From Claudia: Oh, sure, no global warming at all says Bush....um hum....

Glacial Retreat
Scientists Say Glaciers Are Melting at Alarming Rate
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/US/glaciernatlpark_030901.html#

By Bill Redeker


G L A C I E R N A T I O N A L P A R K, Mont., Sept. 1 —

On the fabled Going-to-the-Sun Road, which clings to the mountainside here and provides breathtaking views of the Continental Divide, Glacier National Park looks as healthy as ever.

Snow and glaciers can be viewed as far as the eye can see. But for scientists who study glaciers, all they see are remnants of glaciers, which are melting and shrinking at an alarming rate.

"Predictions are that within 30 years, almost all the glaciers will be gone from Glacier," said Blase Reardon, a biological sciences technician with the U.S. Geological Survey.

"One of the problems of the last 10 years is that the glaciers have been fragmenting into smaller pieces," he added.

Now there's proof of just how fast the massive blocks of moving ice are retreating. For the first time in 35 years, the USGS has conducted an exhaustive photographic evaluation of the million-acre park. By comparing historic photos taken around the turn of the 20th century, scientists can point to a rapidly diminishing number of glaciers.

Park records reveal there were about 150 glaciers 100 years ago.

"We estimate there's about 26 ice bodies that still qualify as glaciers," said Dan Fagre, who headed the project for the USGS. "Since there were about 37 named glaciers in 1968, we've lost 11 glaciers."

Scientists agree that global warming and a reduction in precipitation are to blame. But they disagree whether man is the source.

Steve Thompson, glacier program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, says all the data he's reviewed points to carbon dioxide from factories and automobiles.

"The cause seems to be very clear," he said. "It is the burning of fossil fuels. We've dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and that's not happening here in Montana per se. It happens globally and it affects our national park right here."

Fagre disagrees.

"What you cannot do is make a direct link between the cause of the current warming we are experiencing and the retreat of the glaciers," he said. "The glaciers don't respond to CO2 [carbon dioxide] directly; they only respond to the temperatures."

Warming Has Long-Term Effects

The impact of warming on Glacier National Park is both profound and long-lasting. The tree line is moving up the mountains, adding fuel for future fires.The stream flows will eventually become a trickle and food sources for trout and grizzly bears will eventually be eliminated.

"Unless we get some significant changes in our current rates of warming," said Fagre, "the glaciers of this park are pretty much doomed."

There is one other, more subjective impact: the loss of beauty.

As Renold and Marjorie Masters from Wenatchee, Wash., toured Lake McDonald, they could not help but notice the changes since they last visited in 1953.

"I stood right here at Lake McDonald and took the same picture 50 years ago," said Renold.

And today? "The glaciers are gone!" he marveled.

Some 7,000 years after glaciers scoured the mountains and sculpted the landscape here, they have all but disappeared. And it is happening in our lifetime.


Copyright © 2002 ABC News Internet Ventures.


Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com
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