Today we went on a boat tour on Lake Argentina. We woke up at the same time as yesterday and got picked up at around 7.20. When we got to the port there was a massive line to get onto the 3 boats, we lined up but not for very long and got on the boat. Our first views were of the icebergs in the Upsala canal which I will tell you about a little later on. The first Glacier we saw was the Upsala Glacier which is the biggest of all the Glaciers on Lake Argentina, there is more info about these later on in the blog. The next thing we saw was a miniature hanging glacier that hung on a mountain above the lake, there is also more info later on. Then we saw the Spegazzini glacier which is 1/4 hanging and the rest is in the valley and on the lake, more info down below.
The next and final thing we stopped at was the most famous Glacier on Lake Argentina and maybe even Patagonia, this Glacier is the one we walked on yesterday and it is called Perito Moreno. Me and dad went into the front of the boat about 20 minutes before we arrived at the Glacier. We stayed out there in the freezing cold and the howling wind so that we could get the best spot to look at the Glacier and take photos. Then we came back to the port and caught the bus back home to our lovely hostel in El Calafate There is more info and photos of the glaciers below.
These Icebergs have fallen off the front wall of the Upsala Glacier, now they are floating down Lake Argentina and slowly melting. The iceberg you can see is only 10-20% of the actual iceberg and the rest is under water, these icebergs are the biggest on Lake Argentina because the Upsala canal is the deepest of all the lakes, the reason all the icebergs are all from the Upsala Glacier is because it is the Glacier that is melting rapidly. Here are some photos of the Icebergs we saw in the Upsala canal.
If you look closely in this picture you may be able to see the Upsala Glacier which is where all of these ice bergs are coming from. This Glacier is much bigger than the Perito Moreno Glacier. This Glacier is 2kms wide at the front and 50 kms in length, this Glacier was made the same way as the Perito Moreno Glacier (see the blog before if you don't know.)
This is the impact of climate change in the Upsala Glacier, see the first pink line that says 1946 is where the first observation of the glacier was taken, then the next pink line is in 1997 and you can see the impact f climate change. Now in 2013 it would be even further back and would be decreasing at a quicker rate thanks to global warming.
Here is a little glacier that has melted a lot over time and now is not floating on the water, in the winter it may touch the water but I don't know that for sure.
This glacier is called Glacier Spegazzini it is a hanging Glacier and it is about 12 square km. It is about 500 metres above sea level and once was a Glacier that was connected to Lake Argentina.
This is the connecting part of the hanging part of the Glacier that is connected by the mountains.
This is the other part of Spegazzini that is 134 square km's and 17km's long. It is the highest Glacier in this region. The name comes from an Italian botanist called Antonio Speganzani who did a lot of work around this Glacier.
This is the Perito Moreno Glacier which is what we walked on yesterday, this photo really puts in perspective how big it actually is but this is only 1/2 of the Glacier. This is the north side, we walked on the other side of it. This is the most famous Glacier because of its growth, in the summer and spring the Glacier melts and looks like this, but then in the winter it goes right up on the shore line where the rocks are. This causes a problem because it blocks off the connection from one side of the lake to the other and so the west side of the lake has 26 more metres of water so the lake basically floods until the it creates a hole in the ice. Then that hole eventually collapses, the last collapse was in March 2012.
Perito Moreno is 254 square km's, 13 km's in length and 2.5 kms wide at the start of the glacier. The ice wall at the front is around 40-60 metres, this Glacier is named after the person who discovered the Glaciers and Patagonia. This Glacier has many calving events which is where the little layers of ice fall off into Lake Argentina. This is also why Perito Moreno is so famous because of all it's calving events.
Here is the other half of the north side of the Glacier that I did not get in the other photo
Thank you and please come again
Oscar :-)
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