The ice is melting: Saxon researchers measure glacier retreat in Patagonia

The ice at the end of the world is disappearing. Patagonia, in the very south of Argentina, is home to the largest ice masses in the southern hemisphere outside of Antarctica. But here, too, climate change is eating away.

In early March 2026, scientists from Dresden University of Technology (TUD) and the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG) in Leipzig returned from a four-week expedition. In their luggage, they had new measurement data from the eastern edge of the southern Patagonian Ice Field to the Atlantic coast.

Gravity as a precise measuring instrument

In order to measure this change in ice mass, Mirko Scheinert from the Chair of Geodetic Earth System Research at TUD and Axel Rülke from BKG Leipzig are carrying out a joint research project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The researchers are using an unusual tool for their work: absolute gravimetry. It measures how strongly the earth pulls at a particular location. Where there is ice, the earth pulls more strongly. Where ice melts, this attraction decreases.

"The FG-5 absolute gravimeter used here is able to measure the smallest changes in gravity. The gravitational acceleration of around 9.8 m/s² can be measured to the eighth decimal place," explains project manager Rülke. Put simply, this means a measurement accuracy that makes even the tiniest ice mass losses visible. In addition, the scientists use satellite navigation systems (GNSS) to record changes in height in the ground. This is because when ice disappears, the Earth's crust slowly rises beneath it.