Most Alaskan Glaciers Draw back and Narrow
Image source: www.susanmilne.com
Mainly of Alaska’s glaciers are retreating or thinning or mutually, a new book by the U.S. Geological Survey news.
About 5 percent of Alaska’s area is enclosed by more than 100,000 glaciers — that’s about 29,000 square miles (75,000 square kilometers), or more than the entire state of West Virginia.
While a few of Alaska’s large glaciers are advancing, 99 percent are receding, the book, “Glaciers in Alaska,” states. The book was written by USGS examine geologist Bruce Molina.
A USGS project to take pictures of the glaciers of Montana’s Glacier National Park also showed significant retreat. Based on these photos and glacier recession rates, scientists envisaged the park could lose its namesakes by 2030.
Greenland, which is covered by more ice than somewhere else in the world outside Antarctica, has also seen significant melt of its glaciers in recent decades.
The new book on Alaska’s glaciers used satellite images, aerial photos, maps and other studies to document the retreat of the glaciers, which began as early as the mid-19th century. Some glaciers have even disappeared since being mapped in the mid-20th century, the report found.
The account also said that glaciers in Alaska saw “important retreat” in the last two decades of the 20th century.