SPACEPHOTOS

Outside of Antarctica, the largest contiguous ice field in the Southern Hemisphere is the Southern Patagonian Ice Field in the Andes Mountains of Chile and Argentina. It has an area of about 13,000 square kilometers, a length of approximately 360 kilometers (over three degrees of latitude), and an average width of about 40 kilometers. To the west of the ice field, nearly fifty significant outlet glaciers reach sea level in rugged fiords on the Pacific coast. The largest of these, uml;ggen, was featured in a previous image on Earth Observatory. East of the ice field, several of the larger glaciers on the eastern flank form large piedmont lakes (such as Lago Argentina).Whether taken on the ground or by remote sensing satellites, scientific measurements of the ice field and its glaciers are difficult to obtain due to the rugged terrain and harsh, stormy climate of the region. The estimated loss of ice mass of this large system is an important indicator of climate variability on both a local and global scale.