2025/04/23 by Brice Noël, Stef Lhermitte, Bert Wouters +1 · 1 voice
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Cryospheric studies and observations #Climate change and permafrost #Landslides and related hazards
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s41467-025-58974-1
openalex publication_date 2025/04/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
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. We link long-term mass loss of Patagonian glaciers to a poleward shift of subtropical high-pressure systems. This phenomenon brings more warm air to Patagonia, enhancing glacier melt. Since 1940, Patagonian glaciers have raised sea level by 3.7 mm.