Alaska’s small glaciers on the way out
Glaciers worldwide are withering. Half of them will disappear by the end of this century, and much of the ice lost will vanish from mountains in Alaska, scientists say.
Authors of a recent cover story in the journal Science used high-performance computers to predict the fate of 215,547 glaciers on Earth. They excluded the great ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica.
Their conclusions: Goodbye to Bird, Crow, Daisy, Dogshead, Polychrome, Prospect, Red, Rex, Shakespeare and Spoon glaciers by the year 2100. If not earlier.
True, most of us won’t be here in 77 years either, but warmer air temperatures will probably erase those Alaska glaciers and a few dozen more — including an Anchorage water source named Eklutna Glacier — before then.
UAF Geophysical Institute scientists including David Rounce (now at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh) and Regine Hock are the lead authors on the study.
Using supercomputers at UAF, they forecast the future of the world’s glaciers under a few different warming scenarios, each of which humanity is currently speeding past.
“Even under the very optimistic scenario corresponding to the goal of the Paris agreement, about half of the glaciers are expected to be lost by the end of the century,” Hock said.
In their data-set, the scientists looked at glaciers all over the world, in regions they called Arctic Canada North, Central Asia, and Russian Arctic, among a dozen others. Alaska is one of the places with the most ice to lose. Alaska’s glaciers have already shrunk in elevation three feet each year during the past two decades.
Alaska glaciers are huge contributors to global ice loss because there are so many of them, and a lot of them are huge. Many Alaska glaciers are also at low elevations where gravity conveyor-belts their ice into the melting zone.
If the planet’s temperatures continue on this trajectory, favorite roadside glaciers will slip out of sight. This will likely play out in most Alaska glacier-towns, including Juneau, by the end of the century.
“Mendenhall Glacier may not disappear completely, but it will certainly retreat so much that it won´t be visible from the visitor center, even for the (most optimistic) scenario,” Hock said.
Aside from aesthetics, why does the disappearance of glacier ice matter? Hock said that all that fresh water now dumping into the Gulf of Alaska will affect ocean circulation and ecosystems.
Also, worldwide seas could rise half a foot from the loss of glacier ice by 2100.
Rounce compiled a list of more than 200 named Alaska glaciers that will be gone by the end of the century if the planet’s average yearly temperature rises 4 degrees C from what it was before the Industrial Revolution. That’s a lot of goodbyes.
David Rounce’s list of more than 200 named Alaska glaciers that will be gone by 2100 if Earth’s average yearly temperature is 4 degrees C warmer than pre-industrial levels by then:
Adams Glacier
Aho Glacier
Alexander Glacier
Anderson Glacier
Andrei Glacier
Andrews Glacier
Annin Glacier
Arey Glacier
Baby Glacier
Baker Glacier
Baldwin Glacier
Barnard Glacier
Bear Lake Glacier
Bench Glacier
Bettles Glacier
Bird Glacier
Boundary Glacier
Bravo Glacier
Brilliant Glacier
Burns Glacier
Cantwell Glacier
Canyon Glacier
Cap Glacier
Carl Glacier
Cascading Glacier
Casey Glacier
Chamberlain Glacier
Charpentier Glacier
Cheja West Glacier
Chigmit North Glacier
Chigmuit South Glacier
Chikuminuk Glacier
Clara Smith Glacier
Claremont Glacier
Clark Glacier
Clear Glacier
Coal Glacier
College Glacier
Concordia Glacier
Contact Glacier
Corbin Glacier
Crab Glacier
Crow Glacier
Cul-de-sac Glacier
Daisy Glacier
Dartmouth Glacier
Deadman Glacier
Detached Glacier
Dickinson Glacier
Dixon Glacier
Dogshead Glacier
Doroshin Glacier
Downer Glacier
Eagle Glacier
Eaglek Glacier
East Alapah Glacier
East Yakutat Glacier
Echo Glacier
Eklutna Glacier
Exit Glacier
Explorer Glacier
Falling Glacier
Ferguson Glacier
Fleischmann Glacier
Flute Glacier
Fourth Glacier
Girdled Glacier
Gooseneck Glacier
Gracey Creek Glacier
Gray Glacier
Greenpoint Glacier
Heiden Glacier
Henry Glacier
Hidden Glacier
Hogback Glacier
Holyoke Glacier
Hubley Glacier
Hummel Glacier
Hunter Creek Glacier
Icicle Glacier
Indian Glacier
Irene Glacier
Johnson Glacier
Johnson Glacier
Johnson Glacier
Kachemak Glacier
Kadachan Glacier
Kashoto Glacier
Killey Glacier
Kings Glacier
Koniag Glacier
Kulavok Glacier
Lafayette Glacier
Lare Glacier
Latouche Glacier
Le Blondeau Glacier
Leaking Glacier
Lechner Glacier
Leffingwell Glacier
Lemon Creek Glacier
Little Jarvis Glacier
Loomis Glacier
Lowell Glacier
Marshall Glacier
Martin Glacier
Maynard Glacier
McCall Glacier
McCallum Glacier
McCarthy Creek Glacier
McCarty Glacier
McCune Glacier
Metal Creek Glacier
Milk Glacier
Mineral Creek Glacier
Mint Glacier
Morse Glacier
Mother Goose Glacier
Muth Glacier
Neacola Glacier
Nelson Glacier
North Baird Glacier
Nugget Creek Glacier
Ogive Glacier
Okpilak Glacier
Organ Glacier
Patton Glacier
Pedro Glacier
Pegmatite Glacier
Penniman Glaciers
Polychrome Glacier
Popof Glacier
Porcupine Glacier
Prospect Glacier
Ptarmigan Glacier
Puget Glacier
Rainbow Glacier
Ranney Glacier
Rasmuson Glacier
Raven Glacier
Red Glacier
Rex Glacier
Riley Creek Glacier
Ripon Glacier
Roaring Glacier
Romer Glacier
Saksaia Glacier
Saussure Glacier
Schubee Glacier
Schwanda Glacier
Scidmore Glacier
Seefar Glacier
Seth Glacier
Shakespeare Glacier
Shephard Glacier
Shiels Glacier
Silver Glacier
Skee Glacier
Slope Glacier
South Glacier
Split Glacier
Split Glacier
Split Thumb Icefall
Spoon Glacier
Stony Glacier
Sumdum Glacier
Sunrise Glacier
Surprise Glacier
Talkeetna Glacier
Tasnuna Glacier
Texas Glacier
The Knife Creek Glaciers
Thiel Glacier
Through Glacier
Thumb Glacier
Tigertail Glacier
Tikke Glacier
Tired Pup Glacier
Tkope Glacier
TlikakilaNorthFork
Toboggan Glacier
Tok Glacier
Toklat1
Toklat2
Tommy Glacier
Tongue Glacier
Tonsina Glacier
Trail Glacier
Truuli Glacier
Tsina Glacier
Twentyseven Mile Glacier
Twin Glacier
Ultramarine Glacier
Villard Glacier
Warm Creek Glacier
Wedge Glacier
West Alapah Glacier
West Gulkana Glacier
West Yakutat Glacier
Westbrook Glacier
White Glacier
Whittier Glacier
Williams Glacier
Windy Glacier
Yuri Glacier
