Drop by drop, the colossal glaciers that Darwin admired on his southernmost journey disappear

Where before there were giants of icenow there are fjords: drop by drop, the southernmost ice field of South America speed up your thaw and it destroys some landscapes that were documented by a young Charles Darwin on his first trip to Tierra del Fuego in 1832 and that helped him spin his scientific theories.

“The glaciers They stretch from the mountains to the water’s edge. I can’t imagine anything more beautiful than the beryl blue of those glaciers, especially when contrasted with the snow.”wrote Darwin (United Kingdom, 1809-1882) in one of his diaries about his passage through the Beagle Channel, in the middle of Cape Horn.

The creator of the theory of evolution described the landscape as “imposing”with glaciers that reached the sea and birds, plants and marine animals that surprised by their exuberance, but climate change is unbalancing the ecosystem.

The geographer from the University of Chile Andrés Rivera explained to EFE that the Darwin mountain range, which is home to the main Cape Horn ice field, lost an average of 1.7 square kilometers of ice per year between 1870 and 2016.

In the last 30 years, he warned, “the speed is up to 5 square kilometers per year”.

“Today it rains much more and it snows much less than in the past. It is one of the effects that was predicted by the different climate change models, and it has come true”, For his part, Ricardo Rozzi, who runs a new research center in the southern city of Puerto Williams, the Cape Horn International Center (CHIC), added to EFE.

Although Rivera denied that the ice at Cape Horn is going to disappear “completely” In the coming decades, he pointed out that some glaciers are highly vulnerable to climate change, especially those sliding on the northern slopes of the Darwin Range, which is home to about 2,000 square kilometers of ice.

Thaw with global impact

Beyond the glaciers, Darwin was struck by the immense marine forests of brown algae that, tens of meters long, serve as nests for aquatic fauna in Cape Horn.

The naturist described them as “seaweed beds” and he discovered that the Macrocystis pyrifera, popularly known as huiros, were very useful for sailors because they indicate rocky and shallow coasts and act as breakwaters.

“I know of few things more surprising than seeing this plant grow… Its stem is round, slimy and smooth, rarely reaching an inch in diameter. By gathering a few, a rope of sufficient resistance is formed to support the weight of the large loose stones that grow in the interior channels (of Cape Horn)”Darwin detailed about brown algae.

One of the main researchers at CHIC, Andrés Mansilla, who studies changes in algae as a result of climate change, assured EFE that these ecosystems absorb large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and that their decline, in addition to a local impact, could increase the speed of climate change globally.

“Southern Chile is home to the largest reserves of brown algae in the world, which are extremely vulnerable to freshwater discharges from melting ice”he pointed.

“The glacier is melting faster and faster, and what seems to be something imperceptible is actually tons of water dumped into the marine ecosystem”he added.

The trip to Cape Horn marked the studies of Darwin, one of the biggest names in modern science, and despite the fact that its ecosystems harbor key aspects to study climate change today, the region still lags behind in scientific research in comparison with similar latitudes in the northern hemisphere.

“The real effect of glacial melting on marine ecosystems in Cape Horn is still unknown,” added Mansilla. There is no concrete data, because there is no investigation. We know that it affects, but there is a long way to go to know how much”.

Source: EFE