The Cryosphere, 8 October 2024
Researchers have linked El Niño events to loss of glacier ice and snow in the Peruvian Andes, raising alarm over the future of these high-mountain water resources. El Niño, a climate phenomenon that occurs every two to seven years, warms ocean temperatures in the eastern Pacific, affecting weather worldwide. The study, using NASA satellite images and a new algorithm that processes near-infrared imagery, found that the snow-covered area of the Quelccaya Glacier in Peru decreased dramatically during El Niño periods of the past four decades. Overall, from 1985 to 2022, Quelccaya lost 58% of its snow cover and 37% of its total area. This new automated detection of snow-covered areas hopefully can be used to follow other glaciers as well, especially during future El Niño events.
Full paper: https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/18/4633/2024/
Press release published by Ohio State University: https://phys.org/news/2024-10-link-el-nio-ice-loss.html
Dear Friends of the Cryosphere Pavilion and Cryosphere Capsule Readers! We are happy to announce…
Nature Communications, 21 July 2026 Rising sea levels driven by ocean warming and ice sheet…
Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 26 June 2026 East Antarctica has long been considered less…
Geophysical Research Letters, 9 July 2026 Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) is the cold, dense water…
PNAS, 20 July 2026 After several years in the early 2020s when Arctic winter sea…
Nature Communications, 16 July 2026 Temporarily exceeding global warming targets increases the risk of long-lasting…