The deep crushing sound that blasts from inside the ice signalizes the dramatic fall of happening. Seconds later, a block of ice cream collapses approx. 70 meters (230 feet) high-size on a 20-story building from the face of the Perito Moreno Glacier in the aquamarine water below.

The site has attracted visitors to Argentina’s most famous glacier for years. Standing on platforms facing the ice, they wait for the next crack to divide the cool patagonic air.

But recently, the size of the ice bunkers, breaking off – a process called “calving” – has begun to alarm local guides and glaciologists who are already anxious about a prolonged retreat of Perito Moreno, which had bent the trend in recent decades maintaining its mass, even when warmer climates spray faster glacial melting across the world.

“IS calf events of this size have not been very common by Perito Moreno Glacier for the past 20 years,” said Pablo Quinteros, an official tourist guide in Los Glaciares National Park in southern province of Santa Cruz.

“It’s only in the last four to six years that we have started to see icebergs so big,” he said Reuters During a visit in April.

The glacier’s face, flowing down from the tops of Andes to end up in the water in Lake Argentina, had for decades kept more or less stable, some years to come and others retire. But in the last five years there has been a firmer retreat.

“It had been in more or less the same position for the past 80 years. And it is unusual,” said Argentine glaciologist Lucas Ruiz with the state’s scientific organ cone, whose research focus is the future of patagonic glaciers in the light of climate change.

“Since 2020, however, signs of retreat in some parts of Perito Moreno Glacier’s face have begun.”

He said that the glacier could rebound, as it has done before, but that it currently lost between one and two meters of water equivalent per year, which, if not turned, could lead to a situation where the loss accelerates.

A 2024 report, co -author of Ruiz and presented to Argentina’s Congress, showed that although Perito Moreno’s mass has generally been stable for half a century, the period since 2015 has seen the fastest and most long -lasting mass loss in 47 years, on average lost 0.85 meters a year.

Glacers around the world disappear faster than ever, with the last three years seeing the biggest loss of glacial mass on the record, according to a March UNESCO report.

‘You can’t understand the huge.

Ruiz said that the instruments used by his research team to monitor the glacier had shown an increase in the air temperature in the area about 0.06 degrees Celsius per day. Decade and rainfall falling, which means less accumulation of snow and ice.

“The thing with Perito Moreno is that it took a while to say to feel the effects of climate change,” Ruiz said. Now, however, the accumulation of ice at the top of the glacier was surpassed by melting and calving at the bottom.

“The changes we see today clearly show that this balance between forces … has been disturbed, and today the glacier loses both in thickness and area.”

For the time being, the glacier is still an awe -inspiring attraction for travelers who board both to see the calf and the huge icebergs flowing around the lake up close.

“It’s crazy. The most incredible thing I’ve ever seen,” said Brazilian tourist Giovanna Machado on the deck of one of the boats, which should be careful about sudden ice falls.

“Even in photos, you just can’t understand the huge of it and it’s perfect. It’s great. I think everyone should come here at least once in their lifetime.”