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Seven Plagues of Tierra del Fuego All Galleries
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1. Climate Change

12 images Created 23 Jul 2014

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  • Glaciologist Dr. Gino Casassa, of the University of Magallanes in Chile, and geologist Dr. Rolf Killian, of the University of Freiburg, drill holes at the top of a glacier in the Gran Campo Nevado ice field of southern Chile. Part of an interdisciplinary study by the universities of Freiburg and Heidelburg, the scientists study the rate of seasonal ice loss on the glacier, as well as pollen and mineral samples taken from cores drilled from area lake beds and peat bogs. <br />
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 Six hours by boat from the nearest human settlement, the area is almost untouched by man. Its varied environment provides a unique opportunity to look at possible causes of global climate change.
    01BigIce.jpg
  • Dr. Gino Casassa, of the University of Magallanes in Chile, rests his head in his hand at the foot of a glacier named "Lengua," or tongue. Comparing glacial patterns to vegetation changes in the area gives scientists a more complete picture of the region's climate over thousands of years. Researchers<br />
 chose the Gran Campo Nevado site because it is a "climate divide." In a short distance there are many different climate zones, ranging from temperate rain forest to tundra. Small climate changes would be strongly evident in the pollens and sediments of nearby lake beds and bogs.<br />
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 "In the world it's one of the unique places where you can find lots of unique information, where you can fill-in blank spaces on the map," Casassa says. "It's not only about looking at present day conditions, but into the past as well." Studying how climate has reacted in the past helps scientists understand changes that are occurring today.
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  • Using steam, Dr. Gino Casassa and Dr. Rolf Killian hurriedly drill into the ice of the Lengua glacier as snow begins to fall near the top of the Gran Campo Nevado ice field. The scientists planted plastic poles deep into the ice to measure movement of the glacier and ice loss through the summer season. Information gathered from weather stations posted around the area, when matched with data on the glacier's size, will add insight into why the glaciers of the Gran Campo Nevado are stable. Others in the region are rapidly receding.
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  • Dr. Gino Casassa pauses on the edge of the Lengua glacier as rain begins to fall. The Gran Campo Nevado is one of the earth's wettest environments. Massive amounts of precipitation offset higher temperatures that may be melting other glaciers in the region. "Temperature is less important when you have some 20 meters of snow fall per year," Dr. Rolf Killian says.
    04GlacierEdge.jpg
  • Dr. Gino Casassa and Dr. Harald Biester haul equipment over a rough trail to the Lengua glacier, passing a huge peat bog that acts as a repository for thousands of years of data on vegetation and atmospheric conditions. Wood samples washed out of the bog by the river pictured will be carbon dated, and the rings in the wood -- preserved in the oxygen-starved depths of the bog for thousands of years -- will be studied for ancient weather patterns.
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  • Dr. Harald Biester and students Oscar Baeza and Sascha Birkenstock push a sharpened sleeve into a bog at the foot of the Gran Campo Nevado ice field to remove a core from its 10,000-year-old peat. The region's many bogs trap pollens and chemicals dispersed through the air and water. Peat cores take scientists back thousands of years with each foot of depth.
    06BogCore.jpg
  • A layer of volcanic ash stripes a core of peat taken from the bog. Deposited 3,800 years earlier when the Mt. Burnay volcano erupted 60 kilometers away, the ash marks a catastrophic event that will give the scientists clues about how the environment reacted to change in the eruption's aftermath. The team compares information from peat layers with other parts of the interdisciplinary study. "In one of the lakes we drilled here this was followed by extreme erosion," Dr. Rolf Killian notes. Trees died and washed into lakes. Moss in the bog was killed.
    07Tephra.jpg
  • Unable to pack entire wet, heavy peat cores back to a lab for study, Sascha Birkenstock squeezes fluid from slices of the core representing specific time periods. Oscar Baeza and Dr. Harald Biester bag samples of muddy peat. Chemicals and pollens sought by the researchers will remain in the smaller samples, reducing weight and volume for the difficult 6-hour boat trip back to civilization. Fuel for the boat trip is carefully measured. Any extra weight may mean being stranded in the rough waters of the Skyring Fjord.
    08Samples.jpg
  • Researchers Johannes Koch and Sascha Birkenstock trudge through the dense and slippery rain forest below the Gran Campo Nevado ice field. The team carefully picks its way through the woods, avoiding undue damage to an environment that may take decades to recover. Heavy rainfall makes plant growth and decay very slow. "Here are some of the slowest growth rates in the whole world," Dr. Rolf Killian says. "They are 10 times slower than in many other areas."
    09RoughTrail.jpg
  • Two hundred kilometers from the Gran Campo Nevado, Dr. Gino Casassa and Dr. Rolf Killian float through a jam of icebergs calved from the Grey Glacier in Chile's Torres del Paine National Park. The glacier, a majestic tourist attraction, has lost three kilometers of length in three years, jamming its moraine lake with ice. Though the glaciers of the Gran Campo Nevado are stable, glaciers like Grey, which spread from Patagonia's much larger Campo Hielo Sur ice field, are rapidly receding. Here higher temperatures and less rainfall influence the ice much differently.
    10GreyShadows.jpg
  • Dr. Rolf Killian shouts a sonar depth to Dr. Gino Casassa as they cruise the waters of Lago Grey, a lake at the end of the Grey Glacier. Casassa studies the bottom of the lake, looking for "pinning points," or high ridges that may help hold the glacier in place despite warmer temperatures. Without a pinning point, the ice of the glacier floats on water, speeding the melt rate to a degree that seems alarming.<br />
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"I think the warming signal — in Chile, at least — to my mind it's largely natural," Casassa says. "However, the higher frequencies of the El Niño/La Niña effect and some other changing climate patterns observed in recent years could be linked to such things as the greenhouse effect. And this, of course, needs to be studied."
    11GreySonar.jpg
  • Icebergs collect at the end of Lago Grey, below the sweeping tongue of the glacier in Torres del Paine National Park. Though very few scientists deny that temperatures are rising, some, like Casassa, still question the influence of man in the phenomenon. For Casassa's long-time friend and colleague Dr. Pedro Skvarca of the Argentine Antarctic Institute, the evidence of human influence is compelling. In the years since World War II average annual temperatures for the nearby Antarctic Peninsula have risen by 2.5 degrees Celsius, and the volume of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of the area has risen by 20 percent. "That is significant," says Skvarca. "Now you'll ask me if that is caused by man. Myself, my opinion is yes. There are very few who would say no."
    12GreyIce.jpg