Climate’s firm grip on glacier ablation in the Cordillera Darwin Icefield, Tierra del Fuego

Franziska Temme (), Christian Sommer, Marius Schaefer, Ricardo Jaña, Jorge Arigony-Neto, Inti Gonzalez, Eñaut Izagirre, Ricardo Giesecke, Dieter Tetzner and Johannes J. Fürst
Additional contact information
Franziska Temme: Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
Christian Sommer: Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
Marius Schaefer: Universidad Austral de Chile
Ricardo Jaña: Instituto Antártico Chileno
Jorge Arigony-Neto: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande
Inti Gonzalez: Centro de Estudios del Cuaternario de Fuego-Patagonia y Antártica
Eñaut Izagirre: University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU
Ricardo Giesecke: Universidad Austral de Chile
Dieter Tetzner: British Antarctic Survey
Johannes J. Fürst: Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract The Cordillera Darwin Icefield (CDI) in Tierra del Fuego is one of the largest temperate ice bodies in the Southern Hemisphere. We simulate the climatic energy and mass balance of its glaciers (2000–2023), which are sensitive indicators of climatic changes in the Southern Hemisphere’s higher mid-latitudes. Year-round westerly winds cause strong climatic gradients across the mountain range, reflected in the energy and mass fluxes. Our results reveal a significant increase in surface melt (+0.18 m w.e. yr-1 per decade) over the past two decades. We also present the first estimate of dynamically controlled mass loss into adjacent fjords and lakes by frontal ablation, amounting to 1.44 ± 0.94 Gt yr-1 (26 % of the total CDI mass loss). Frontal losses are mainly channelized through few marine-terminating glaciers. While frontal ablation is important for predicting the fate of individual glaciers, for the CDI as a whole, atmospheric conditions exert the main control on the current glacier evolution.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-57698-6 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-57698-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-57698-6

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().