Chili : un glacier recule d'1 km. Le glacier Jorge Montt, situé sur le Campo de Hielo Sur dans la Patagonie chilienne (sud), a reculé de 1 km en 2010, notamment du fait du réchauffement climatique, selon une enquête du Centre d'études scientifiques (CECs) du Chili présentée aujourd'hui "Presque tous les glaciers de la région ont subi des pertes de superficie à cause du réchauffement climatique et des conditions océanographiques.
Celui de Jorge Montt est celui qui détient le record de recul", a déclaré mercredi à la presse Andres Rivera, du CECs, lors de la présentation de l'étude à Santiago. Selon cette étude, la structure du glacier de 454 km2 "fait partie de celles ayant présenté les plus importantes diminution et régression dans l'hémisphère sud" en 2010.
Projet HidroAysen. Chili. Social Des sites archéologiques victimes du Paris Dakar / Amérique du sud Amérique latine Les associations saisissent les tribunaux pour dénoncer “une compétition d’européens qui menace le patrimoine américain”.
Selon l’ONG Acción Ecológica, 184 sites archéologiques ont été endommagés au Chili en seulement trois ans. À table ! Véritables légumes des mers, les algues subantarctiques sont recherchées pour leurs propriétés nutritionnelles et s’invitent sur les menus des chefs de Patagonie. An officials declare 'catastrophe' after heavy snow. By the CNN Wire Staff July 21, 2011 3:36 p.m.
EDT Some 16,000 residents of rural areas in Araucania remain isolated due to heavy snowfall, authorities report. NEW: Officials in one city say more than 2.3 meters of snow have fallenCNN Chile affiliate: More than 6,500 are isolated in one town"It has snowed more than ever," Curacautin Mayor Jorge Saquel saysThe interior minister calls the snowstorm a "white earthquake" (CNN) -- Chilean officials declared a "catastrophe" in eight municipalities Wednesday after heavy snow blanketed communities and blocked roads in what the nation's interior minister called a "white earthquake. " "It has snowed more than ever," Curacautin Mayor Jorge Saquel told CNN Chile Tuesday. In the city of Lonquimay, officials said snow had piled more than 2.3 meters (7.5 feet) high. "This storm is strong and it is likely that in the coming days we could suffer from more bad weather fronts, more heavy snowfall, that make the situation even worse," Hinzpeter said.
Heavy Snow in Central Chile. In what the interior minister described as a “white earthquake,” heavy snow blanketed parts of Chile in July 2011.
Snow was 2.3 meters (7.5 feet) deep in the city of Lonquimay, CNN reported. Santiago Times reported that some areas received four months’ worth of snowfall in just four days. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured these images of the region around Lonquimay on July 22, 2011 (top), and July 8, 2011 (bottom). Using visible and infrared light, these images better distinguish between snow and clouds than a natural-color image would. Snow and ice are bright red or red-orange. Both images show winter conditions but, compared to the image from July 8, the scene from July 22 shows snow blanketing a significantly larger area around Lonquimay. The Araucanía region in central Chile included some of the hardest hit areas, CNN reported. La Escondida, Chile. The La Escondida Mine is located in the north of the country in the Atacama Desert, 170 km to the southeast of Antofagasta and 3 100 metres above sea level.
In 1990 Minera Escondida, the Escondida Mining Company, began to extract gold, silver, and mainly copper there. Since 2005 the company has also worked North Escondida, a second open pit mine located 5 km from the main site. La Escondida is now the largest producing copper mine in the world and, in 2008, accounted for more than 23.5 per cent of total Chilean output of the mineral, with 1 255 019 tonnes. The company extracts 360 million tonnes of copper each year (Minera Escondida 2010). Even though the mining facilities were designed and built following rigorous environmental specifications and meeting international standards, the environmental effects created by open-pit mines are widely known. La Escondida está situada al norte del país, en el Desierto de Atacama, a 170 km al sureste de Antofagasta y a 3 100 m.s.n.m.
Atacama, Chile. Santiago, Chile. Santiago is the capital and main urban centre of Chile, located in its Central Valley.
Its metropolitan region contains 40.5 per cent of the national population, and accounts for 85 per cent of the public spending, but occupies just 2 percent of the country’s land area. O'Higgins Glacier, Chile. The O'Higgins Glacier, which measured 785.4 km2 in 2000 (López and others 2010), makes up a quarter of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, in the south of Chile and Argentina.
Scientific studies show that almost all the glaciers in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field are receding, or melting, and among them the O’Higgins glacier is one of those that has changed the most. The leading edge of this glacier stayed in a stable position until the beginning of the twentieth century, when it began a retreat that, by 1995, measured 14.6 km, of which 11.5 km were lost between 1945 and 1980 (Casassa and others 1997). While some part of the loss of glacial thickness and extent is due to the dynamics of the ice itself, global warming heightens the rate of melting.