- The Juneau Ice Field in Alaska, which contains more than 1,000 glaciers, is melting rapidly, now shrinking 4.6 times faster than it was in the 1980s.
- Researchers have monitored ice levels since 1948 and found that the rate of melting began increasing about a decade ago.
- From 2005 to 2019, 64 glaciers disappeared, including the large Antler Glacier, which melted completely.
melt of Alaska The Juneau ice field, which has more than 1,000 glaciers, is rapidly shrinking. According to a new study, the ice-covered area is now shrinking 4.6 times faster than it was in the 1980s.
The researchers closely tracked ice levels across the icy expanse of about 1,500 square miles, with additional data from 1948 to the 18th century. It gradually shrank from its peak size at the end of the Little Ice Age around 1850, but then the melting rate accelerated about 10 years ago, according to a study published Tuesday in Nature Communications.
“What is happening is that climate “We’re having snowmelt that’s increasing in intensity, and the melt season is getting longer,” says the study’s lead author, Bethan Davies, a glaciologist at Newcastle University in England.
The ice is melting so fast that the flow of ice into the water now averages about 50,000 gallons per second, according to Mauri Pelto, a professor of environmental science at Nichols College in Massachusetts and a co-author of the study.
A group of people take in the view of Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, Alaska, on June 8, 2023. A new study says the melting of Alaska’s Juneau Icefield, which has more than 1,000 glaciers, is accelerating. (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer, File)
“In fact, as glaciers shrink in Alaska from the year 2000 to the year 2020, we are losing more ice in Alaska than anywhere else,” Davis said.
The study said only four Juneau Icefield glaciers melted out of existence between 1948 and 2005. But 64 of them disappeared between 2005 and 2019. Pelto said many of the glaciers were too small to name, but one large glacier, Antler Glacier, “has completely disappeared.”
Alaska climate scientist Brian Brettschneider, who was not part of the study, said the acceleration was deeply concerning, and warned of a “death spiral” for the thinning ice sheet.
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An ice field is a collection of glaciers, while an ice sheet is a continent-wide mass, and only two of these remain in Greenland and Antarctica. The most famous glacier in the Juneau ice field is the Mendenhall Glacier, which is a tourist attraction. The Arctic is warming about four times faster than the rest of the world, with Alaska warming 2.6 degrees since 1980, according to federal climate data.
“The changes from year to year are so dramatic when you go out there, they just blow your mind,” Pelto said.
Pelto first went to the Juneau snow fields in 1981 to join the U.S. Ski Team and has continued to study it ever since, even giving up competitive skiing to pursue research.
“In 1981, it wasn’t too difficult to get on and off the glaciers. You just climb up and can ski down or walk to the end of these glaciers,” Pelto said. But now melted snow and open crevasses have created lakes along the edges, making it harder to ski, he said.
Now it’s like a staircase of bare rocks, Pelto said. While white snow and ice reflect the sun’s heat, dark rocks absorb it, warming the ground, and more snow melts, which amplifies and accelerates the heat-producing melt, the study said.
The main thing is the snow height line. Below the snow line, snow may disappear in summer, but above it there is snow cover all year round. This snow line keeps moving upwards, Pelto said.
The shape of Juneau’s ice field, which is relatively flat, “makes it vulnerable to particular tipping points” because once the ice line moves up, larger areas become more prone to sudden melting, Davis said.
“The tipping point is when the snow line goes above your whole ice field, ice sheet, ice glacier, whatever it is,” Pelto said. “And so for the Juneau ice field, 2019, 2018 showed that you’re not too far from that tipping point.”
Even if all the ice in the Juneau ice field melted, and that’s still a long way off, it wouldn’t cause a significant rise in global sea levels, Pelto said. But it’s a big deal. tourist spot “It’s a cultural, cultural hotspot,” Davis said.
“This is worrying because the Arctic is going to be transformed beyond contemporary recognition in the future,” said Julian Stroeve, an ice scientist at the University of Manitoba who was not part of the study. “This is another signal of major changes in all the ice components (permafrost, sea ice, land ice) on which communities depend.”
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The team was able to get a long-term picture of the ice field’s melting from satellite images, airplane flights, pictures stored in drums in a warehouse and historical local measurements, and put them all together like a giant puzzle, with most of its pieces being nearly all white, Davis said.
Five different outside experts said the research is meaningful and matches other observations. Michael Zemp, head of the World Glacier Monitoring Service, said it shows “that we need urgent and concrete action to save at least some of the remaining ice.”
“We’re 40 years away from when I first saw the glacier. And so, 40 years from now, what will it look like?” Pelto said. “I think by then the Juneau Icefield will have passed the tipping point.”
