In the Mountains of Patagonia, a Harbinger of a Rising Ocean

Land ice is melting virtually everywhere in the world, one of the central pieces of evidence that the earth is warming. Scientists have long known that this synchronized ice melt seemed to be picking up speed in many places, but detailed measurements for individual glaciers and ice fields have been hard to come by.

On Sunday, a group of British and Swedish scientists published new calculations for the great ice fields of Patagonia, the southernmost section of South America. They were able to map out the maximum extent reached by glaciers and ice caps in the region during a cold period known as the Little Ice Age, which ran from the 16th to the 19th centuries.