Climatic Change (2009) 94:19–33 DOI 10.1007/s10584-009-9550-1 Spatial and temporal changes in dry-snow line altitude on the Antarctic Peninsula Jorge Arigony-Neto · Helmut Saurer · Jefferson C. Simões · Frank Rau · Ricardo Jaña · Steffen Vogt · Hermann Gossmann Received: 22 February 2008 / Accepted: 29 December 2008 / Published online: 5 March 2009 © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract Drastic changes were detected in glacial systems of the Antarctic Peninsula in the last decades. The observed phenomena comprise the disintegration of ice shelves, acceleration and thinning of glaciers, and retreat of glacier fronts. However, due to the lack of consistent systematic observations in particular of the higher parts of the glacial systems, it is difficult to predict further responses of the Antarctic Peninsula glaciers to climatic change. The present paper analyses spatial and tem- poral variations of changes in the dry-snow line altitude on the Antarctic Peninsula as extracted from a time series (1992–2005) of ERS-1/2 SAR and Envisat ASAR data. Upward changes in dry-snow line altitude were observed in general, and are attributed to extreme high-temperature events impacting the central plateaus of the Antarctic Peninsula and the increasing duration of warming periods. A mean decrease in dry-snow line altitude was detected on the west side of the peninsula and Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10584-009-9550-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. J. Arigony-Neto · J. C. Simões Núcleo de Pesquisas Antárticas e Climáticas, Departamento de Geografia, Instituto de Geociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Av. Bento Gonçalves 9500, 91501-970, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil H. Saurer · F. Rau · S. Vogt · H. Gossmann Institut für Physische Geographie, Universität Freiburg, Werthmannstrasse 4, 79085 Freiburg, Germany R. Jaña Instituto Antártico Chileno, Plaza Muñoz Gamero 1055, Punta Arenas, Chile J. Arigony-Neto (B ) Laboratório de Monitoramento da Criosfera, Instituto de Ciências Humanas e da Informação, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande (FURG), Av. Itália, km 8, 96201-900, Rio Grande, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil e-mail: jorgearigony@furg.br