Montana's melting glaciers: The poster-child for climate change

As recently as 100 years ago, Montana's Glacier National Park had more than 150 glaciers throughout its more than one million acres.

In 2005 only 27 remained. Today the total is down to a just 25 and those that are left are mere remnants of their former frozen selves.

With warmer temperatures and changes to the water cycle, scientists predict Glacier National Park will be glacier-free by 2030.

Daniel Fagre, a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) ecologist who works at the national park believes that even those estimates are too conservative and says the park's namesakes will be gone about ten years ahead of their predicted demise. Fagre has been conducting research in the national park since the early 1980s.

Fagre's current research reveals that temperatures in Glacier National Park have risen higher than was predicted in 1992. The Montana glaciers are now expected to be gone by 2020. And that will dramatically impact the park's rare and sensitive plants and animals.

"The glaciers have been around for the last seven thousand years," he told CNN, "and if we are going to lose them in the next 10 or 20 years that is a pretty radical shift."

The rapid melting of glaciers has led scientists to believe that mountains are more susceptible to global warming than the lowlands beneath them.

"Mountain ecosystems have been changing about twice as fast as the rest of the globe. We have had temperature increases that are two times greater than the average," said Fagre.

Many scientists are now concerned about the cascading effects on the landscape and the consequences for all species -- including humans.

"Many people are directly dependent on the water coming out of mountains and in the arid western United States that figure is much larger, it is about 85 percent," said Fagre.

"So even if you live a long ways a way you are tied to the water in mountains and so we have a lot of concerns of future climate change scenarios."

Fagre says mountains are the "water towers of the world" with 70 percent of the world's fresh water frozen in glaciers.

Glacier National Park

CNN traveled to the edge of Grinnell glacier that is at an altitude averaging 7,000 feet (2,100 meters) and was named after George Bird Grinnell, an early American conservationist and explorer.

"When George Grinnell came here in 1887 he described this place as being a thousand foot high in ice and this entire basin was filled to the mountaintop," said Fagre. "Now I stand beside a lake that is 65 meters or 187 feet deep." (Click on image at right for a larger image).

We could see chunks of ice falling off, and others just dripping away. Fagre bent down to show us what's underneath the thin edge of the glacier.

"Look under here and you can see there is a lot of mucky sauce stuff and this is a lot of the rock flour ground by the glacier because it has been dragging rocks across the underlying rock layer and rubbing those two together creating this very fine material," he said.

"Many people would not be impressed by this little dirty glacier that seems to be obviously falling apart, that has become very tiny and decrepit -- and people often think about glaciers as these beautiful white expansive, blue colors - but those are healthy glaciers and this one is not. This one is on its last legs."

In 1997, USGS Physical Scientist Lisa McKeon and Fagre(at left, setting up photography equipment) started the Repeat Photography Project at Glacier National Park tracking down old photographs of the park's glaciers taken by first explorers in the 1900s and comparing them with their own images. View the historical images here (will require Adobe Reader).

McKeon and other USGS scientists try to re-photograph the exact spot where the historic photograph was taken, though it's not always possible when the original photographer was standing on ice that is now long gone.

"If you look at these pictures, you cannot say they haven't changed over time. It's very obvious," says McKeon.

Glacier National Park is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year but soon the glaciers that gave the park its name will be gone.

"Glacier National Park has been the poster child park for climate change for a lot of people in the country and I think that there has been pretty sensational news about the glaciers disappearing in fairly short order," says Chas Cartwright, Glacier National Park Superintendent.

"There is a lot less water coming off the mountain. There are dramatic changes in vegetation. It begs the question: how is that going to impact wildlife in this park?"

Many of the plant and animal species that call the park home require cold water, meaning the ecosystem of the park may change dramatically when the glaciers are gone.

There is a general consensus that man is contributing to the planet's changing climate. Some skeptics remain, but Dan Fagre isn't one of them.

"I think on a global scale when you look at all the ice disappearing all around the world, there is no other explanation for that then climate change that is driven by people," he said.

What is beyond doubt is that whatever the causes magnificent and environmentally crucial glaciers around the world are retreating: a loss to nature and to the human species.

Source:
Cable Network News, "Montana's melting glaciers: The poster-child for climate change", accessed October 9, 2010
LA Times, "Glacier National Park's vanishing ice sheets", accessed October 9, 2010

Glacier park turns 100, but age has not been kind

Age has not been kind to Glacier National Park. The gorgeous million-acre park in northwestern Montana celebrated its 100th birthday on Tuesday. But many of its glaciers have melted, and scientists predict the rest may not last another decade.

Archaeological studies indicates that Glacier National Park has been a place long visited by humans, specifically Native Tribes many of whom consider the region sacred. It’s not hard to understand why.

As one of the biggest National parks in the US, Glacier spans over 1,000,000 acres of Montana land, with six beautiful mountain peeks each of which raises to 10,000 feet in the air. For the wilderness lover, the park is predominantly back woods with 700 trail miles to traverse.

Visitors have George Grinnell, a mid-1800’s journalist, to thank for bringing this region to the public eye with an article in Forest and Stream. It was Grinnell’s article along with the political efforts of Congressman Pray that lead to Glacier National becoming an official park when it was signed into law on May 11, 1910, by President Taft,

In the 1930s the park teamed up with Waterton Nation Park in Canada as a cooperative to better manage wildlife and research. Both parks have been named as World Heritage sites thanks to their work in Biosphere preservation.

Today, the forests of the park are drier and disease-ridden, leading to bigger wildfires. Climate change is forcing animals that feed off plants to adapt.

Many experts consider Glacier Park a harbinger of Earth's future, a laboratory where changes in the environment will likely show up first.

"What national parks all give us is, in effect, a controlled landscape where we can see the natural and climatic processes at work," said Steve Running, a University of Montana professor and co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in 2007 for his work on climate change.

Average temperatures have risen in the park 1.8 times faster than the global average, said Dan Fagre, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist.

The change is visible to the naked eye, with the vast moraines left behind as the giant glaciers melt away. Climate change is blamed for the increasing size and frequency of wildfires, and lower stream flows as summer progresses.

When Glacier National Park was established in 1910, one of its most famous glaciers, Grinnell, covered over 500 acres on the eastern slope of the Continental Divide. Today it covers barely 200 acres (left).

What this all means for the bears, wolves and other big predators in the park is unclear, Fagre said.

A birthday ceremony Tuesday focused on the wonders of the nation's 10th national park. Several hundred tourists and employees listened in the crisp mountain air as speakers extolled its virtues as one of the most intact and diverse ecosystems in the world.

"Glacier connects us to the very core of our nature," park superintendent Chas Cartwright said.

Glacier remains perhaps the only place in the Lower 48 where all the big wild animals that Lewis and Clark saw in 1804 can still be seen, Running said.

"Our landscapes are still wild and pristine and clean," he said. "When you start looking globally at how many clean, wild landscapes are still around, Glacier is doing pretty well."

Glacier, signed into law on May 11, 1910, by President Taft, draws 2 million visitors per year to see its sawtooth peaks, clear lakes and wildlife. Nearly all come in the summer, jamming the signature red buses on Going-to-the-Sun Road, the dizzying roadway that bisects the park.

"We come to Glacier as often as we can," said Shirley McLaughlin of Missoula. "I have a real sense of ownership."

The park drew 4,000 visitors in 1911, when tourists would ride the train to Glacier and travel by horseback to stay at chalets in the high country, said Amy Vanderbilt, park spokeswoman. Visitors come to see predators like grizzly bears, which are now stable at around 300, she said.

But the same cannot be said for the park's iconic glaciers, giant slabs of ancient ice that crawl slowly down the face of mountains, gouging spectacular landscapes.

Fagre said that based on geologic evidence, the park had about 150 glaciers in 1850, the end of the so-called Little Ice Age. Most would have still been around when the park was established in 1910. Only about 25 named glaciers are left, and they could be gone by 2020, Fagre said.

Rising temperatures also mean spring is arriving about three weeks early, which causes winter snow to melt earlier and forests to become drier as the summer progresses, said Jack Potter, chief of science at the park.

That has led to bigger and more destructive fires, in part because insect infestations have weakened trees, Potter said. There are now fires at higher elevations, too, because the tree line is moving higher as temperatures rise, he said.

Less moisture means lower stream flows, which endanger fish species, he said. The vegetation is changing, providing less food and protective cover for animals.

The chance to see the glaciers that are now disappearing is what lures many visitors to the remote park.

But tourists won't necessarily notice the glaciers are gone, because there will still be snow on the peaks of many mountains, Running said. And most of the remaining glaciers are located in the back country, far from visitors who stick to the main roads and lodges.

But it's hard for people to imagine Glacier National Park without glaciers.

"The day that Glacier National Park officially announces there are no glaciers left, it will make worldwide headlines," Running said. "When people find out I am from Montana, that is the first thing they ask me: 'Is it true about Glacier National Park?'"

Source:
SeattlePI, "Glacier park turns 100, but age has not been kind", accessed May 12, 2010