Poleward shift of subtropical highs drives Patagonian glacier mass loss

Brice Noël (), Stef Lhermitte, Bert Wouters and Xavier Fettweis
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Brice Noël: University of Liège
Stef Lhermitte: KU Leuven
Bert Wouters: Delft University of Technology
Xavier Fettweis: University of Liège

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Patagonian glaciers have been rapidly losing mass in the last two decades, but the driving processes remain poorly known. Here we use two state-of-the-art regional climate models to reconstruct long-term (1940-2023) glacier surface mass balance (SMB), i.e., the difference between precipitation accumulation, surface runoff and sublimation, at about 5 km spatial resolution, further statistically downscaled to 500 m. High-resolution SMB agrees well with in-situ observations and, combined with solid ice discharge estimates, captures recent GRACE/GRACE-FO satellite mass change. Glacier mass loss coincides with a long-term SMB decline (−0.35 Gt yr−2), primarily driven by enhanced surface runoff (+0.47 Gt yr−2) and steady precipitation. We link these trends to a poleward shift of the subtropical highs favouring warm northwesterly air advections towards Patagonia (+0.14°C dec−1 at 850 hPa). Since the 1940s, Patagonian glaciers have lost 1350 ± 449 Gt of ice, equivalent to 3.7 ± 1.2 mm of global mean sea-level rise.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-58974-1

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