By: Loreto Concha
(Read news in Aisen Reserva de Vida)
While researching the warm sea surface temperature events of western Patagonia, marine geographer Alejandra Mora-Soto discovered something that did not yet exist in the scientific books, while reviewing the thermal anomalies of the fjords and channels of the southern tip of the American continent, she realized that in the last 10 years there have been more cold sea waves than in previous decades.
This inquiry was the beginning of a study published by the Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans which suggests that the giant kelp forests of southern Chile have been maintained with benign sea surface temperatures for their reproduction and growth.
A team of marine biologists, geographers and oceanographers analyzed the territory spanning from the Gulf of Penas to Cape Horn during 1982 to 2020, between 2014 and 2018 identified that extreme cold events occurred near the coasts of Cape Horn, the western entrances of the Strait of Magellan and the Beagle Channel.
According to the scientists, these cold events occur for two reasons: glacier melting generates the entry of cold water into the systems and "changes in the wind pattern that would alter the thermal flow of the ocean," said Mora-Soto, PhD in Geography from the University of Oxford (United Kingdom), postdoctoral fellow at the University of Victoria (Canada) and leader of the study.
An unprecedented event in the world
These isolated events allow the marine forests to keep living in pleasant temperatures, which is considered unprecedented compared to other marine forests in the world.
"In the region of Chilean Patagonia , signs of increased cooling pulses have been detected in recent years. The next question is whether these cold waves will alter the temperature regime that the southern austral marine ecosystem is experiencing and the potential consequences on its structure and function," says José Luis Iriarte, PhD in oceanography and researcher at the Center for Research on the Dynamics of High Latitude Marine Ecosystems (IDEAL) of the Universidad Austral de Chile (UACh) and co-author of the study.