Glacial melt creates Andes time bomb

 Rising regional temperatures in the Andes and the warming of waters in the Pacific Ocean, off Latin America’s west coast, are driving the mountains’ glacial melt to alarming new speeds.

Long-term water supplies to many millions of people are under threat. Capital cities like Lima in Peru and La Paz in Bolivia, largely dependent on water from glacier melt flows, face an uncertain future.

The prospects for agriculture – a mainstay of the economies of countries in the region – will be imperilled as land dries up.

There is another, potentially lethal consequence of the melting of the Andes’ glaciers. In 1941, large chunks of ice breaking off a glacier and falling into Lake Palcacocha, more than 4,500 metres up in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range in the Peruvian Andes, are said to have triggered what’s known as a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF).

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