Climate Fact: Goodbye Glaciers (General 1)
In the last 150 years, rising global temperatures have shrunk the World’s glaciers from their largest extent since the end of the last ice age to their smallest. For instance, in Glacier National Park less than 28 percent of the land that was covered by ice in 1850 still is, and while over 150 glaciers existed back then, today there are only 37. Glaciers in the nearby Wind River Range have shrunk by a third in the last fifty years. Gannett Glacier, the largest glacier in the American Rockies, is less than half the size it was in the 1920′s. Rapid glacial retreat since the late 1970′s has coincided with consistently low winter snowpack and frequent summer droughts. If warming trends continue, many of these glaciers may be gone just decades from now.
Season: Summer
(Sources: Brahic, Catherine. “Melting of Mountain Glaciers is Accelerating.” NewScientist 30 January 2007. 31 January 2007 <http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn11064-melting-of-mountain-glaciers-is-accelerating.html> and Global Glacier Retreat Project. Nichols College. Accessed Online 5 July 2007 <http://www.nichols.edu/departments/Glacier/glacier_retreat.htm> and Pederson, GT et al. “Long-Duration Drought Variability and Impacts on Ecosystem Services: A Case Study from Glacier National Park, Montana.” Earth Interactions: Volume 10 (2006).)
