Exit Glacier, which the Park Service says got over 181,500 visitors last year, is not Alaska's only walk-up glacier, albeit with a walk that has been getting longer as the glacier shrivels. 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. I look for cobalt blue but all I see is grey and white, a frozen pack of rock and ice, cracked and bruised. A pavilion built in 1987 to give visitors a place to rest in the shade was originally situated to provide a good view of the glacier; now the view is of alders that hem the structure after springing up in ground uncovered by the glacier's retreat. This is our second visit in three years. "You could see the blue. The adjective glacial no longer applies, it seems. unless you renew or As snow accumulates, … The more modern melt at Exit Glacier and nearby Paradise Glacier is adding to that condition, said co-author Mike Loso, a National Park Service glacier expert. Hear about special editorial projects, new product information, and upcoming events. subscription. After five centuries of expansion during the period known as the Little Ice Age, Exit Glacier reached its maximum expanse around 1815. Some Kenai Fjords glaciers are losing even more ice. Reconstructing the more distant past requires analysis of data from the region's geology and tree rings. 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. We are seniors and enjoyed the ride and hike. When glaciers melt, because that water is stored on land, the runoff significantly increases the amount of water in the ocean, contributing to global sea level rise. contact customer service The marker for 1917 is about a mile from its current point. For repeat visitors, the changes are stark, said Sharon Kim, chief of resources at Kenai Fjords. “If you went to a place on a glacier and scraped the algae away, about 20 percent of the melting would go away,” said Roman Dial, a biologist at Alaska Pacific University. The colder the temperature, the more that heavier isotopes are present. A new management plan for the park's front country — the Exit Glacier area — is in the works to address that. 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. Most visitors arrive by car or as part of a guided tour, but it’s also possible to catch a shuttle from Seward to the glacier during the summer months. It will take years and maybe decades for the channels to settle on a stable pattern, Curran said. Rode with "Mean Gene" - very economical compared with the Cruise Ship excursions! Bear Glacier is more than five times as big as Exit and is losing more than 10 times as much ice annually, according to USGS-led research. Audience applauds. 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. (Marc Lester / Alaska Dispatch News). Exit Glacier Guides offers visitors to Seward, AK a chance to see a unique natural wonder close-up - and since it takes a little work to get there - our groups see it without a crowd. 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. The park in previous years had built, moved and rebuilt bridges along the trail, but managers gave up that program as well, she said. 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. Six years,” she says. Renee Shippey of Dallas, who visited Kenai Fjords in June and had been there in 2006 as well, was sorry that her granddaughter was unable to get the same close-up view of blue ice that was available 11 years ago. The icefield has retreated over past decades but, more important, it has thinned, Kurtz said. "Clearly, we have a situation where the glacier is changing. Exit Glacier has retreated more than 800-feet since 2008. There will be no more extensions, Kim said, because the toe of the glacier is now surrounded by steep and treacherous terrain. She was hiking with a family group on July 5 and taking mental notes. You don’t have a Christian Science Monitor An expert monitoring a fast-moving melting glacier on the Italian side of the Mont Blanc mountain range says a small section has picked up speed and could break off in the coming days. Photographed on July 17. The world has become far too hot for the aptly named Exit Glacier in Alaska. At Aialik Bay, the finger of water fed by Kenai Fjords' Aialik Glacier and other glaciers, old fish bones have recorded the story of marine waters warming since the early Industrial Age. Long-term changes are evident far downstream of the ice, an area getting new attention from scientists. But where the road is concerned, "It turns out to be of secondary importance at Exit Glacier.". The swiftly melting glacier stands as a living monument to global warming. Sea ice, on the other hand, is often compared to ice cubes in a glass of water: when it melts, it does not directly change the level of water in the glass. Photographed May 17 in Kenai Fjords National Park. There was no snow, no ice, reasonable temperatures but that didn't matter. He stared into the distance then turned back to the cameras. Nearly 2 billion people depend on Himalayan glaciers. In 2016 it shrank by nearly 300 feet in a single year. Latest book reviews, author interviews, and reading trends. Land-terminating Alaska glaciers like Exit, though they make up only a tiny percentage of the world's ice, are significant contributors to global sea-level rise, and visitors to Kenai Fjords are able to see that process up close. © 2020 Anchorage Daily News. Columbia, a tour boat destination in Prince William Sound, is one of the world's best-studied glaciers; retreat has caused the terminus to split into two thinner branches. 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. I’m hardly the first to make this journey and lament the lesson of Exit Glacier, of course. The newly exposed landscape at the foot of Exit Glacier progresses from bare rock into temperate rainforest as plants reclaim the barren glacial till. One month free trial to the Monitor Daily, A Thanksgiving like no other: Finding uplift in a dark year, Glacier National Park’s name will outlive its glaciers, Alaska’s climate frontier: Anchorage to cut carbon emissions by 80%. "We perceive it as flooding because the road's there.". Here’s a look at what’s changing. The spring sun is out and I see it glance off the snowy mountains above the glacier. President Barack Obama visited Exit Glacier in 2015. 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. "You could think of it as a terrace elevation," she said. 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. On the mile-long Exit Glacier trail, which once ended in a loop, the Park Service has had to make two significant extensions, adding a 540-foot spur in 2006 and a 420-foot extension of that in 2010. One interpretative sign is titled Living Laboratory, a nod at the scientific value of studying glacier retreats. 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. There was no snow, no ice, reasonable temperatures but that didn't matter. Kenai Fjords National Park is a land dominated by glaciers, massive rivers of ice that flow out from the Harding Icefield. "Most science that you're doing, you may be measuring inches, centimeters, millimeters," Kim said. The retreat began in the 1800s when Alaska was still Russian territory. This ease of accessibility allows Exit Glacier to be one of the most highly-visited glaciers in Alaska, with over 100,000 annual visitors, including President Obama on his 2015 trip to Alaska when he chose Exit Glacier to highlight the impacts of climate change. For Sofia Heinonen, visiting from Argentina's glaciated Patagonia region, Exit Glacier and the Park Service's management of it prove good lessons for her country. Also left in the receding glacier’s wake is a National Park Service pavilion that once offered a sweeping view of the glacier but has since been repurposed as an educational center about climate change. She works for the Conservation Land Trust and is helping the Argentine government — which is coping with some of the same climate issues that face Alaska — expand its own national park system. It has starred on television and video, including an episode of NBC's "Running Wild with Bear Grylls" that focused on Obama's visit. The study examined bones from nine individual fish, six from the archaeological sites and three from modern times. was the biggest in any single summer on record, pioneering 1968 ski traverse across the Harding Icefield, honed his dog-sledding skills in the glacier's valley, retreat has caused the terminus to split into two thinner branches, are significant contributors to global sea-level rise, alculate changes in the past half century at Exit and elsewhere, the arduous hike up to the base of Harding Icefield, the most mass loss at the icefield's lowest elevations, increased torrents of freshwater dilute the saltwater and the calcium in it, floods that had regularly closed off traffic. The woman remembers visiting in the 1990s, when you could still walk onto the glacier. I feel oddly cheated by what’s there, even though it’s exactly what I came to see: A melting glacier, a casualty of climate change. Glaciers ebb and flow due to normal fluctuations in the climate, and even without human activity, Exit Glacier would be retreating. Past results found the most mass loss at the icefield's lowest elevations; a new report on mass balance is pending. It’s really bad’: Anchorage nurses under pressure as COVID-19 pushes busy hospitals to the brink. A selection of the most viewed stories this week on the Monitor's website. "Almost every glacial river in Alaska is carrying more water than it did 50 or 100 years ago because of the shrinking of the glaciers," Loso said. This stunning short film by Raphael Rogers, Paul Rennick, and Kristin Gerhart examines the glacier’s dramatic impact through the voice of local guide Rick Brown. A weekly digest of Monitor views and insightful commentary on major events. Chemistry of the marine water is changing as well. The sedimentary loads in the creek and river structures have yet to settle, and thus the water channels change. Back then, poking out of the icefield, "there were just itty, bitty, little bits" of rock, she said. The Short Film Showcase spotlights exceptional short videos created by filmmakers from around the web and selected by National Geographic editors. Pedersen Glacier lost an average of 65 feet a year from 1951 to 1986, but that rate jumped to 410 feet a year from 1994 to 2015, scientists report. 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.. To answer this question I’ll first put it into some context thanks to some information from Quora User. What if they melt. By the time he visits Alaska, the aptly named glacier – more on that name later – may have exited altogether. Now it’s surrounded by alders. Since 2011, average October-to-May daily temperatures at the glacier's low elevations have been above freezing about half the time, the report noted. Science Monitor has expired. After publication of that report, field observations showed glacier melt to be years ahead of the projections, causing scientists in 2010 t… That adds to the acidification as marine waters absorb more atmospheric carbon. 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. 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. "What we call flooding of that road is really the channels moving," said Janet Curran, a USGS hydrologist and lead author of the study. Yereth Rosen was a longtime reporter for Alaska Dispatch News. What does the public expect us to do, within a reasonable parameter?" Already, there is some disappointment at the end of the Exit Glacier trail. An update on major political events, candidates, and parties twice a week. The expedition group traveled eastward for eight days and exited at this point, which is how the glacier got its name. The resulting film, Glacier Exit, features stunning aerial footage of the Exit Glacier area in Kenai Fjords National Park. Moving up to 300 feet in a single year, the glacier’s retreat is marked each decade. From the Exit Glacier parking lot it’s an easy walk to the overlook. A weekly update on music, movies, cultural trends, and education solutions. Learn a little more about the park by participating in a ranger-led program, which occur daily during the summer.. It’s the largest icefield in the U.S., and the first documented crossing was made in 1968. 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. When the National Park Service built it in 1987, it offered a sweeping view of the glacier. Curtain falls. Decades ago, Seward teacher Dan Seavey was among the locals who honed his dog-sledding skills in the glacier's valley, sometimes driving dogs directly onto the ice. Portage Glacier, one of multitudes of glaciers in Chugach National Forest, remains a big tourist draw even though visitors now have to take a boat ride across Portage Lake to see its face. 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. While last year's retreat was the biggest one-year loss measured, Kim, the resources chief at the park, said the annual measurements only go back a decade; before then, measurements were made every few years. It has a family link to a pop star. The path is paved as far as a small pavilion of rough-hewn stone pillars and a vaulted wooden roof. A lake at the toe of the glacier that was tiny two decades ago is now substantial. Highly recommend. They're like little thermometers in the fish," he said. “It is spectacular though,” he conceded, adding: “We want to make sure that our grandkids can see this.”. 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 bones are from two sites, one about 200 years old and another about 100 years old, left by ancestors of today's Kenai Peninsula-area Sugpiaq people. 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. The finger that descends may be pulling back but it also seems to reach down, here at the edge of Alaska, the last frontier. 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. But it stands out for its location in an easily accessible national park, the in-your-face documentation of its retreat and its role as a real-time climate change laboratory. 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. (Marc Lester / Alaska Dispatch News). log out. Each spring and fall, park workers go to the glacier to get detailed measurements of its terminus position. He later raced in the bare-bones inaugural Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race (the historic Iditarod Trail started north of Seward); now his son and grandson are professional mushers and repeat Iditarod champions who dominate the event, which has become a sports extravaganza. In Kenai Fjords National Park, Exit Glacier was a popular attraction for just this reason. The swiftly melting glacier stands as a living monument to global warming. “That’s something we can clearly grasp. Scientists were fortunate to find the cod bones in mounds full of seashells. It was visited by a U.S. president — Barack Obama, who spent part of his 2015 Alaska trip at the glacier's melting terminus. Imagine that you’re driving down an Alaskan highway on a bright sunny summer’s day. "I remember walking over here," Shippey said. We Exit Glacier retreated a total of 735.4 feet (224.1 m) over this five year span. (Yereth Rosen / Alaska Dispatch News), Hikers pause to take in a view of Exit Glacier from a spot a few miles into the Harding Icefield Trail. logged you out. There are flashes of blue, but from this distance it mostly resembles dirty shoveled snow on a sidewalk. Anchorage’s modified ‘hunker-down’ begins Tuesday. I walk back to my car and take the two-lane road down the valley, burning more gas to add to the stock of carbon in the atmosphere. It’s my first glacier, and I’m not really feeling it. subscription yet. In total the sea has risen by 2.7 centimeters since the 60s and the world's glaciers still contain enough to raise the ocean by another half a meter, which could directly threaten many cities in coastal regions. The more modern melt at Exit Glacier and nearby Paradise Glacier is adding to that condition, said co-author Mike Loso, a National Park Service glacier expert. Aerial photography and historic photographic records are also used to track the glacier's changes. 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. Acidification, a threat to shell-bearing organisms and marine life that eat them, has been linked elsewhere to melting glaciers — in Prince William Sound, for example — as increased torrents of freshwater dilute the saltwater and the calcium in it, pushing pH levels lower and more acidic. Exit Glacier, a finger of cracked, blue-white ice that drops out of 700-square-mile Harding Icefield, some of it outside the park, is relatively small, only 14 square miles. Now, disappearance of the ice has exposed those bits as mountains, she said. In 2015, President Barack Obama stood at a lookout and enumerated the facts of glacial melting and rising sea levels. What happens then to the park infrastructure built for visitors to a glacier that is creeping out of view, year by year?”. SEWARD — A finger of ice spilling out of the Chugach Mountains marks Alaska's rapidly warming climate — almost literally. Information signs posted in the pavilion explain why the once-sweeping view is now obstructed, along with other effects of climate warming. "They're phenomenal. It has a connection to the world's most famous sled dog race. House lights go up. Much longer-term geologic processes are at work, the study concludes. In August of 2011, a similar project was done from Squab Island, showing the changes of Aialik Glacier. A sign marks the location of Exit Glacier’s terminus 100 years ago along the trail to an overlook from the parking area. (Marc Lester / Alaska Dispatch News), The expanse of the Harding Icefield comes into view following a 4.1-mile hike up the Harding Icefield Trail on July 15 near Seward. The five most recent Christian Science articles with a spiritual perspective. The marker for 1917 is about a mile from the glacier’s current point. "I'm shocked it changed this much," said Julie, with her husband and two daughters at the trail summit. And there it is, a giant finger pointing down a mountainside. 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