CECS Glacier Research

Andrés Rivera and the CECs team

Laboratorio de Glaciología y Cambio Climático Centro de Estudios Científicos (CECS), Valdivia

Who we are? SENIOR RESEARCHERS

Gino Casassa Andrés Rivera

ASSOCIATED RESEARCHERS Robert Thomas, NASA Wallops Flight Facility, USA

Eric Rignot, JPL-NASA, USA Norbert Blindow, BGR

POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWS Marious Schaefer

Anja Wendt ASSISTANT RESEARCHERS (present and formers)

Daniela Carrión (Geographer) Francisca Bown (Geographer MSc)

Sebastián Cisternas (Computer Engineer) Juan Andrés Uribe (Electronic Engineer) Rodrigo Zamora (Electronic Engineer)

Thomas Loriaux (MSc) Claudio Bravo (presently at UCH)

Pablo Zenteno (presently in a private company) RESIDENT OFFICERS

Max Fuentealba, Chilean Air Force UNDERGRADUATES STUDENTS

Many ¡¡¡¡¡

Our key issues We would like to

Define a Chilean glacier base line

Study remote and “virgin” areas

Apply airborne, ground and oceanographic geophysical methods

Develop new technologies for glacier research

Improve our capacity building effort

Provide information for decision makers

Trying to answer the following questions: How are the glaciers responding to climatic changes?

Are all glaciers good indicators of climate change?

What are the consequences of recent glacier behaviour for our population and economic activities?

What are the consequences of human activities on glacier behaviour?

Could be possible to model glacier dynamics and the consequences of the glacier responses?

Main problems for glaciological research in Chile

Scarce and poor availability of field data

Lack of regular and accurate glacier cartography

Limited budgets for software/hardware/data/training/monitoring

Inefficient and bureaucratic data distribution among national institutions

Reduced collaboration between scientists and institutions

Few systematic monitoring programs

Few specialists and trained people

State of art in Chile Almost complete but out of date glacier inventory

Frontal, areal and ice elevation changes have been analysed for

hundred of glaciers combining historical records, remotely sensed imagery and field data

Preliminary satellite image data base

GIS data base for restricted number of glaciers including surface topography, frontal variations, available imagery

Several glaciological methods have been applied; Remote sensing, GPS, LIDAR, RES (ground, airborne, helicopter borne), Fixed cameras, AWS’s, Sonars, ice coring, modelling, runoff.

Only two mass balance programmes

Some statistics

•Postgraduate people in glaciology: <10

•Pre-post degrees in glaciology: 0

•Institutions doing glacier research: <10

•Number of glaciology related grants funded in Chile in recent years: <15 (of 9979)

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DÉCADAS

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Few stations with long records

Previous CECs studies Glacier inventory

Northern and Southern Patagonian icefields Aconcagua basin Cordillera Darwin, Mte Sarmiento, isla Santa Inés, isla Hoste Nevados de Payachatas Several ice-capped volcanoes in southern Chile

Frontal, areal and volumetric changes Almost 150 studied glaciers all around the country

Mass and energy balance In 2003, CECS initiated a systematic program on Glaciar Mocho at Volcán Mocho, in the Chilean lake District. Geodetic mass balance estimations in several glaciers There is one glacier where a mass balance model has been applied Several AWS´s installed on top of glaciers in central-southern Chile in combination with met data analysis and

cameras Applied geophysics

LIDAR of more than 40 glaciers. RES (ground and airborne) of more than 50 glaciers Sonar/calving studies of more than 5 glaciers Ice velocities in more than 5 glaciers (GPS, feature tracking cameras) Ice volcanic interactions using thermal cameras in 3 volcanoes

Glacio-chemistry Several short ice cores and snow samples for biological and chemical studies Deep ice cores in 5 glaciers in combination with institutions from abroad (Switzerland, Japan, etc.)

First glacier inventory south of the Estrecho de Magallanes: 3289km2

Isla Santa Inés: 274 km2

Monte Sarmiento: 273 km2

Cordillera Darwin: 2333 km2

Isla Hoste: 409 km2

Fuente: CECS, 2008

A mountain glacier (Alpine?) Glaciar Universidad

(National Estrategy, DGA)

Field data collection and preliminary models:

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Ablation

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AWS at accumulation and ablation zones

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Hydrological station affected by the March 11, 2010 Earthquake

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Elevation changes at Glaciar Universidad (m/a)

A calving glacier

Ice velocities from fixed cameras (m/d)

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Ice-capped volcanoes:Monitoring Volcán Villarrica

Thermal studies Perfil Nocturno

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Volcán Villarrica, Mayo 13, 2010

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Mass balance studies: Volcán Mocho

Accumulation (a), ablation (b) y mass balance (c) in m w. eq. a-1

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LIDAR and THERMAL surveys: Volcán Hudson 7 - 10 10 - 14 14 - 17 17 - 24

Some methods everywhere: Ice thickness

Foto: Andrés Rivera Radar surveys (5 MHz)

Airborne radar test

Helicopterborne radar

Helicopter borne radar survey in Central Chile

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Juncal Sur Glacier

CECS and BGR from Germany

CAMS-1: Cecs Airborne Mapping System

Lago desaparecido: CECS-Armada 2007

CAMS profile versus SRTM

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Lake Valley Lake River

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CECS 2007

Sea LevelIce

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Moraine

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Glaciar Témpanos

Glaciar Bernardo

1975-2000 -4.7± 0.8 -3.6 ± 0.8

2000-2007 -4.9 ± 3.0 -8.1 ± 3.0

The siphon..

GLOF events

October 10, 2008 Photos: Andrés Rivera

Ice core from Pio XI glacier

Detail Glacier Monitoring Programme

(DGMP)

Northern Chile (CEAZA?) - Glaciar Tapado - Location: 30°08’S

Central Chile (DGA-ACQWA-CECS-UCH?)

- Glaciares Juncal Norte, Echaurren-Olivares -Universidad - Location: 33°-34°’S -

Lake District (CECS) - Glaciares Chillán-Villarrica and Mocho - Location: 39°S

Field Instrumentation - AWS - Gauge stations - Stake network - Photogrammetric cameras

Ground and airborne survey - GPR and GPS - Airborne and terrestrial Laser scanning -Aerial photogrammetry -Thermal and normal cameras

Aisén (DGA-CECS) - Glaciar San rafael-Colonia - Nef- Jorge Montt Location: 46-48°S

Magallanes -Glaciar Pio XI (CECS) -Glaciar Grey (UMAG) -GCP (Trier U.)

Monitoring network implementation

Future tasks CECs will hold an ACCION workshop in Valdivia

In May 2012 we will have technical meeting (CECS-DGA) with USGS and

colleagues from VTI for testing GASS.

In August 2012 we will have a training course in collaboration with the US Embassy and the USGS (GASS). The idea is having a few days in Valdivia and then going to Volcán Mocho with colleagues from other institutions in Chile.

Both workshops may be together or one after the other.

Looking for new students

Searching for Postdocs (mainly from abroad) interested in doing research in our countries

Conclusions and recommendations Most of our glaciers are retreating fast, however not everything is related to

Climate change¡¡¡¡ In Chile there are many “anomalies”.

What is an anomaly? Each glacier has particular settings, and no one is an easy one (Alpine?)

We don’t have enough trained people to do research in the country

We have a lot of requests from the government, private companies and the academia, but we are too few and with limited time for everything

Budget is also a restriction, especially when bureaucrats are taking control of some funding agencies

We don’t have people doing glacier modelling

Modelling is very restrict due to the lack of data for many regions. We need to improve our glaciological base line.

Thanks

CECS, FONDECYT, Fundación Andes, GLIMS, USGS, UCH, ICM, NASA, USA Embassy.