Valeria Espinoza

Universidad de Buenos Aires / Glaciology

Advisor: Prof. Carlos Meneses

Valeria Espinoza extracts and analyses ice cores from Patagonia's temperate glaciers — a region that, paradoxically for ice core science, has long been considered unsuitable for paleoclimate reconstruction due to high accumulation rates and summer melt. Working under Prof. Carlos Meneses at the Universidad de Buenos Aires's CONICET-affiliated glaciology group, she has developed a field-adapted drill and transport protocol for wet-ice cores that preserves the stratigraphic integrity of annual accumulation layers during the 4-day sled traverse from a 1,800 m elevation drill site to the nearest road. Her laboratory protocols for micro-tephra extraction from 150-year long cores from Glaciar Perito Moreno and Glaciar Upsala provide absolute chronological anchors, revealing a striking decline in annual accumulation of 0.4 m water equivalent per decade since 1960. Stable isotope δ¹⁸O records reconstructed with a Gaussian process model calibrated against ERA5 reanalysis precipitable water correlate significantly with the Southern Oscillation Index at 18-month lag — confirming that ENSO modulates Patagonian westerly precipitation strength through the Pacific South American pattern. Valeria's co-authorship in The Cryosphere and her accepted International Glaciological Society presentation mark her as an emerging voice in Southern Hemisphere ice core paleoclimatology.