Tracing increasing tropical Andean glacier melt with stable isotopes in water.

Glaciers in the tropical Andes are undergoing rapid retreat with potentially devastating consequences for populations who rely on them for water resources. We measured stable water isotope ratios in synoptically sampled streams discharging from glacierized watersheds to associate hydroisotopic variation with relative changes in glacierized area. A total of 73 water samples were collected from hydrological endmembers including streams, glacier meltwater, and groundwater during the dry seasons of 2004-2006 in the Callejon de Huaylas, a 5000 km2 watershed that drains the western side of the Cordillera Blanca in northern Perú. To differentiate the influence of elevation on isotopic values, we use samples from shallow groundwater springs and nonglacierized subcatchments to derive a local meteoric elevation effect. From published historical runoff data and satellite-mapped glacier cover, we estimate an average increase of 1.6 (+/-1.1)% in the specific discharge of the glacierized catchments as a function of isotopic changes from 2004 to 2006. These results confirm predicted short-term increases in discharge as glaciers melt and demonstrate the utility of stable isotopes in water for tracing relative glacier melt water contributions to watersheds.