14 DAY TRIAL // Researchers with NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the United States) have recently released this photo showing the San Quintín glacier in Chile as seen from space.
On its website, the Administration details that this massive block of ice, together with 27 others, flows out of the Northern Patagonian Icefield. What's more, it is the largest of the bunch.
Together with the Southern Patagonian Icefield, the Northern Patagonian Icefield used to be part and parcel of a much larger ice sheet that covered this part of the globe between 110,000 and 12,000 years ago.
However, due to changes in environmental conditions, much of this ice sheet is now gone. Besides, the Southern and the Northern Patagonian Icefield are retreating as well.
Thus, NASA says that, as easily noticeable when comparing the photo above, taken this past June 2, with the one below, which dates back to 1994, the San Quintín glacier alone is now much smaller than it used to be.
Due to climate change and global warming, chances are that this block of ice, together with others of its kind, will continue to shrink in the years to come.
In case anyone was wondering, the photo above was taken by a camera, i.e. the ISERV Pathfinder instrument, aboard the International Space Station.
