A team of scientists from the University of Concepción, the University of Bío-Bío, the University of La Frontera and the University of Colorado carried out an expedition to the Sollipulli Glacier within the framework of the Ring Project 210080 “Cold-Blooded: Drivers of Climate Change Refuge for Glaciers and Streamflow Responses,” led by academic FAUG Dr. Alfonso Fernández. The main objective of the expedition was to obtain an ice core – a cylindrical sample of the glacier – that allows scientists to study the climate and environmental conditions of the past.
The Sollipulli glacier, located in the caldera of the volcano of the same name, is probably the deepest glacier in Chile north of the Patagonian ice fields, with a thickness of approximately 700 meters of ice. This glacier has been losing mass at an alarming rate, with approximately 70 meters of ice since 2000 and 4 meters of ice per year in the last decade.
“Our research indicates that the Sollipulli glacier is experiencing significant changes due to climate change“explained the geophysicist of the Department of Geography UdeC and postdoctoral researcher of the Coldblooded project, Jan Erik Arndt. “These changes are likely to intensify in the coming years, so it was crucial to obtain a record of the glacier’s past climate to better understand its evolution and predict its future.”
In this context, it should be noted that ice cores are invaluable tools for reconstructing past climatic conditions. Air bubbles trapped in ice can reveal information about temperature, atmospheric composition and other climate parameters. Volcanic ash layers can be used to obtain information about the age of ice sheets and, at the same time, to analyze the activity of volcanoes in the region.
Despite its importance, until now no ice core had been extracted from the Sollipulli Glacier. The expedition managed to obtain three ice cores, but with a depth of less than one meter.
“While the depth of the cores is limited, they represent an important first step in studying the past climate of the Sollipulli Glacier,” Arndt said. “In the laboratories we will analyze the isotopes present in the cores to obtain information about the climatic conditions in the region. We hope that in the future we will be able to carry out new expeditions to obtain longer and deeper cores, which will allow us to reconstruct the climate of the glacier over thousands of years,” he added.
In the case of the Sollipulli Glacier, these archives are even more important due to their rapid disappearance due to climate change. Obtaining these cores is a crucial step to preserve the climate memory of this unique place and better understand the impacts of climate change on the region’s glaciers.
Finally, we would like to highlight and thank the contribution of researcher Jan Erik Arndt, who is going to work in Austria as a teacher at BOKU University, Vienna. “There my focus will be on teaching terrestrial topography to students, but I will have time to continue with scientific work. “I hope I can continue my research in the southern Andes and with new collaborations with my Chilean colleagues from the Anillo project, with which I have worked for about two years.”
