Stoppani Glacier, Chile High Snowline as 2026 Melt Season Begins

Stoppani Glacier in 2015 and 2016 October Landsat images. The snowline is at 350 m in 2015 and at 700 m in 2026. Yellow arrows indicate a significant narrowing of the terminus tongue. Stoppani Glacier is a large valley glacierof the Cordillera Darwin Icefield on the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego (54.8 S 69 W). The glacier terminates in an expanding proglacial lake at ~100 m, this lakes drains into the Rio Yendegaia and then into the Beagle Channel. The snowline altitude at the start of the melt season is unusually high in 2026 at 700 m, this compares to 300-350 m in 2015 and 2018 and 600 m in 2021. In the last decade the glaciers of the Cordillera Darwin have experienced accelerated mass loss. (Temme et al, 2025), with estimates of mass loss rates for Tierra del Fuego range between 1.02 ± 0.11 Gt yr-1 (and 1.9 ± 1.1 Gt yr-1 for the 2000-2018 period. This is leading to higher snowlines on Stoppani Glacier, retreat and lake/fjord expansion at Videla Glacier, Stoppani Glacier and…

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