{"id":20272,"date":"2024-01-16T10:51:42","date_gmt":"2024-01-16T13:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/?p=20272"},"modified":"2024-01-16T10:51:42","modified_gmt":"2024-01-16T13:51:42","slug":"andes-snowpack-hangs-on-earth-observatory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/andes-snowpack-hangs-on-earth-observatory\/","title":{"rendered":"Andes Snowpack Hangs On (Earth Observatory)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
December 18, 2021 – December 18, 2023<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Snowy mountains serve as natural \u201cwater towers<\/a>\u201d in some parts of the world, storing vital fresh water in frozen form during cool, wet times and releasing it in warmer, drier seasons. In central Chile, however, a\u00a0megadrought<\/a>, ongoing since 2010, has disrupted this dynamic. The prolonged dry period has often left seasonal mountain snowpack thin,\u00a0straining water supplies<\/a>, exacerbating wildfires, and parching crops. Winter 2023 brought some relief.<\/p>\n

The respite is due in part to two\u00a0atmospheric rivers<\/a>\u00a0that delivered\u00a0abundant rain and snow<\/a>\u00a0to the region. A relatively cold spring followed and left the Andes\u2019 water towers much fuller heading into the dry season than in recent years.<\/p>\n

The difference in snow cover is apparent in this image pair. On December 18, 2023 (right), at the start of summer in the southern hemisphere, seasonal snow still blanketed the Andes, straddling Chile to the west and Argentina to the east. On the same date in 2021 (left), much less snow and ice remained following a very dry winter. Both images were acquired by the\u00a0VIIRS<\/a>\u00a0(Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the\u00a0NOAA-20<\/a>\u00a0satellite.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
December 18, 2000 – December 18, 2023<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Data from the\u00a0Observatorio de Nieve en los Andes de Argentina y Chile<\/a>\u00a0(above) show that mid-December snow coverage in the Tinguiririca Basin in 2023 stood well above levels seen in the past several years. The observatory supports a digital platform using data from NASA\u2019s\u00a0MODIS<\/a>\u00a0(Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) sensors to\u00a0track snow cover<\/a>\u00a0in Andean drainage basins over time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe seasonal snowpack\u2014often depleted by this time of year\u2014is hanging in there,\u201d said atmospheric scientist\u00a0Ren\u00e9 Garreaud<\/a>\u00a0of Universidad de Chile, \u201cand that is pretty good for the rivers draining the Andean basins on both sides of the Chile\u2013Argentina border.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tinguiririca Basin, south of Santiago, feeds one of the major rivers flowing from the subtropical Andes to the Pacific Ocean. It provides water to the O\u2019Higgins Region, an important agricultural area in Chile\u2019s Central Valley known for its\u00a0fruit orchards<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0wine production<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Amid the brighter signs of a healthier snowpack and\u00a0water sources refilling<\/a>, Garreaud cautions this wet year may represent not so much an end but a mere\u00a0interruption to the megadrought<\/a>. \u201cClimate change is pushing central Chile toward a drier climate,\u201d he said. Regional models project a 35-45 percent decrease in Andes snowpack by mid-century, even in a low greenhouse gas emission scenario, a\u00a0recent study<\/a>\u00a0found.<\/p>\n

NASA Earth Observatory images by\u00a0Wanmei Liang<\/a>, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS\u00a0LANCE<\/a>,\u00a0GIBS\/Worldview<\/a>, and the\u00a0Joint Polar Satellite System<\/a>\u00a0(JPSS). Snow coverage data from MODIS, processed by the\u00a0Observatorio de Nieve en los Andes de Argentina y Chile<\/a>, IANIGLA-CONICET and (CR)2<\/sup>. Basin boundary data from\u00a0Camels-CL Explorer<\/a>. Story by\u00a0Lindsey Doermann<\/a>. |\u00a0<\/i>Leer en Earth Obseratory.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Snowy mountains serve as natural \u201cwater towers\u201d in some parts of the world, storing vital fresh water in frozen form during cool, wet times and releasing it in warmer, drier seasons. In central Chile, however, a\u00a0megadrought, ongoing since 2010, has disrupted this dynamic. The prolonged dry period has often left seasonal mountain snowpack thin,\u00a0straining water […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":20273,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[100,1058,1059,1057],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20272"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20276,"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20272\/revisions\/20276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}