On Tuesday, a 380 metre long and 350 metre wide iceberg broke off Chile’s Grey Glacier, in the Chile’s Southern Patagonian Ice Field.
On their social media platforms, the National Forest Corporation (Conaf) shared images of the glacier’s fracture. Park rangers took pictures of the event moments after it happened.
The head of Conaf’s local branch, María Elisabeth Muñoz, said that the fracture could be related to high temperatures in recent years, El Magallánico reported.
Muñoz added that she informed the Chilean Antarctic Institute (Inach). They assured that a full satellite monitoring system was to be launched to determine both the real dimensions and the effects of the break-off.
Guardaparques CONAF reportan desprendimiento de gran masa de hielo en Glaciar Grey, del Parque Torres del Paine: se estudian sus causas. pic.twitter.com/CknBkGHYlI
— CONAF (@conaf_minagri) 28 de noviembre de 2017
Desprendimiento del Glaciar Grey en Torres del Paine nos demanda redoblar nuestros esfuerzos en la lucha contra el #CambioClimático. Todos podemos ayudar: con reciclaje domiciliario, prefiriendo la bici, no utilizando chimeneas pic.twitter.com/OEpg8lFpDA
— Claudio Orrego (@Orrego) 28 de noviembre de 2017
Experts blame climate change
Francisco Ferrado, a glaciologist from the University of Chile, told BioBioChile that the glacier ends on a lake, so part of it is constantly floating, including the iceberg that broke off.
Ferrado said that this is a result of climate change and that the process is irreversible.
Ferrado, a professor at the university’s School of Architecture and Urbanism, detailed that the glacier lost both stability and width, specially from beneath.
Considering the glacier’s weakening, “it makes it prone to the effect of the water movement where it floats. In this context, it is easy that the front of a glacier breaks. This is evidence that global warming is affecting all glaciers”, Ferrado added.
