evidence: Having spent several field seasons on and around the South Patagonian Icefield, glaciologist Michele Koppes of the University of British Columbia knows first-hand the challenges posed by the elements. "The katabatic winds that drain down the eastern slopes can pick you and your heavy backpack right off your feet and turn you over like a turtle," Koppes said, a phenomenon she experienced a few times while trying to reach glaciers in Torres del Paine and Los Glaciares National Park. "The winds can blow tents right off their stakes and send them tumbling across lakes." [...] Often shrouded in clouds and mist, the entirety of the South Patagonian Icefield is rarely visible from space. This mosaic combines cloud-free images acquired by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 on April 29, May 1, and May 24, 2016. The North and South Patagonian icefields are what’s left of a much more expansive ice sheet that reached its maximum size about 18,000 years ago. The modern icefields are just a fraction of their previous size, though they remain the southern hemisphere’s largest expanses of ice outside of Antarctica. Today, the South Patagonian Icefield spans about 13,000 square kilometers, more than three times larger than the north icefield. Its ice spreads across the border between Chile and Argentina. (The north icefield, in contrast, is entirely in Chile.)