Rapid, accelerating glacier melt:
[Via InvestigateWest]
Really bad news for North American glaciers today in a report in the Los Angeles Times. Global warming has melted glaciers in the United States at a rapid and accelerating rate over the last half-century, increasing drought risks and contributing to rising sea levels, the federal government will report today based on data from a 50-year study of glaciers in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, reporter Jim Tankersley writes. The study focused on three benchmark glaciers, the Wolverine and Gulkana in Alaska and the South Cascade Glacier in Washington, which are representative of thousands of other glaciers across the continent.
[More] Glaciers and their runoff have been a relatively stable source of water, providing a necessary buffer against the fickleness of rainfall. But this buffer is rapidly disappearing. The South Cascade Glacier has lost 25% of its mass since the 50s.
You can read the report online with the somewhat boring title Fifty-Year Record of Glacier Change Reveals Shifting Climate in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, USA.
Look at this series of the South Cascade Glacier:
The USGS has been measuring the net accumulation of snow and the net loss of ice. Of interest are the two coastal glaciers, the Wolverine and the South Cascade. Both require high amount of precipitation to grow because their relatively low elevations opens them up to summer heating. Interestingly because of their locations in Alaska and Washington respectively, they tend to have negatively correlated accumulations.
[More at Path to Sustainable]
Technorati Tags: Environment, Science, Sustainability 4:13:01 PM 
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