The capital city of Chile, Santiago, also called Metropolitan Region, with geographic coordinates: 33 ° 26'16 "S, 70 ° 39'01" Or about; average altitude of about 567 meters; conurbation with an average of 641.4 square kilometers, in sustained growth-which has led her to become the fifth most populous area in Latin America, and is expected, perhaps in one of the 50 most populated cities in the world, has been historically supplied with fresh water from the Echaurren specifically Glacier, which lies immediately to the east of that city, in the middle Andes.
Figure 1: Glacier Echaurren, yesterday and today.
In this regard it is noteworthy that, climatologically, perhaps until almost the end of the twentieth century, maintained a normal rainfall pattern about 300 mm of rainfall, approximate per year, consistent until then generated by climate processes in the Pacific Ocean, and -regulados determined by the so-called 'Niño or La Niña', ie heating or cooling oceánica- mass fronts and subsequent high or low pressures, which can then be transformed or not rainfall, mainly Fall -Winter, generating stocks of water and snow, in the mountain area, as in the respective aquifers.
While the oceanic phenomena mentioned above correspond to 'normal' situations occurring approximately every 8 or 12 years, on a rotating cycle, -generando true 'floods' or drought as was the case-, said average of 300 mm of water annual decline was more or less in that variable range, with a difference of 50 mm or less, as girl or boy was what affected the temperature of the Pacific Ocean at the time ... it should be emphatically pointed out that these are approximate figures, but real. From 2000, this phenomenology began to change rapidly, as said approximate average has been declining very rapidly, reaching figures that today fail to exceed 200 mm of rainfall per year, and perhaps less, starting to generate a climate process is invariably leading to Santiago, fairly quickly, to a kind of weather located far north of it, like almost the Fourth Region ... I mean, I'd begun to become a coastal dry, but no coast. As the immediate relief of the Santiago basin is extremely fragile, and that makes a real depression almost circular, surrounded by hills, -Cordillera Coast to O and Andes to E, with altitudes between 3000-6000 m respectively, called Central Depression, reports directly to the wind regime and seasonal rains for ventilation and 'wash' atmospheric, in addition to its water supply. When this does not happen with the regularity needed, the so-called 'inversion layer' saturates Santiago with smog, especially most of the autumn and winter, mainly from April to August, making it a true hyper saturated atmospheric gases contaminated area. And while this issue is complex and delicate, also the low rainfall and snow in the high peaks, specifically in areas of glaciers, desertification contributes to the imperative, the increase of barren areas at the expense of former pastures and orchards that boasted the Santiago basin in the past, once with lots of snow, water, and various aquifers, as their large and powerful Cordilleran Ice reserves and permitted, through so-called eternal snows and glaciers respective nationwide
.Unfortunately the so-called Global Environmental baseline and immediate cause, the 'greenhouse effect', has not only begun to affect the so-called 'Small Pacific nations', but also to nations once environmentally stable as it was Chile, showing clearly that this 'emergency' is not local, it is not random, it is not particular to a single sector of the world, but on the contrary ... it is an alteration of global, planetary, total order, which none of us will be safe from their effects immediate, if we turn a deaf ear, we do not want to agree with what we see, and let us be, staying crossed arms in front of it.
Only up to us to pay attention, ears, vision and do something concrete about it, because visibly, as is the facts are showing, we are risking their lives, that if we have not yet reached the so-called 'point of no return ... otherwise, Mars offers a real vision of what could happen in the future with Earth
.
Figure 4. Martian surface
Bibliography:
-Santiago de Chile:
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_de_Chile
-End Of the Echaurren glacier. Thirst for Santiago: http://www.plataformaurbana.cl/archive/2009/01/11/fin-del-glaciar-echaurren-sed-para-santiago/
-Chilean -Glaciares as indicators of climate change:
http://www.cecs.cl/educacion/index.php?section=glaciologia&classe=30&id=63
-A phenomenon El Niño:
http://www.elclima.com.mx/fenomeno_el_nino.htm
-Time In Santiago:
http://www.meteochile.cl/pronosticoregion.php?reg=05m
-Several Small Pacific nations could collapse by the Global Warming: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2006/11/03/index.php?section=ciencias&article=a02n1cie
