Abstract

The Norte Chico region of Chile extends south of the Atacama desert to ~32ºS. At this latitude glaciers are generally small and limited to the high Andes. The climate is seasonal, with precipitation maxima, and temperature minima, occurring in winter months. Seven years of meteorological data at 4,930m.a.s.l. shows the monthly mean temperatures lie between -0.4ºC in January and -11.0 in July. Wind speed in excess of 30 ms- 1 occurs year round. River runoff data suggest a strongly nival runoff regime, with glaciers having a lesser impact on runoff. Nevertheless, glaciers are locally considered to be an important water resource, and there are concerns about evaluating the current and future water resource potential of glaciers in this region under the influence of a changing climate and anthropogenic activity in the high Andes. Norte Chico´s glaciers are relatively unstudied and the detailed intereaction between climate conditions and glacier mass balance is not well understood. The glaciers have been shown to respond to ENSO state, and although they have been retreating during the 20th century, the rate of observed recession decreased during the El Nino years of the 1980´s. Of particular interest is the fact that the glaciers of this region undergo strong sublimation in the summer months resulting in the formation of large penitentes. Significant sublimation and its resultant formations present an interesting challenge both for measuring and modelling mass balance parameters. Here we present an outline of our strategy for monitoring mass balance and runoff at 7 glaciers in 2 locations within the Norte Chico region, and present preliminary results of this monitoring program.