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September 20, 2016
South Sawyer Glacier Retreat and Separation, Alaska
Comparison of South Sawyer Terminus position and unnamed glacier just to the south. Red arrows are the 1985 terminus and yellow arrows the 2016 position of each terminus. South Sawyer Glacier is a 50 km long tidewater glacier terminating at the head of Tracy Arm fjord in Southeast Alaska. The winding fjord surrounded by steep mountains is fed by Sawyer and South Sawyer Glacier is home to stellar sea lions, humpback …
September 8, 2016
World Glacier Monitoring Service 30th Anniversary
The numbers on the left y-axis depict quantities of glacial mass loss from the WGMS and sea level rise, and the suns across the horizon contain numbers that represent the global increase in temperature, coinciding with the timeline on the lower x-axis From Jill Pelto The World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) celebrated 30 years of achievement last week. I have had the privilege of being the United States representative to the …
September 1, 2016
Moulins: Clarifying Impacts on Glacier Velocity
In the last week I have read three separate articles referring to glacier moulins as lubricating the bed of a glacier resulting in overall velocity increase, for example EOS (Aug. 2016), this is not generally accurate. Having spent considerable time observing moulins and reviewing some excellent studies that indicate their impact, it is worth noting again a more complete picture of the role moulins play. This is a role that …
August 22, 2016
Looking Inside a Glacier
Here we provide a visual look inside a glacier in the North Cascades of Washington. Glaciers are not all the same, but the key internal ingredients in summer typically are in varied ratios: ice, meltwater, sediment and biologic material. In this case there are torrents of water pouring through the interior of the glacier, generated at the surface the day we are filming. We do measure the discharge and velocity …
August 2, 2016
Glaciers in BAMS State of Climate 2015
Decrease in Glacier Mass Balance uses measurements from 1980-2014 of the average mass balance for a group of North Cascade, WA glaciers. Mass balance is the annual budget for the glaciers: total snow accumulation minus total snow ablation. Not only are mass balances consistently negative, they are also continually decreasing. Glaciers have been one of the key and most iconic examples of the impact of global warming. BAMS State of …
July 31, 2016
Thirty-third Annual North Cascade Glacier Climate Project Field Season Underway
Base Map of the region showing main study glaciers, produced by Ben Pelto. From President Reagan to President Obama each August since 1984 I have headed to the North Cascade Range of Washington to measure the response of glaciers to climate change. Specifically we will measure the mass balance of nine glaciers, runoff from three glaciers and map the terminus change on 12 glaciers. The data is reported to the …
July 12, 2016
Rainbow Glacier Not Fading Away, Glacier National Park
Rainbow Glacier is the third largest of the 25 remaining glaciers in Glacier National Park occupying an east facing cirque between 2650 m and 2330 m. The glacier drains into Quartz Lake a key lake for bull trout in GNP, which are threatened by both invasive lake trout and climate change (Jones et al, 2013). The National Park Serice and USGS have been established a glacier monitoring program that …
July 7, 2016
Lamplugh Glacier Recent Behavior and Landslide Source Area, Alaska
Lamplugh Glacier before and after landslide, in Landsat 8 images, which is 7.5 km long and covers 17 square kilometers. L=Lamplugh, R=Reid and B=Brady Glacier. A recent large landslide onto Lamplight Glacier on June 28, 2016 has been reported by KHNS. The landslide was triggered on the north slope of a steep unnamed mountainside on the west side of the Lamplugh Glacier, Glacier Bay, Alaska. The landslide has been estimated …
June 27, 2016
Suatisi Glacier Retreat, Mount Kazbek, Georgia
Comparison of Suatisi Vost (SV) and Suatisi Sredny (SS) in 1986 and 2015 Landsat images. The red arrow is the 1986 terminus and the yellow arrows the 2015 terminus. Point A and B are to areas of expanding bedrock amidst the glacier. Suatisi Vost and Suatisi Sredny Glacier are two glaciers on the south flank of Mount Kazbek in northern Georgia. The region is prone to landslides and debris flows. On …
June 23, 2016
Canadian Columbia Basin Glacier Spring 2016 Field Season (winter 2015-2016 Assessment)
Guest Post by Ben Pelto, PhD Candidate, UNBC Geography, [email protected] During the spring season we visited our four study glaciers (Figure 1), which form a transect of the Columbia Mountains from the Kokanee Glacier in the Selkirk Range to the south, to the Conrad (Purcells) and Nordic (Selkirks) in the center, to the Zillmer of the Premier Range in the north. This post will explore the snowpack of winter 2016 across …