At 5,100 meters above sea level, the air around Bolivia’s Huayna Potosí glacier is razor-thin and brittle with altitude. The wind whispers across the ice in long, deliberate strokes, shaping a dramatic landscape suspended between endurance and erosion. Despite the cold, the mountainside no longer remains frozen year-round, and where thick blue ice once dominated, bare rock now juts out like exposed bone.
The Western Huayna Potosí Glacier is retreating at an alarming pace—approximately 24 meters per year—leaving behind a transformed landscape. In its wake lies a meltwater lake that didn’t exist in 1975, a stark marker of the glacier’s former extent. Each year, the ice thins and pulls back upslope, uncovering not just stone but a growing crisis.
To document this rapid transformation, a multinational team of scientists from the Andes and the Himalayas—representing Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, China, Ecuador, and Nepal—begins their work at dawn. Climbing slowly to the glacier’s core, their breath short and strained in the high-altitude air, they move deliberately across treacherous terrain. Hidden crevasses pose constant danger, demanding vigilance with every step. By nightfall, they must descend before conditions become too hazardous.
Their mission: to decode the glacier’s silent retreat. With support from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—through the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture—the scientists have installed a cutting-edge device atop the glacier.
This cosmic ray neutron sensor, one of just two on the glacier, provides real-time data on how much snow accumulates—information critical to the glacier’s survival. Snow acts as a protective blanket, preserving the glacier beneath it. Each reading the sensor captures offers a snapshot of the glacier’s dwindling life force.
But the implications of melting ice stretch far beyond the mountain. The shrinking glacier is a warning signal—a precursor to more profound crises for downstream communities relying on glacial meltwater for drinking, agriculture, and energy. The data collected by this project is crucial for understanding and anticipating the cascading effects of glacier loss on ecosystems, water availability, and human livelihoods.
In a world warming at an accelerating pace, the work at Huayna Potosí is more than scientific—it’s a race against time. Each meter the glacier recedes tells a story of climate upheaval, fragile systems unravelling, and the urgent need to adapt before the melt becomes irreversible. Read More
News Credit: IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency)
Picture Credit: G. Dercon/IAEA