The
latest news on glaciers in Glacier National Park in Montana is decades old.
In 1997 the U.S. Geological Survey began the Repeat Photography Project in the Montana park to compare how glaciers have changed over the last century. Photographers returned to locations where old-timers had taken photos long before they could possibly have imagined their scientific value. Locating these vantage points was the trickiest part of the project, as some required extensive off-trail hiking.
The before-and-after pictures released this week are dramatic -- all that remains of some glaciers are big puddles. Others have simply faded away to expose bare mountainsides. The images were taken at similar times of year under similar conditions.
Please check out the photos at the link below the fold - they are amazing, and some of the "before" pictures are from as much as a century ago.
Based on the pictures and global recession rates, scientists predict that Glacier National Park will be glacier-free by 2030.
2030 - that's only 24 years from now - about one generation. If you have young kids, your grandkids will never get a chance to see glaciers in Glacier National Park!
The Montana park has 26 named glaciers today, down from 150 in 1850. Those that remain are typically mere remnants of their former frozen selves, a new gallery of before and after images reveals.
All arguments about global warming aside, now is a time of clear retreat by age-old ice packs in many locations around the world. Some retreat just a few inches or feet per year, but others are melting faster than a snow cone in Texas.
This is incredible. They say that some of the melting is due to generalized global warming, but some is likely do to soot pollution - it makes the snow dirtier and darker, and so it reflects less sunshine and absorbs more heat, and so melts faster.
Very interesting is this series of pictures that an online source called Live Science provides.
They have before and after pictures taken from similar vantage points showing the reduction in coverage of glaciers in the National Park. It's amazing, and very scary too.
HoundDog created a diary about Global Warming on Friday that detailed some of the global effects of melting ice sheets round the world.
A new computer simulation model and data analysis published today in the journal Science, indicates we have apparently vastly underestimated the extent to which sea levels will rise in response to global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Previously, experts were predicting an increase of sea level by up to 3ft by 2100, but now it is expected to be at least 20ft. And this increase will occur much faster than previously feared.