A Collaborative Approach To Comprehending Glacial Retreat – State of the Planet

Deciphering the history of fluctuations of the Patagonian Ice Sheet since the last ice age has been the purpose of over a decade of joint work between the deputy director of the Institute of Geography and researcher at the Patagonia Universidad Católica Station, Esteban Sagredo, and Joerg Schaefer, founder and director of the Cosmogenic Isotope Laboratory at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), which is part of the Columbia Climate School.

This 12-year partnership has produced more than a dozen peer-reviewed publications in renowned journals, featuring novel findings about the relationship between glaciers and climate at millennial and centennial time scales. But it has specifically contributed to academic training by the development and establishment of a successful exchange program for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postdoctoral students. More than a dozen young researchers will continue on as leaders on climate issues both in academia and in the public and private sectors globally. A fundamental pillar of this collaboration is prominent geologist and LDEO research professor, Mike Kaplan, who has been studying glacial changes in Patagonia for more than 20 years and has become a mentor to numerous Chilean students.

At the beginning of March, Sagredo and Schaefer organized the first Field Academy in Puerto Natales and Torres del Paine, with the participation of academics and graduate students from Columbia University, the University of Utah, the University of State of Utah and the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. This unprecedented initiative was aimed at members of the NSF-funded MAGIC (Mountain Glacier Contribution to Sea Level CE 1900-2100) project, which brings together an international research team from different institutions and disciplines. Its objective is to face the herculean task of unraveling the impacts of glacial retreat and developing transdisciplinary strategies for adaptation and mitigation in both Chile and the United States.

“This science and education program, which addresses climate and glacial change and its impacts on society, is part of the broader climate justice theme, one of the fundamental challenges that Chilean society and societies around the world will have to face in the coming decades,” said Schaefer.

Overcoming Great Challenges Through Transdisciplinary Collaboration

For a week, the members of the MAGIC project shared theoretical and practical aspects of their disciplines. They visited the glaciers of the Torres del Paine National Park, analyzed their evolution and change during the last decades, became familiar with the paleoclimatic records of this area while discussing the evolution of glaciers and water availability in our country.

“The goal of this novel exercise was to actively connect climate science with the direct effects on our society. In Chile, for example, we have the enormous challenge of evaluating, managing and adapting to the impacts of glacier retreat on the availability of water resources,” said Sagredo. The Chilean team also included Cristián Simonetti from the School of Anthropology and students Fabián Riquelme, Ph.D. candidate, and María José Puentes, undergraduate student, both from the Institute of Geography.

One of MAGIC’s main challenges has been the transdisciplinary and diverse approach, taking advantage of the resources and experiences of various institutions. The hope is that this field-academy has laid the foundation for future projects in areas such as glaciology, glacial geomorphology, climate and glacial modeling, artificial intelligence/machine learning, climate sociology, anthropology and climate communication.

The initiative also included Ryan Vachon, a documentary filmmaker and scientific communication expert from the University of Boulder Colorado. “We had the opportunity to visit the majestic, but climatically vulnerable Patagonia, and to discuss how different disciplines understand and construct knowledge. We hope that this effort will contribute not only to developing more holistic and robust science, but also to cultivating a more empowered generation of young scientists,” Vachon said.

Evidence has shown that the only way to face challenges of this magnitude and impact is to work across disciplines and search for transdisciplinary solutions. No discipline alone can contribute to adaptation or mitigation in a significant way. “The recent expedition to Patagonia undoubtedly demonstrated the need to strengthen and formalize the links of collaboration to promote cutting-edge research programs and the training of young researchers, and at the same time visualize the challenges ahead. Those challenges include seeking novel opportunities for collaboration and funding, with the support of the Catholic University and Columbia University, in order to give continuity to this successful initiative,” Sagredo emphasized.

Causes of Warming and Loss of Glacial Mass

There is a consensus in the scientific community that the warming of the planet in recent decades has been the result of the indiscriminate release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which has created an unprecedented biogeochemical experiment. The greenhouse effect is a natural process that generates conditions conducive to life as we currently know it, where gases such as water vapor, methane and CO₂ capture part of the solar energy re-emitted by the planet, and thus warming the planet.

Past records show us that during the climate transition that occurred between the maximum of the last ice age and the pre-industrial world, the concentration of atmospheric CO₂ in the atmosphere increased by about 100 parts per million (ppm), in a process that took approximately 10,000 years. However, over the last 150 years, humans, mainly through the burning of fossil fuels, have released a total of close to 140 ppm of CO₂ into the atmosphere. This tells us that the rate of increase of CO₂ in the atmosphere over the last 150 years was almost 100 times faster than during one of the largest natural (non-anthropogenic) climate changes that our planet has experienced in the last million years.

This process has led to the exacerbation of the greenhouse effect, causing a rapid increase in global temperatures and the consequent loss of ice volume by glaciers around the planet. Unfortunately, the glacier response to warming integrates climate signals over more than 100 years. This means we have not yet fully experienced the consequences of this warming. In other words, even if temperatures miraculously remain constant starting tomorrow, glaciers will continue to melt and retreat over the next few decades, leading to dramatic effects on the hydrology of our rivers and water resources.

What the Future Holds

Since the second half of the 19th century, and particularly since the beginning of the 20th, our planet has experienced a drastic and unequivocal increase in global temperatures. The significant loss of ice mass that has affected both the large polar ice caps and mountain glaciers has been one of the most obvious consequences. The speed that this melting process has reached in recent decades has triggered awareness and alarm not only among the scientific community, but throughout our entire society. Along with the rise in sea level, alterations in mountain ecosystems and the increase in the frequency of catastrophic events, one of the most sensitive issues associated with the loss of glacial mass are the effects on the planet’s water resources. Currently, we face uncertainties in the availability of water for irrigation, hydroelectric energy generation and, most critically, for the direct food supply for the planet’s population.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has estimated that it is very likely that anthropogenic warming—caused by the emission of gases produced when we burn fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas)—will accelerate through the rest of the 21st century. What, then, will happen to our glaciers?

The answer is resoundingly clear: glaciers retreat will accelerate. However, to reduce the uncertainty of our projections, we require more information. Many researchers have dedicated their lives to studying the changes that glaciers experience year after year. This information is essential, but it demands great efforts and resources while providing a very small time window of analysis. In this sense, satellite images have been very useful, because they provide semi-periodic photographs of glaciers, often located in inaccessible areas. Unfortunately, these images are limited to the recent 25 to 40 years. Considering that the glacier response to climate changes spans several decades or perhaps centuries, even the most detailed information on changes in the glacial surface on annual scales or on scales of a few decades is not sufficient to understand the full process.

To robustly predict the glacial response to climate change in the near future, it will be necessary to understand the glacial response and dynamics over a longer time scale, which is precisely what the interdisciplinary research initiative by scientists at LDEO and Católica Universidad has been trying to achieve.