Alaska’s glaciers melting away

Alaska, among the most glaciated regions on Earth, is losing its glaciers.

Glaciologists have calculated changes in the volume of dozens of Alaska glaciers. Most have melted significantly, according to University of Alaska’s Geophysical Institute.

The institute’s Keith Echelmeyer has been monitoring about 100 glaciers throughout North America with a laser system that operates in the belly of an airplane. He has found Alaska glaciers have undergone substantial thinning since the 1950s, especially at their lower elevations.

Alaska glaciers have been thinning almost twice as fast in the past five to 10 years as they did from the 1950s to the 1990s.

“This implies that Alaska glaciers are contributing two to three times more to sea-level change than the Greenland ice sheet thinning. They are providing the single largest glacier-related contribution to sea-level change that has yet been measured,” Echelmeyer told the Anchorage Daily News.