Quelccaya Ice Cap

With 44 square kilometers stretch the Quelccaya ice cap is considered the largest tropical ice field in the world. The glacier is located in the Cordillera de Vilcanota of southern Peru.

The glacier massif limits the catchment area of Lake Titicaca to the northwest. The massif and the northern shores of the lake are about 160 km in a straight line away from each other.

Threat

The average height of the glacier is 5,470 meters above sea level. The retreat rate of the glacier Quelccaya is now 30 meters a year. This represents an increase by ten times compared to the period between 1970 until 1990. Comparisons from 1963 and today give an even more dramatic picture. Was it in 1963 only 4.7 meters per year decline, as there were in 2003 already 205 meters. The scientist Dr. Lonnie Thompson predicts even that the Qori - Kalis Glacier, part of the Quelcaya ice cap could be gone by 2012. Long the Quelccaya ice cap has lost its importance as an inexhaustible source of drinking water. The once steady flow of water is regarded as unpredictable.

Fauna

A special feature of the glacier is that the Spiegeldiuka ( Diuca speculifera ) builds its nest in this glacier. This is one of his breeding grounds to the highest in the Western Hemisphere, if not the world. Long only the Emperor Penguin ( Aptenodytes forsteri ) it was known that it breeds regularly in the glacier. Reports from the year 1988, when kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) in Prince William Sound built their nests on the glacier were due to unusual circumstances this year.