The Troubling Consequences of the Vanishing Ice at Glacier National Park

Posted by Jeff on Jan 28, 2018 @ 6:14 pm in Conservation | 0 comments | Last modified: January 28, 2018

The very name of Glacier National Park, a 1-million-acre expanse in northwest Montana on the Canadian border, comes from ice. But the name may need to change by 2030: Experts predict the formations could disappear by then.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the glaciers in Glacier National Park have shrunk by an average of 39 percent since 1966; some lost up to 85 percent of their ice. A 2014 study in Science attributes global loss in glacier mass to both anthropogenic (or human caused) and natural climate changes. The study blames human causes for about a quarter of the loss between 1851 and 2010, but that share increased steadily and accelerated to account for almost two-thirds of the loss between 1991 and 2010.

Glaciers are one of the main reasons 2.9 million people visited the eponymous national park in 2016. But the looming loss of these formations has many significant ramifications. Moreover, the changes at the park are representative of what’s happening globally—and visitors can see these changes for themselves.

Few communities rely on Glacier National Park’s glaciers for drinking water, but wildlife certainly does. Fewer and smaller glaciers, as well as reduced winter snowpack, mean much less groundwater recharge and summer runoff, resulting in lower water levels in streams, rivers, lakes, and wetlands during the growing season.

That, in turn, reduces habitats in streams for invertebrates and fish. Less meltwater from glaciers also raises summer water temperatures, which could cause the local extinction of temperature-sensitive aquatic species.

Read full story…