Melting Peru Glaciers Threaten Nation

by Abraham Lama

Deglaciation is a global phenomenon, but it is particularly acute around the Pacific Ocean, and especially in the Andes Mountains.

While authorities have declared that El Nino has passed and politicians discuss budgets and reconstruction programs for the areas devastated by its effects, scientists are still investigating its consequences on the delicate and complex equilibrium of the regional and global environment.

The most alarming effect of deglaciation is that it contributes to higher temperatures, which in turn accelerate the melting of glaciers, as scientific evidence collected over the past two decades has shown.

What will happen to Peru if its Andean glaciers melt? The possibilities are frightening.

In the mountain regions, newly disjoined masses of ice would create new pools and lagoons which could leave some cities completely underwater. Coastal valleys, which are where most of Peru's inhabitants live, would turn into uninhabitable deserts because Andean glaciers function as their water reserves.

It is evident that what ever happens in Peru will also have consequences beyond its borders, since the glaciers in the Andean region do not only conform the landscape and serve as solid water supplies, but also function to regulate the climate.

Seventy percent of all the glaciers located in the world's tropical regions are located in Peru, and as a result of the global warming provoked by the greenhouse effect, the area and volume of these ice sheets have decreased by almost 50 percent over the past 27 years.

According to Benjamin Morales, president of the Andean Institute of Glaciology and Geo-environment, the deglaciation process in Peru intensified in the 1997-1998 season as a result of the abnormally high temperatures produced by El Nino.

Morales stated that Peru was one of the pioneer countries in glacier research in the region, but that it has been limited to only two of the 18 mountain ranges that exist in the country.

On another front, the recent privatization of the state-owned electricity company has led to the abandonment of the glacier control centers, and no provisions were made in the privatization contracts to continue monitoring the masses of ice, in spite of the fact that these constitute their major water reserves.

"Now it is more urgent than ever to investigate the situation of glaciers. Such research must be a top priority in the plans to confront the likely reoccurrence of the El Nino phenomenon, which due to its cyclical nature will hit again in 5 to 7 years," Morales said.

Deglaciation makes Peruvian highlands unstable. It provoked several disasters, such as the one in Huaraz in 1941, Urabamba in 1942, Chavin in 1945 and Ranrahirca in 1962. The most serious took place in 1970, when the city of Yungay and its 20,000 inhabitants disappeared.

Yungay was literally erased off the map by a mudslide that covered even the steeple of its main church. Seen from the highway, the disappeared city is now a field covered with flowers where one can see only the tuft of a palm tree that once adorned the city.

The melting provoked by the high temperatures during the last awakening of El Nino created a mudslide which completely covered the hydroelectric plant in Machu Picchu. Rebuilding the plant will take two years and cost some $400 million.

Francou belongs to France's State Institute for Cooperative Scientific Research (ORS-TOM) which is participating in similar projects in Bolivia and Ecuador.

Before meeting with Peruvian authorities, Francou visited several small glaciers situated between 4,800 and 5,400 meters above sea level, and assured that three of them, Broggi, Uruashare and Pastoruri (this last one being the site of a traditional religious procession), could disappear in the next 15 to 20 years.

The expert predicted a similar fate for the Chacaltaya glacier, the world's highest skiing facility and one of Bolivia's most popular tourist attractions, where for the first time in fifty years there was not enough snow for skiing.