Glaciers in Alaska’s main ice field are melting twice as fast as recorded more than a decade ago, with researchers calling the rate of ice loss “incredibly alarming.”
The study was led by scientists at Newcastle University in the UK. Nature Communications It was confirmed Tuesday that the amount of ice on the Juneau Ice Field has dramatically decreased since 2010 compared to decades ago.
The Juneau Ice Field sits 2,000 feet north of Juneau and stretches all the way to the British Columbia border, making it the fifth largest ice field in North America.
The researchers looked at historical data to identify three periods of significant change in ice volume.
The study found that from 1770 to 1979, glacier volume loss in the Juneau Ice Field remained constant, ranging from 0.65 to 1.01 cubic kilometers per year. In a second period, from 1979 to 2010, ice volume loss increased to 3.08 to 3.72 cubic kilometers per year.
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According to the study, between 2010 and 2020, glacier volume loss in the Juneau Ice Field accelerated to 5.91 cubic kilometers, surprising researchers.
“It is extremely worrying that our study finds that the rate of glacier loss across the Juneau Ice Field has accelerated rapidly since the beginning of the 21st century,” study leader Dr Bethan Davis, a lecturer at Newcastle University, said in the journal Nature on Tuesday.
Davis explained why the region is less susceptible to accelerating ice accumulation amid climate change.
“The Alaskan ice field is primarily a flat, plateau ice field, which is particularly susceptible to rapid melting as the climate warms and ice loss occurs across the entire surface, affecting a larger area,” Davis said.
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The study found that 108 of the Juneau Ice Field’s glaciers have completely disappeared since 1770, and mapping in 2019 found that all glaciers in the region are thinning.
“As glaciers on the Juneau Plateau continue to thin and ice retreats into lower levels and warmer air, the feedback processes this triggers will likely impede future glacier regrowth,” Davis said, which could push the glaciers “past a tipping point into irreversible retreat.”
Alaska’s icefield glaciers are melting at an ‘incredibly worrying’ pace, study finds Originally Source