Glacier Retreat in the Cordillera Quimza Cruz (Tres Cruces), Bolivia from 1975 to present

The glaciers in the Cordillera Quimza Cruz (Tres Cruces) and two smaller Bolivian massifs represent the southernmost tropical glaciers found along the eastern margin of the Andes. Their marginal location makes them of particular interest. The extent of glaciers in the mid 1970s was determined though digitization of the published glacier inventory of Bolivia. In 1975, extent of glaciers in the Tres Cruces region was approximately 55.4 square kilometers. More recent extents were determined from Landsat and ASTER satellite images. Cloud-free Landsat images from 1986, 1992 and 2000 were georegistered and surface reflectances were computed. Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) images were then computed and thresholded to create binary maps of snow- and glacier-covered pixels. From 1975 through 2000, the Tres Cruces Region lost a significant amount of its glacier area. Of the area identified as being glacier covered in 1975 only 27.4 square kilometers (49%) were identified as containing snow and ice in Landsat images from 2000. The glacier retreat time series is being updated as part of an ongoing undergraduate research program. More recent retreat mapped from multiple ASTER images from 2000-2006 indicates that glacier recession is continuing. Changes in glacier hypsometries indicate that much of the areal loss has occurred at lower altitudes. The influence of aspect on glacier retreat is the next area of investigation.