Glaciation and the Environments of the Cordillera Blanca

The Cordillera Blanca is Earth’s most glacierized tropical mountain range. The current glaciers are receding and losing mass at accelerating rates, causing concerns for water resources and hazardous ice avalanches and potential for lake outburst flooding. The region features ample geomorphological evidence of much more extensive past glacial extent in the form of relict moraines and other glacial geological evidence extant on the landscape. Scientific interest in the glaciation initiated with mapping the extent of glaciers and their changes over time but has extended to explore the causes and broader socio-environmental implications of these changes. Scientists aim to glean further understanding of the climate forcing, but also to trace the flows of water resources as glacier recession has accelerated in recent decades and appreciate the dynamic relict landscape altered by glaciation. Ultimately how human society has adapted to existence in the region is tied to the legacy of glaciation in many ways.