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September 5, 2013
Vowell Glacier Rapid Retreat, Bugaboos British Columbia
Vowell Glacier is the largest glacier of the Bugaboo’s or maybe was. The glacier drains to the north into Vowell Creek has retreated quite rapidly from 1998 to 2013 creating a new lake and then retreating from that lake. Here we use a sequence of Landsat and Google Earth images to identify the changes from 1998 to 2013. In 1998 Landsat imagery shows the glacier to be 5.5 km long …
May 21, 2013
Galaxy Glacier Rapid Retreat, Pukulkul Basin Glacier disappears, British Columbia
Over the ridge south from Stave Glacier is a 1.5 km long unnamed glacier, that is on the west flank of Galaxy Peak, hence referred to here as Galaxy Glacier. The glacier is in Garibaldi Provinical Park, British Columbia. Koch et al (2009) in their detailed survey of glaciers in the park chronicled the Park’s glacier retreat from 1952 to 2002. Koch et al (2009) Found that all 45 glaciers …
December 10, 2012
Stave Glacier Retreat, British Columbia
Stave Glacier is a six kilometer long valley glacier in Garibaldi Provincial Park, British Columbia. It is at the headwaters of Stave Lake which is the part of the 205 MW Stave Lake-Hayward Reservoir-Ruskin Dam Hydropower facility. This glacier has retreated at a rate of 100 meters per year from 1996 to 2012. The dams do not have fish passages severely affecting the salmon. Koch et al (2009) in their …
August 23, 2012
Jacobsen Glacier, BC Retreat
Jacobsen Glacier is part of the Monarch Icefield of the Coastal Range of British Columbia. VanLooy and Forster (2008) noted that the glacier retreated at a rate of 30 meters/year from 1974 to 1992 and 47 meters/year from 1992-2000. In this post we examine Landsat satellite imagery from 1992, 1994, 2010 and 2012 to illustrate the changes over the last two decades. There are three readily observable changes. The first, …
January 13, 2012
Washmawapta Glacier Retreat, British Columbia
The West Washmawapta Glacier and Washmawapta Icefield are located in the Vermillon Range in British Columbia. They are in a basin between Limestone Peak and Helmet Peak. The West Washmawapta is a cirque glacier and has been the focus of detailed studies of its dynamics and runoff in recent years. The study of its dynamics (Sanders et al, 2010) measured velocities of 3-10 meters/year, pretty typical for a cirque glacier …
September 22, 2011
Apex Glacier Retreat British Columbia
The Apex Glacier is part of the Clemenceau Icefield Group in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia. The Apex Glacier drains into 430 square kilometer Kinbasket Lake. The lake is impounded by the 5,946 MW Mica Dam operated by BCHydro. In a recent paper Jiskoot et al (2009) examined the behavior of glacier in this and the neigboring Chaba Icefield. They found that from the mid 1980’s to 2001 the Clemenceau Icefield …
September 3, 2011
Bridge Glacier Retreat Acceleration, BC, Canada
Note an Update post on Bridge Glacier Bridge Glacier is an 17 km long outlet glacier of the Lillooet Icefield in British Columbia. The glacier ends in a rapidly expanding glacial lake with 1100 meters of retreat from 2005-2010. This 200+ m per year retreat is a substantial acceleration over the observed retreat rate of 30 m per year from 1981-2005 by Allen and Smith (2007). They examined the dendrolchronology …
March 9, 2011
Warren Glacier Retreat, British Columbia, Canada
Warren Glacier in Garibaldi Provincial Park, British Columbia, Canada terminus retreat has been observed for over a century. A period of extensive retreat from 1890-1964 was followed by a period of minor advance from 1973-1977, and then rapid retreat from 1977-2009. Johannes Koch has documented this retreat in the map below and with the historic images as well, the work has been published with less colorful graphics (Koch et al., …
December 26, 2010
Castle Creek Glacier, BC annual retreat recorded
Castle Creek Glacier is in the Cariboo Mts. of British Columbia. The glacier descends north-northeast for 6.3 km from 2825 meters to the terminus at 1,810 meters. During the last 50 years of retreat has left a series of annual terminal recessional moraines that indicate how much the glacier has retreated each year. The glacier has a remarkably uniform and relatively low slope for an alpine glacier. This is one …
June 6, 2010
Spearhead Glacier and Decker Glacier retreat, Whistler, British Columbia
Map of the glaciers in the Sprearhead Range showing Little Ice Age and 1987 extent, Osborn and others (2007). Spearhead Glacier is just east of the Whistler-Blackcomb Ski area in southwest British Columbia and can be reached easily from the top Blackcomb lift. Adjacent to Spearhead is Decker Glacier. . Both glaciers flow northwest and have retreated extensively. Recently both have developed new alpine lakes at their termini that illustrate the recent …
Dean of Academic Affairs at Nichols College and Professor of Environmental Science at Nichols College in Massachusetts since 1989. Glaciologist directing the North Cascade Glacier Climate Project since 1984. This project monitors the mass balance and behavior of more glaciers than any other in North America.