The Edge of Ice: an up-close and informative encounter with glaciers in the Southern Patagonian Ice Fields of Chile and Argentina brings the effects of climate change to global awareness.

• Author: Balaguer, Alejandro
• Position: Essay

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The bow of the catamaran points towards an outcropping of bluish ice jutting out from the hidden banks of Lake Argentina. As we near the giant Upsala Glacier, an icon of global warming for scientists, we can see large furrows on the millenary body of ice--evidence of melting. We are traveling through "Iceberg Bay," where Upsala's moraine has been slipping piece by piece into the lake. Landslides and floating masses of ice confirm for us the effects of climate change.

We are in the Southern Patagonian Ice Fields, the third largest icecap on the planet. The immense frozen white landscape stretches for more than 5,000 square miles and includes Chile's Torres del Paine National Park and O'Higgins National Park, as well as Argentina's Los Glaciares National Park, where we are headed now. It looks like a polar landscape with huge ice plateaus. Here, it snows about 300 days a year; the precipitation forms a great platform of ice that has given birth to dozens of glaciers.

Dr. Ricardo Villalba, Director of the Argentine Institute of Snow, Ice, and Environmental Research and a veteran of countless explorations on the Patagonian glaciers, speaks to our group. "We have been able to document the fact that the Upsala Glacier has receded three or four miles," he says. "Our team of scientists has been using satellite images to sectors of Patagonia and, on average, the glaciers have receded between fifteen and twenty percent in the last twenty years. Some of them have been melting at an even faster rate. If current temperature trends continue, this glacier will disappear entirely in 100 years," Villalba predicts.

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The icebergs melting beneath the dark and stormy sky here at Upsala Glacier are powerful images, symbols of the Earth's current thawing period. Suddenly, we hear the roar of a wall of ice crashing into the water. It makes a wave that shakes our boat, and spectators applaud in celebration. For a moment, they have forgotten what this means for the future. Once the excitement passes, however, many of them begin to talk about the connection between these landslides and global warming, between global warming and our future water supply. They are getting a lot of information from the guides on board, and they will leave better informed and more aware. For many of those travelling with us this morning, especially the young, this show of ice falling apart before their eyes will change the way they think about the environment and about how to treat Mother Nature.

"All of the scenarios for climate change in the future indicate that the warming trend is going to continue, that temperatures will rise, and that melting will speed up. If this happens, and there are no changes in human beings' attitudes towards nature, it is quite possible that many of the small glaciers will be gone by the end of the century," Villalba warns.

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The glaciers of this region regulate water supply and generate energy. They are also indescribably beautiful. Argentines can be proud that UNESCO has recognized these attributes and declared Los Glaciares National Park a World Heritage Site. Today, visitors from all over the world come to Patagonia to see the Perito Moreno, Upsala, and Viedma glaciers, or to ride a boat on Lake Argentina to observe the...