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The Shrinking SierraNevada—Disappearing Ice in theAndes MountainsJorge B. WongPublished online: 24 Sep 2013.

To cite this article: Jorge B. Wong (2013) The Shrinking Sierra Nevada—DisappearingIce in the Andes Mountains, Distributed Generation & Alternative Energy Journal,28:3, 5-6, DOI: 10.1080/21563306.2013.10750226

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21563306.2013.10750226

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Vol. 28, No. 3 2013 5

The Shrinking Sierra Nevada—Disappearing Ice in the Andes Mountains

I have been flying from Atlanta or Miami to Lima, Peru, twice a year during the past 25 years. The next day, when I arrive in Lima, I take a one-hour domestic flight north from Lima to Trujillo. The plane flies northbound, over the Pacific coast. Then I drive northeast 2 hours to the mountain town of Chepen to visit my mother. From a window seat on the right side of the plane (flying north and looking east) I can see a 500-mile-long, 50-mile-wide stretch of the Andes mountains. The two-headed Nevado Huascaran is the tallest peak in the Peruvian Andes (close to 7,000m or over 22,000ft above sea level). A black triangle ▲ marks its location on the map below. Nevado means covered with ‘permanent’ snow. Sierra Nevada (as in the state of Nevada) means a snowy mountain range. However, Nevado Huascaran has lost about 25% of its snow cover since 1980.

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6 Distributed Generation and Alternative Energy Journal

In the photo above, you can see Huascaran’s bare gray areas between the thinning white snow caps and the lower darker parts of the mountain. These gray areas were covered by ‘permanent’ snow just twenty years ago. The ice meltdown in the Andes peaks and glaciers has impacted (and is being affected by) more frequent and intense El Nino storms and flooding. I have been flying over these mountains for more than half a century. I recall this mountain peak almost fully covered with snow above the tree line in the 1960s. In the cordillera blanca (the white mountain range) of the Andes, during the 1970s, I saw half or more of the mountain peaks covered with ice or snow in this 500-mile-long, 200-mile-wide section of the mountain range. Now I see no more than 1/5 of them ice covered. Those that are still nevados have less than half the snow they had in the 80s. One thing is sure: the buffer storage of ice/head water for the Amazon river basin and all the rivers of Peru is shrinking every day. May you live in interesting times (Chinese curse).

Jorge B. WongEditor-in-Chief

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