The president trekked up Exit Glacier on Tuesday as part of his three-day tour in the state to campaign for climate awareness. … The five most recent Christian Science articles with a spiritual perspective. Eklutna Glacier, source of Anchorage's drinking water and one of several glaciers in relatively accessible Chugach State Park, is well-studied and losing mass. I’m serenaded by birds, and rushing spring melt. House lights go up. The adjective glacial no longer applies, it seems. The project, which cost about $3 million, raised the road and inserted culverts below it to try to keep rushing water out of vehicles' paths. Long-term changes are evident far downstream of the ice, an area getting new attention from scientists. One interpretative sign is titled Living Laboratory, a nod at the scientific value of studying glacier retreats. Beyond the last sign, which marks the 2010 edge, is a chasm of open space showing how Exit Glacier has continued its retreat up the valley. Thick stands of alder with some willow come next, followed by black cottonwood forest that slowly gives way to shade-tolerant mountain hemlock. In the past, mountaineers and glacier travelers at higher elevations used a bag-and-dump system to discard their waste into deep crevasses, as was the typical practice elsewhere, she said. What if they melt. © 2020 Anchorage Daily News. After five centuries of expansion during the period known as the Little Ice Age, Exit Glacier reached its maximum expanse around 1815. As snow accumulates, … Isotope analysis of bones found from archaeological sites and of modern cod bones points to a temperature increase in that part of the Gulf of Alaska of 3.6 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a study published recently in the Journal of Archaeological Sciences: Reports. The loss measured last summer, 252 feet, was the biggest in any single summer on record. It matches the cloudy sky, and my mood. The U.S. Geological Survey and researchers from the University of Alaska and University of Washington have crunched altitude data to calculate changes in the past half century at Exit and elsewhere. The swift retreat of Exit Glacier, in Alaska’s Kenai Mountains, offers a clear sign of how climate change can affect a region in a very short time. Exit's rapid changes have forced the Park Service to make frequent adjustments along the trail system. And there it is, a giant finger pointing down a mountainside. logged you out. She was hiking with a family group on July 5 and taking mental notes. Exit, glacier. On the road to the glacier's toe, on the trail winding below the forest canopy and, ultimately, on the mostly bare rock at the end of the trail are signs marking 195 years of accelerating pullback. Imagine that you’re driving down an Alaskan highway on a bright sunny summer’s day. While glacial melt is swelling the volume in the creek and is making the area more watery in general, it turns out that the modern melt is likely not responsible for the sudden inundations that have forced road closures in recent years, a new study finds. Some Kenai Fjords glaciers are losing even more ice. The world has become far too hot for the aptly named Exit Glacier in Alaska. Moving up to 300 feet in a single year, the glacier’s retreat is marked each decade. A weekly digest of Monitor views and insightful commentary on major events. Christian Science Monitor reporter Simon Montlake looks out on Exit Glacier on May 17 in Alaska's Kenai Fjords National Park. Then I make my exit. "You could think of it as a terrace elevation," she said. The good news for Kenai Fjords is that Exit Glacier has retreated so far back that the rocky terrain left behind is solid and stable ground for the existing visitor facilities along the trail, Curran said. It was visited by a U.S. president — Barack Obama, who spent part of his 2015 Alaska trip at the glacier's melting terminus. (Marc Lester / Alaska Dispatch News). The Exit glacier is melting rapidly, a real eye opener to climate change. An unpleasant trend: Park workers monitoring the glacier's retreating edge from 2013 to 2016 retrieved bags of human feces, with contents in fairly fresh condition, said Deborah Kurtz, physical science program manager at Kenai Fjords. Learn a little more about the park by participating in a ranger-led program, which occur daily during the summer.. What happens then to the park infrastructure built for visitors to a glacier that is creeping out of view, year by year?”. The cruise-ship excursions, the Anchorage day-trippers, will they go elsewhere? The retreat of glaciers since 1850 affects the availability of fresh water for irrigation and domestic use, mountain recreation, animals and plants that depend on glacier-melt, and, in the longer term, the level of the oceans. Thanks to global warming, our planet's glaciers continue to melt away, losing up to 390 billion tons of ice and snow per year, a new study suggests. The marker for 1917 is about a mile from its current point. The retreat began in the 1800s when Alaska was still Russian territory. Exit Glacier retreated a total of 735.4 feet (224.1 m) over this five year span. The biggest problems are in the area just beyond Exit Glacier's maximum extent during the Little Ice Age, which ended in the early 1800s. It is unlikely that any kind of similar structure would be put in near the glacier's current terminus, she said: "If you build something that has a lot of infrastructure, at some point it's going to be out of date again.". There are flashes of blue, but from this distance it mostly resembles dirty shoveled snow on a sidewalk. It has a family link to a pop star. Photographed on July 17. The Park Service has launched a research project to track acidification in Kenai Fjords' marine waters, along with other characteristics like salinity, temperature and turbidity. The road to Exit Glacier is supposed to be open until 01-Nov but the parks department decided to close it sometime before 29-Oct for no reason. Rode with "Mean Gene" - very economical compared with the Cruise Ship excursions! Yereth Rosen was a longtime reporter for Alaska Dispatch News. It used to be visible from the shore of the lake. In Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit Glacier was a popular attraction for just this reason. But where the road is concerned, "It turns out to be of secondary importance at Exit Glacier.". Exit Glacier is one of Alaska's few road-accessible glaciers. Alaska's temperature has risen by four degrees Fahrenheit in the last 50 years, that's compared with two degrees for rest of the planet, leading to melting glaciers. The approach to Exit Glacier, the most accessible of the 500 square miles of ancient ice covering Kenai Fjords National Park, is a timeline of retreat. In August of 2011, a similar project was done from Squab Island, showing the changes of Aialik Glacier. But its public stature is large. The presence of oxygen isotopes with the atomic weight of 18 rather than the more common 16 in the otoliths is a marker of cold, he said. I wonder if the $1.25 offset I paid that day is real, as real as the decade markers along the path to Exit Glacier. In 2016 it shrank by nearly 300 feet in a single year. Stay informed about the latest scientific discoveries & breakthroughs. When the National Park Service built it in 1987, it offered a sweeping view of the glacier. The path is paved as far as a small pavilion of rough-hewn stone pillars and a vaulted wooden roof. The colder the temperature, the more that heavier isotopes are present. From this distance, gazing up the open valley, I sense the immensity of the icefield. There was no snow, no ice, reasonable temperatures but that didn't matter. Many park visitors are worried that the glacier will retreat too far for them to see it easily, according to surveys done by researchers at the University of Utah. There will be no more extensions, Kim said, because the toe of the glacier is now surrounded by steep and treacherous terrain. The nature center includes exhibits about the Exit Glacier area, an Alaska Geographic bookstore, and rangers to help answer questions about the area.. Operating hours of the nature center.. With just a 10-to-15-minute drive out of Seward, you can hike right up to the Kenai Fjords National Park's Exit Glacier and experience the dense, blue ice while listening to it crackle. It’s really bad’: Anchorage nurses under pressure as COVID-19 pushes busy hospitals to the brink. Park visitors willing to make the arduous hike up to the base of Harding Icefield at about 3,500 feet in elevation can see evidence of melt at the mother of all Kenai Fjords glaciers. The shells' calcium counteracted the soil's acidity and the cod bones were perfectly preserved, down to the delicate rib bones, said Aron Crowell of the Smithsonian Institution, a co-author. Worth the time and effort to the Exit glacier. “The cruise-ship excursions, the Anchorage day-trippers, will they go elsewhere? ... That means run-off from melting glaciers and ice-caps is raising sea … I breathe the cool air. The park in previous years had built, moved and rebuilt bridges along the trail, but managers gave up that program as well, she said. There was no snow, no ice, reasonable temperatures but that didn't matter. I pass budding alder trees, then clamber up slate and gravel to reach a windswept vantage point. Lichens and pioneer plants colonize rock and silt close to the ice. Exit Glacier is a glacier derived from the Harding Icefield in the Kenai Mountains of Alaska and one of Kenai Fjords National Park's major attractions. On a long curve I pull over to take a final photo. "I'm shocked it changed this much," said Julie, with her husband and two daughters at the trail summit. SEWARD — A finger of ice spilling out of the Chugach Mountains marks Alaska's rapidly warming climate — almost literally. Reconstructing the more distant past requires analysis of data from the region's geology and tree rings. That means future park visitors may not be able to get a close view of Exit Glacier, but they will at least have a safe perch to see where the glacier used to be. subscription yet. 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