The project to monitor glaciers in Patagonia is one of the many initiatives that is being held up due to lack of budget from the national government.
Conicet researcher Lucas Ruiz studies the behavior of glaciers in Patagonia and the impact of climate change on Tronador, Campo de Hielo Sur and Perito Moreno, in Santa Cruz, and other glaciers in the area.
Some projects started in 2010, when The Glacier Protection Law was passed that protects not only the glaciers but the periglacial environment as a water reserve and tourist attraction. The sustained studies that They have been providing information for more than ten years.
«Throughout these ten years, we have been able to verify several issues, such as the interaction between the glacier and the climate to understand the processes by which glaciers are changing. “Does it have to do with an increase in temperature? With a decrease in precipitation?” explained the glaciologist from the Argentine Institute of Nivology, Glaciology and Environmental Sciences (Ianigla).
On Mount Tronador, for example, they were able to observe “a strong variability” from one year to the next. «There is a snowy year; another not so much. We discovered that, in drought years that are combined with hot summers – as happened in 2016, 2017, 2021 and 2022 -, glaciers lose a lot of mass; while in the rest of the years, with normal rainfall, the glacier does not lose mass or is close to equilibrium,” he pointed out.
The Ianigla Andean Glaciology and Hydroclimatology Group is made up of 10 researchersalthough the institute has 300 workers.
The tasks are multiple although the main ones are focused on the two annual visits to the glaciers to carry out the monitoring network. In autumn, the state of the ice and snow masses is evaluated to define the level of melting at the driest time; while at the end of October, the greatest amount of accumulation is measured.
Ruiz admitted a strong uncertainty regarding the budget to undertake these studies, which depends on the Ministry of the Environment. Until now, the funds corresponding to the monitoring established by the glacier law, for example, have not arrived.
«The budget we worked with last year is over. It’s not that there is a cut. There is no communication, there is no decision made about whether or not we are going to have a budget. “We continue to consult with the authorities to see when there will be a response,” Ruiz said.
There is also uncertainty regarding the monitoring of the Perito Moreno glacier, which depends on an agreement that has not yet been signed between Conicet and Enarsa (Energía Argentina SA), one of the many companies that appears on the list that the government intends to privatize.
«The big problem is that, at work, the uncertainty is not good for planning the rest of the year. By cutting off monitoring, the information that we had been collecting that allowed us to know what is happening with the glaciers is cut off. If we don’t go this year, there will be no measurements to compare with previous years. “We won’t know what happened with respect to buildup or melting,” he argued.