The melting of Alaskan glaciers has accelerated dramatically in recent years as the climate warms, a new study has found. Scientists behind the study labelled the findings – which show the region’s glaciers could reach tipping points into “irreversible” retreat sooner than expected – as “incredibly worrying”. Alaska contains some of the world’s largest plateau icefields in the world, and their melting is a significant contributor to current and future sea level rise.
The researchers also warned that the processes they saw around the Juneau icefield, which straddles the boundary between Alaska and British Columbia in Canada, are likely to affect other similar Alaskan and Canadian icefields, as well as in Greenland, Norway and other parts of the high Arctic. The study looked at the glaciers around the Juneau icefield since 1770 when they were at their maximum extent. Researchers from the UK, US, Austria and Norway used a combination of historical glacier inventory records, thousands of archived 20th century aerial photographs, satellite imagery and mapping of the terrain while out in the field in 2022 to build a picture of the changes over the past 250 years.
The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, showed the that between 1770 and 1979, there was a fairly consistent level of glacier volume loss, of about 0.65-1.01 cubic kilometres a year.
This then increased to 3.08-3.72 cubic kilometres a year between 1979 and 2010, and then sharply accele.
