Montana, April 08: Glacier National Park has lost two more of its glaciers to climate change and many of the rest may be gone by the end of the decade, a government researcher has said.
Warmer temperatures have reduced the number of named glaciers in the northwestern Montana park to 25, Dan Fagre, an ecologist with the US Geological Survey said yesterday.
“When we’re measuring glacier margins, by the time we go home the glacier is already smaller than what we’ve measured,” Fagre said.
The latest two to fall below the 25 acre threshold, the minimum size required for the glacier to have a name, were Miche Wabun and Shepard. Each had shrunk by roughly 55 per cent since the mid-1960s. The largest remaining glacier in the park is Harrison Glacier, at about 465 acres.
On a local scale, fewer glaciers means less water in streams for fish and a higher risk for forest fires. More broadly, Fagre said the fate of the glaciers offers a climate barometer, indicating dramatic changes to some ecosystems already under way.
While the meltoff shows the climate is changing, it does not show exactly what is causing temperatures to rise.
–IANS