08/06/2021 15:25
Clarín.com
International
Updated 08/06/2021 3:26 PM
The mega drought that hits the entire area of the
Andes Mountains
that divides Argentina from Chile caused a shocking phenomenon that could be captured by a satellite photo: it is the dramatic retreat of the snow layers of the great peaks and slopes of the largest mountain range in America.
Satellite images reveal that mountain snow receded in numerous places over the course of the last year, exposing the land.
The reason?
A very low level of snowfall and rainfall, which caused a historic drought that has even caused the closure of ski centers.
According to Reuters, the photographs were captured on July 27, 2020 and July 29 of this year, respectively, by the
Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellite
of the European Space Agency (ESA).
The image of the receding snow of the Andes Mountains was captured by a satellite of the European Space Agency.
This phenomenon occurs in the midst of a drought that has lasted for a decade and that experts attribute to global warming.
The phenomenon is accompanied by a precipitous drop in the flow of rivers in the region.
According to the RT site,
Ricardo Villalba
, principal investigator of the Argentine Institute of Nivology, Glaciology and Environmental Sciences (IANIGLA), said that the contraction of glaciers threatens to affect the water supply, a
vital resource that some communities
in the region obtain from the mountains.
"Here we are seeing a process of long-term decrease in precipitation, a mega-drought. If you look at the precipitation levels right now for the entire mountain range, they show that either
it has not snowed at all
or it has snowed very little," said the expert.
A mountaineer walks on a hillside in Mendoza, Argentina.
Villalba recalled that in the 2000s the
Andean glaciers
remained the same size or even increased, while now an opposite phenomenon is observed.
To such an extent that the ski resorts on the Argentine-Chilean border, which reopened this winter after a long hiatus due to the pandemic, are forced to transport snow or use artificial snow to cover the slopes.
"The glaciers are in a
very dramatic
retreat
process
that is much more accelerated than what we have seen before," said the researcher.
