Far North Science

The terminus of Tsaa Glacier in June 2007 after
a recent advance of the glacier. Note the position
of the large waterfall. The glacier advanced about
one-third of a mile sometime between August
2006 and June 2007.
Credit: Chris Larsen, Geophysical Institute

This column is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer at the institute.

Until this spring, pilot Paul Claus would land a Supercub on a gravel bar in Icy Bay to give people an up-close look at a calving glacier. This year he can’t land there because a glacier has rumbled over the gravel bar. The main glaciers in Icy Bay crept forward up to one-third of a mile sometime between August 2006 and August 2007.

“At least three glaciers in the same bay have advanced in one year,” said Chris Larsen, a scientist at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, studying the ever-changing landscape of the area. “To have them advance right now is kind of weird.”

Icy Bay, located just west of Malaspina Glacier on Alaska’s dynamic southern coast, is like a smaller version of Glacier Bay. Like Glacier Bay, Icy Bay didn’t exist when captain George Vancouver sailed past in the late 1700s. Vancouver’s ship artist painted a portrait of an ice wall where the mouth of the bay is currently.

With salt-water fingers, Icy Bay reaches about 25 miles deep into southern Alaska today. At the end of those fingers are the glaciers that recently advanced and may still be creeping forward — Guyot, Tsaa, and Yahtze. Larsen is puzzled by the glaciers’ advance because all three glaciers moved forward at the same time, possibly because of a high snowfall year in the upper reaches of the glaciers, or rainfall down low that could lubricate the glaciers’ sliding surface, the bedrock beneath them.

Larsen admits he is “grasping at straws” as to why the three glaciers are advancing, but he’s pretty sure it’s not because we entered a new ice age since last August.

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Source: NCDC

This column is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer at the institute.

Ira Flatow, host of National Public Radio’s “Science Friday,” sat on a stage at the University of Alaska Fairbanks recently and listened to Alaska scientists talk about thawing permafrost, melting glaciers and sea ice, and shrubs that are replacing tundra plants in the Arctic.

“I get the suspicion from talking to you scientists and other scientists that things are a lot worse than scientists are really willing to admit, just out of fear of alarming the public,” Flatow said. “Why sugarcoat it?”

It was a watershed moment of the two-hour radio program, broadcast nationally and made possible by UAF Summer Sessions. Flatow was calling out the scientists, who are a thoughtful, cautious bunch by nature.

“It’s the sort of challenge he should be throwing at us,” said Terry Chapin, an ecologist with UAF’s Institute of Arctic Biology.

During the radio show, Chapin said warming-related changes in the north are so widespread and obvious that inaction isn’t an option.

“It’s like driving the Titanic,” Chapin said. “It’s slow to turn. But we need to make changes now for our children’s future.”

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