Photo Essay: Glaciers

Glaciers and the national parks that surround and protect them are surely among the most magnificent places on Earth.

Perito Moreno, in the National Park "Los Glaciares" in the Argentine Patagonia, with an area of 250km2, a length of 30km and a height of up to 60m in its front, is certainly one of the most impressive. When I first saw it, I was so fascinated, that I couldn't help just staying there, observing... The whole morning and part of the afternoon passed, and I was just there, contemplating the peace and hearing the music produced by the huge blocks of white and light blue ice falling and splashing into the lake, just to become drifting icebergs. More rarely, underwater blocks of deep blue ice would also detach from depths of up to 170m and suddenly emerge on the lake's surface. (I spent so many hours hypnotized by this spectacle that later I realized that only the right side of my face got sunburned due to the sunlight reflected in the ice and coming from my right side.)

But glaciers are not only for contemplating. In the glacier at El Chalten, to the north of Periton Moreno, for example, it is possible and easy to do IceTreking and actively explore the glacier. And in some mountain glaciers in Europe, it is possible to ski in summer!

The monumental proportions and endless size of Perito Moreno hide the sad reality of the overall retreat of glaciers around the world. Indeed, Perito Moreno is one of the few glaciers that is growing slightly every year. The majority, on the other hand, is melting at alarming rates. This is perhaps mostly easily seen in the glaciers of Europe. Walking to the Briksdalbre glacier in the Norwegian National Park "Jostedalsbreen", for example, we encounter a sign marking where its front stood in 1800. It is impossible not to feel frustated when we see that the current front of the glacier now stands several kilometers away from that point. The retreat of the Pasterzengletscher, in the Austrian National Park "Hohe Tauern", is even more dramatic. It loses 15 meters in length and 3 meters in depth every year and will probably have disappeared completely by 2040.

And why are they retreating? Global warming! And there is more and more evidence that this process has been greatly intensified by our industrialized society's emissions of greenhouse gases.