Climate change expedition launched on Peru's highest peak

A team of researchers and experts have launched an expedition seeking to carry out climate change studies on the snow-covered Mount Huascaran, Peru's highest mountain.

A spokesman from Peru's Inaigem mountain ecosystems institute told Efe news on Monday that the aim of the expedition is to "make new explorations and get to know this glacier better, in the context of the climate phenomenon affecting the Andes mountain range".

The expedition will remain in the area for eight days, after departing on Sunday from the town of Musho in northern Yungay province en route to one of the high-altitude camps on Huascaran, which rises 6,768 metres above sea level.

According to the ospokesman, the team - for the first time - will use advanced technological equipment, including GPS, given that to date measurements were made by field expeditions and with the help of satellites, without actually traveling to the mountain peaks themselves.

Inaigem executive president Benjamin Morales added in a statement that climate change is affecting in a growing and dramatic way the world's mountain ranges, especially Peru's 18 mountainous zones possessing glaciers.

He said that scientists recently have observed a reduction in glacier size and volume.

Morales said that experts hope to obtain answers to many questions, including how the snowy peaks are being affected by climate change, what temperatures are on the highest peaks in the tropics and how much the glaciers have shrunk in the Huascaran Chopicalqui system between 1962 and 2017.

--IANS

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