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Reader Participation Day: Do Predictions That Glacier National Park Soon Will Be Glacierless Have You Planning A Visit Sooner Than Later?

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By Kurt Repanshek - March 4th, 2015
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Grinnell Glacier in 1910/Fred Kiser photo, courtesy of Glacier National Park Archives

With the possibility that Glacier National Park will be glacierless by as soon as 2020, are you moving up your plans to visit the park?

That seems a reasonable question, both in light of recent weather patterns, warming temperatures, and the ability to glimpse a glacier upclose without traveling to Alaska. Not too many years ago scientists were predicting that Glacier's glaciers would be meltwater by 2030. But now they're moving the date up, to around 2020, due to the heightened pace of warming.

According to a story that ran on National Geographic's website in September 2013, "Since 1900, the mean annual temperature in Glacier National Park has increased by 2.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1.3 degrees Celsius)'”1.8 times the global mean increase. Snowmelt is occurring up to a month earlier, and more precipitation is falling as rain rather than snow." And while one year does not make a trend make, snowfall this winter is running behind in Glacier, as is the snow water equivalent in that snowpack.

So, with the possibility that the park's glaciers will vanish in another five years, are you thinking of moving up your trip to Glacier?

 

 

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Grinnell Glacier in 2008./Lisa McKeon photo, USGS

Comments

Submitted by Lee Dalton on March 8, 2015 - 10:19pm.

Rick and Jim, thanks for the tips and invite.  It's gonna be awfully hard waiting for July.


Submitted by ecbuck on January 11, 2020 - 9:27am.

Where's the carnage?  Raising more money for the parks, getting rid of expensive and meaningless climate regs and clearing out the dead wood at the top are helping the parks not dismantling them.  Which is probably why this opinion piece had no actual evidence of dismantling. 


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