BILLINGS, Mont.On the eve of Glacier National Park's 100th birthday, some of its distinctive features glaciers are disappearing and may not be around for the park's bicentennial party.
The parks' remaining glaciers might not last longer than the next decade, said Dan Fagre, a U.S. Geological Survey mountain ecologist who has been studying the park's glaciers for 18 years.
Glaciers are created when snow falling over many years is compacted into ice. For an ice field to be classified as a glacier, it must be more than 25 acres in size, be on the move and sculpt the landscape.
A 2003 study predicted park glaciers might be gone by 2030. But, because temperatures are warming at a more rapid rate than a few years ago, glaciers could disappear by 2020, Fagre said. In 1900, about 150 glaciers lay in what is now the national park.
Now only 25 glaciers are 25 acres or larger, Fagre said.
Although the size and number of glaciers have been decreasing over the past century, glaciers now are shrinking at three to four times the rate that they were in the 1950s and 1960s.
The reason is warmer temperatures.
Glacier Ice Fields May Be Gone By Next Decade - US News and World Report
The parks' remaining glaciers might not last longer than the next decade, said Dan Fagre, a U.S. Geological Survey mountain ecologist who has been studying the park's glaciers for 18 years.
Glaciers are created when snow falling over many years is compacted into ice. For an ice field to be classified as a glacier, it must be more than 25 acres in size, be on the move and sculpt the landscape.
A 2003 study predicted park glaciers might be gone by 2030. But, because temperatures are warming at a more rapid rate than a few years ago, glaciers could disappear by 2020, Fagre said. In 1900, about 150 glaciers lay in what is now the national park.
Now only 25 glaciers are 25 acres or larger, Fagre said.
Although the size and number of glaciers have been decreasing over the past century, glaciers now are shrinking at three to four times the rate that they were in the 1950s and 1960s.
The reason is warmer temperatures.
Glacier Ice Fields May Be Gone By Next Decade - US News and World Report