and
cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by M. Justin Wilkinson, Jacobs at NASA-JSC.
- Instrument:
- ISS - Digital Camera
NASA: Argentina - Santa Cruz province - Patagonia - Upsala Glacier Retreat - Comparison 2002-2013 - 11.04.13
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