For a long time, Perito Moreno was considered an exception among the world’s glaciers due to its stability in the face of global warming.
In recent days, spectacular scenes of massive ice chunks breaking off the Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina have alarmed climate experts and local tour guides. Ice walls as tall as 70 meters (equivalent to a 20-story building) are collapsing into Lake Argentina in a process known as “calving.” While such events were once rare, they have become noticeably more frequent over the past four to six years.
Perito Moreno, located in Los Glaciares National Park and fed by the Andes Mountains, was long regarded as one of the few glaciers maintaining its mass despite global warming. Now, however, clear signs of retreat are emerging.
According to Argentine glaciologist Lucas Ruiz, the glacier has been losing the equivalent of about 1 to 2 meters of water annually since 2020, with certain sections retreating noticeably. This is a stark change from the previous 80 years, during which the glacier’s position remained almost constant.
A 2024 report presented by Ruiz and his colleagues to the Argentine Congress revealed that since 2015, Perito Moreno has undergone its fastest and longest period of mass loss in the past 47 years, averaging 0.85 meters of thinning annually.
Temperature and precipitation measurements show that the region has warmed by an average of 0.06°C per decade while precipitation has decreased, causing melting and calving to outpace the accumulation of ice in the glacier’s upper zones.
Despite these worrying signs, Perito Moreno remains one of South America’s most popular tourist attractions, drawing visitors from around the world to witness its natural grandeur. Yet this very grandeur, alongside the scientific evidence, stands as a stark warning of the accelerating impacts of climate change on one of the planet’s most resilient glaciers.
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