Glacier rupture in Patagonia streamed for all to see

NOT CONTENT with streaming penguin migrations and whales for the world+dog to see, you can now watch a glacier rupture from Argentinean Patagonia live on the interweb.

After quite successful webcasts of other yearly occurrences of interest for would-be tourists, the provincial governments in Argentina's Patagonia region continue their love affair with live video streaming. This time, the focus for nature's voyeurs is a glacier, the Perito Moreno, and its "rupture", which according to local media, can happen any minute. In any case, keeping an eye on the web stream is surely way cheaper than traveling over 8100 miles from London or 6800 Mi from Sacramento, California, for instance.

The Perito Moreno Glacier is one of the world's largest reserves of - iced - fresh water, measuring 96.52 square miles - 250 square kilometers. It's one of the few glaciers which is advancing instead of retreating. Beverly Spicer at her Earthsky blog writes, "some glaciers break up in short cycles, and are popular observable events" adding that this one is "one of South America's finest tourist attractions, especially for the science-minded".

This glacier has a dam-rupture cycle, where it slowly grows over the Lago Argentino, eventually creating a natural dam, which at some point succumbs due to the pressure from the water on the other half. The Whackypedia describes this process in detail: "The water-level on one side of the lake can rise by up to 30 meters above the main lake. The enormous pressure produced by this mass of water finally breaks the ice barrier holding it back, in a spectacular rupture event. This dam/rupture cycle is not regular and it naturally recurs at any frequency between once a year to less than once a decade."

Local press in Argentina say that, according to boffins, experts, and wishful thinkers, the glacier might have its rupture this winter, and more specifically, between today and tomorrow, as small fragments of ice have been falling from it over the weekend. Or, maybe not.

They also note that most ruptures happen in late summer, with the last two happening during March 2004 and 2006. In any case, tourists have started arriving over the weekend and news stations have fixed cameras pointing at the big white-blue mass of ice, trying to catch the exact moment when the large ice cubes land in the scotch, er, lake. As this went to press it was still dark - local time is GMT-3 - so we couldn't check the quality of the live web stream. But if the previous webcasts by this firm are any indication, they use Windows Media and the stream quality was quite good on previous webcasts. Transmission is expected to begin at 1:00pm UK, which is 9:00am local time.

The glacier is so large however that this scribbler really doubts a webcast can do justice to the magnitude of the Perito Moreno. So we suggest that besides the web stream you watch Anthony Bourdain's TV programme, in particular the episode where he climbs the glacier to drink a glass of scotch while sitting atop it.

Find the live video stream over here, and available in four languages as was the case with the penguins and whales ones. It also features wallpapers and image galleries. Like in the two events mentioned, the local firm Lupa Corp is in charge of the design and technical aspects.

One has to wonder what Lupa Corp's next video streaming challenge will be. Penguins, whales and giant blocks of ice are too easy to focus on, so here from the INQ's LatAm HQ we suggest they stream the bats in Buenos Aires next summer.µ

L'INQs
EarthSky.org: The Perito Moreno Glacier - a cyclical spectacle
Video of what it looked like last time
Google Maps - Satellite View of the Glacier
Travelpod Videos: Glacier and El Calafate
Visiting a Glacier - before they're all gone
Nature's Voyeurs