Campo de Hielo Norte
| Campo de Hielo Norte | ||
|---|---|---|
 Campo de Hielo Norte, looking north-west |
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| location | Región de Aisén ( Chile ) | |
| Mountains | To the | |
| Type | Plateau glacier | |
| surface | 4200 km² | |
| Coordinates | 47 ° 0 ′ S , 73 ° 30 ′ W | |
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The Campo de Hielo Norte (the Northern Patagonian Ice Field ) is an ice cap west of Puerto Guadal in Patagonia .
It is entirely located in the Laguna San Rafael National Park in the Aisen region in Chile . Its center is around ( ⊙ ). With an area of 4200 km² it had a north-south extension of 120 km, a west-east extension of 50-70 km. The most important peak is the Cerro San Valentín 4058 m , the highest mountain in Patagonia.
In 2000, the area of the ice sheet was 3,856 km² (± 211 km²), in 2012 it was 3,740 km² (± 200 km²). In the annual mass balance , the ice sheet lost a little more than 1 meter of water equivalent per year (± 0.21) during this period .
The two largest of the 30 major outlet glaciers are the San Rafael and San Quintín glaciers. The San Rafael Glacier starts at Cerro San Valentin and flows west of it into Laguna San Rafael . It is one of the fastest flowing glaciers on earth. At the end of the 19th century the ice of the glacier extended far into the lagoon and formed a Piedmont glacier . Since then, the San Rafael Glacier has retreated significantly, its area decreased by 11.5% by 2017. Southwest of the San Rafel is the San Quintín Glacier, which has lost 14.6% of its area since 1870, but is still a Piedmont Glacier.
The North Patagonian Ice Field, together with the approximately three times larger Campo de Hielo Sur ( South Patagonian Ice Field ), is a relic of the Patagonian Ice Sheet , which covered large parts of the southern Andes 18,000 years ago at the height of the last glacial period .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Inés Dussaillant, Etienne Berthier and Fanny Brun: Geodetic Mass Balance of the Northern Patagonian Icefield from 2000 to 2012 Using Two Independent Methods . In: Frontiers in Earth Science . February 12, 2018, doi : 10.3389 / feart.2018.00008 .
- ^ North Patagonian Icefield. NASA Earth Observatory, April 11, 2017, accessed July 15, 2018 .
- ^ Kathryn Hansen: Melting beauty: The Patagonian icefields. NASA Earth Observatory, July 11, 2018, accessed July 15, 2018 .