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Climatic change

The disappearing ice

The permanent snow line has risen more than 200 meters in Patagonia during the last 20 years. The Argentine specialist Jorge Rabassa, a professor at the National University of Patagonia, explains that climate change is no meteorological curiosity, but a global problem that seriously affects the environment

JORDI MONTANER | JANUARY 5th, 2011

Jorge Rabassa is Argentine, but maintains close ties with Catalonia. In a lecture delivered at the Institute of Catalan Studies (IEC) entitled "The impact of global climate change on glaciers in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego," Rabassa recalled that he is descended from a Catalan family which took part in founding the pro-Catalan independence political party Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) and Football Club Barcelona.

This expert at the Southern Center for Scientific Research (CADIC) in Ushuaia, Argentina, began his lecture citing one of the least known aspects of Charles Darwin legacy: his work as an eminent geologist through which he identified a remnant of the global ice age in the cone of the South American continent. "Early in the nineteenth century, the volume of ice in this region exceeded all the glaciers in the Alps put together,” Rebassa said. “It had icebergs touching the coast and there were still small wooded islands left from the planet’s last ice age."

Since then, the climate has changed dramatically. The industrial revolution and the proliferation of internal combustion engines and other the development of other energy sources have been warming the atmosphere and causing the loss of thousands of bodies of ice at both the North and South Pole. "We talk about global warming because it is obvious that the largest emissions occur in the northern hemisphere, but its most dramatic effects are recorded in the South."

The largest emissions occur in the North, but global warming has a greater impact in the South Average annual and seasonal temperatures have been increasing steadily, while sea levels have been rising and regional precipitation and rain are becoming scarcer and extreme weather events (droughts and floods) are becoming more common. Rabassa has personally been following these changes since 1978 throughout the Tierra del Fuego, Patagonia and the Antarctic Peninsula. "The glaciers have lost a lot of ground and ice has become much more fragile throughout the Andes, degrading the so-called permafrost effect."

Rabassa says that all these environmental effects will have an impact on water and geomorphology resources as well as the landscape and tourism in the region. Moreover, he believes that the potable water supply in Ushuaia may be compromised in just 20 years.

"The elevation of the permanent snow line has risen over 200 meters in Patagonia during the last 20 years, and all the glaciers that still remain will melt within 30 years,” Rebassa said. “All of the Patagonia ice cap will be reduced to a minimal expression, after having remained unchanged for more than a million years, due to humans’ impact the atmosphere, and the ice shelf of Antarctica will eventually break apart, causing a significant rise in sea level around the planet.”

Less ice and more allergies

Rabassa's lecture took place while respiratory health experts from around the world met in Barcelona for the annual congress of the European Respiratory Society (ERS). A study presented at this meeting says that the increase in temperature of the atmosphere around the globe, the proliferation of extreme storms, a higher pollution index and the lengthening of the summer season have a profound impact on respiratory health.

In a clear consensus, pulmonologists urge policy makers to show the take all possible measures to combat environmental pollution and climate change, warning that these will causes chronic respiratory diseases and allergies such as asthma grow 10% annually. Pulmonologists ensure that each decrease of 10 ug/m3 in the number of particles in the air extends life expectancy by six months. Climate change is particularly hard on allergy sufferers, leading to more dust and a more intense pollen seasons.

Speaking on behalf of pulmonologists meeting in Barcelona, Jordi Sunyer, of Barcelona’s Municipal Institute of Medical Research (IMIM), stresses that we all spend more time in closed spaces with little ventilation, "which also leads to exposure to indoor pollutants and tobacco smoke. " According to Sunyer, it is time to make a stand for clean air. Indoor pollution, he says, is not so bad for those with allergies as for people at risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), bronchitis and emphysema. Returning to the air outside, Sunyer complained that Barcelona recorded densities of 40 to 50 mg/m3 of particulate matter in the air while the limits set by the World Health Organization do not exceed 20 mg/m3.

2010 was declared worldwide the "Year of the Lung,” and the ERS does not want to miss the opportunity to encourage governmental authorities to actively work for a better quality of the air we breathe.

RABASSA, EXPERT ON SOUTHERN ICE
Jorge Oscar Rabassa has a doctorate in natural sciences (Geology) and is senior lecturer at the Faculty of Economics at the UNPSJB. He also does research for the CONICET (Argentina’s national research council). Born in La Plata, Argentina, he is 62 years old and lives held in Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia, where he studies the paleomorphology of palaeoenvironments and the changes caused by global warming. He has been appointed to the Section of Science and Technology of the Institute of Catalan Studies and is considered a world expert on the effects of climate change on glaciers in the southern hemisphere.
In addition to Spanish and Catalan, Rabassa speak and writes in French, Portuguese and Italian. He served as Minister of Education, Science and Technology in the province of Tierra del Fuego from 2007 to 2008, but resigned early to dedicate himself to full-time research. He was also Rector of the National University of Comahue (1998-2002) and director of the Southern Center for Scientific Research in Ushuaia (1986-1990), as well as senior research associate in the Department of Geological Sciences of New York University (1975 - 1976).

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