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Natural climate patterns such as El Niño are causing tropical glaciers to lose their ice at an alarming rate, a new study has found.

A phenomenon that typically occurs every two to seven years, El Niño causes much warmer than average ocean temperatures in the eastern Pacific, significantly affecting weather around the globe.

The Quelccaya Ice Cap (QIC) in the Peruvian Andes has been shown to be sensitive to these climate shifts, but the extent to which El Niño contributes to its continued shrinkage has, to date, been unclear.

Now, using images captured by NASA Landsat satellites over the past four decades, researchers have confirmed that the regional warming periodically caused by El Niño has indeed resulted in a drastic reduction of its snow-covered area. The study, led by Kara Lamantia, a graduate student at the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center at The Ohio State University, found that between 1985 and 2022, the QIC lost about 58% of its snow cover and about 37% of its total area.

"Our research gives us a look into a glacier's health," said Lamantia. "The Quelccaya glacier becomes greatly out of equilibrium during these short-term climate anomalies."

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