Newsletter
PISAC Activities
PISAC Overview Article in Earth's Future
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Activities - PDF Download
Cryosphere News
In Sign of Warming, 1,600 Years of Ice in Andes Melted in 25 Years
Glacial ice in the Peruvian Andes that took at least 1,600 years to form has melted in just 25 years, scientists reported Thursday, the latest indication that the recent spike in global temperatures has thrown the natural world out of balance.
The evidence comes from a remarkable find at the margins of the Quelccaya ice cap in Peru, the world’s largest tropical ice sheet. Rapid melting there in the modern era is uncovering plants that were locked in a deep freeze when the glacier advanced many thousands of years ago.
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The impacts of soot in the Bolivian glaciers
Durante los últimos 50 años Bolivia ha perdido aproximadamente la mitad de sus glaciares. El factor principal por el acelerado retroceso glaciar es el calentamiento global, causado por las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero. Pero hay otro elemento que contribuye al derretimiento de los glaciares de montaña: depósitos de hollín de la quema de diesel y biomasa.
En la reciente reunión del Grupo de Trabajo PISAC (Pollution and its Impact on the South American Cryosphere) en La Paz, el investigador estadounidense Carl Schmitt presentó metodología y primeros resultados del análisis de muestras de nieve, para poder cuantificar el impacto de los depósitos de hollín en los glaciares de la Cordillera de los Andes.
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Dark snow: from the Arctic to the Himalayas, the phenomenon that is accelerating glacier melting
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Chile's Retreating San Quintín Glacier Viewed from Space
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The Cryosphere Imperative: Why Paris 2015 Must Succeed
For further information, please visit Cambio Climático Bolivia
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Antarctic summer ice melting 10 times faster
Field studies related to PISAC
The American Climber Science Program Peru 2014 expedition
PI: Dr. Carl Schmitt, National Center for Atmospheric Research
Co-Is and Collaborators: Dr. John All, Western Kentucky University, Dr. Aaron Celestian, Western Kentucky University, W. Pat Arnott, University of Nevada, Dr. Joshua Schwarz, National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Dr. Rebecca Cole, University of Hawaii.
Glaciers in the tropical Andes have been rapidly losing mass since the 1950s. In addition to the documented regional increase in temperature, increases in light absorbing particles on glaciers could be contributing to the observed glacier loss. For the past three years the American Climber Science Program (ACSP) has been sampling snow in the Cordillera Blanca Mountains in Peru in an effort to quantify the glacial contamination levels. The ACSP is a citizen science program which can leverage large volunteer groups to collect more samples. The ACSP uses a filter based technique to sample particles in snow. Results of the filter technique have been shown to be reasonably well correlated with mass estimates of refractory black carbon measured by the Soot Photometer-2 (SP2) instrument.
PISCES (Pollution Impacts on Snow in the Cordillera - Experiments and Simulations)
The Pollution Impact on Snow in the Cordillera-Experiments and Simulations (PISCES) project will start the first week of August and continue until the end of October, 2014. The goal of PISCES is to test the following null hypothesis: “The increase in concentrations of aerosol particles in the atmosphere over the Andes have not made a significant contribution to the receding cryosphere in that region”. Given that precipitation is one of the key components in glacier mass balance as well an in yearly snowpack volume, the project will seek to determine how urban emissions are processed within the frontal clouds and deposited onto the surface in the high mountains and to determine if the deposition of BC onto the cryosphere occurs via cloud processing (wet scavenging) or via dry deposition onto the fresh snow, but in between the passages of frontal systems.
The specific objectives to be addressed are:
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PILOT Projects related to PISAC
The Pollution Impact on Snow in the Cordillera-Experiments and Simulations (PISCES) project will start the first week of August and continue until the end of October, 2014. The goal of PISCES is to test the following null hypothesis: “The increase in concentrations of aerosol particles in the atmosphere over the Andes have not made a significant contribution to the receding cryosphere in that region”. Given that precipitation is one of the key components in glacier mass balance as well an in yearly snowpack volume, the project will seek to determine how urban emissions are processed within the frontal clouds and deposited onto the surface in the high mountains and to determine if the deposition of BC onto the cryosphere occurs via cloud processing (wet scavenging) or via dry deposition onto the fresh snow, but in between the passages of frontal systems.
The specific objectives to be addressed are:
1) Evaluation of aerosol optical depth measured by satellites and ground based photometers to determine trends in aerosol emissions.
2) Collection and analysis of in situ pollution data (gases and particles) from a mountain site.
3) Numerical simulations using chemical transport and cloud models to test the hypothesis by i) linking the particle properties and gas concentrations to their source, ii) calculating the flux of BC to the surface and iii) simulating the formation of rain and snow from the CCN and IN.
A relatively large suite of in situ and remote sensing instruments have already been committed to this project from Chile, Mexico, the United States, Spain and United Kingdom, including many of the ones that have been listed in Table I.
The measurement site is located at the midpoint between the Queltehue hydroelectric plant and the highest point from which water is drawn. The coordinates of the site are 33°49'5.93"S, 70°13'2.79"W, 1500 m altitude. The figures below show the location with respect to Santiago (Fig. 1), a close up view (Fig. 2), a photo showing the valley below (with pollution) and Fig. 4 is a photo of the research team who scouted out the site.
The measurements will begin the beginning of August and will extend to at least the end of October with the possibility of extending into December.
More information can be found on Facebook by searching for “PISCES Project 2014”.
