Snow Cover Trends in the Chilean Andes Derived from 39 Years of Landsat Data and a Projection for the Year 2050

Abstract

Snow cover is an important freshwater source in many mountain ranges around the world and is heavily affected by climate change, often leading to reduced overall snow cover availability and duration as well as shifts in seasonality. To monitor these changes and long-term trends, the analysis of remote sensing is a commonly used tool, as data are available consistently and for long time series. In this study we acquired and processed the whole archive of available Landsat data between 1985 and 2024 for two catchments in the Chilean Andes, Aconcagua and Río Maipo, located in the Valparaíso and Santiago de Chile metropolitan regions, respectively. We generated monthly Snow Line Elevation (SLE) time series from the entire archive for both catchments and performed trend analyses on these time series. Strong positive long-term SLE change rates of 11.25 m per year for the Aconcagua catchment and 9.85 m to 15.65 m per year for the Río Maipo catchment were detected, indicating a decrease in snow cover as well as available freshwater from snowmelt. The projection to the year 2050 revealed a potential loss of snow covered area of up to 42% during summer months, with the SLE receding up to 231 m.