Tag Archives: Glacier

Alaska’s Alsek Glacier has retreated more than 3 miles (5 kilometers) since 1984, turning Prow Knob into an island. (Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.) NASA satellite imagery has revealed a new island off Alaska’s coast that emerged after long-standing glacial ice melted, isolating a small mountain that was once …

Two tourists fell to their deaths this week near a glacier in southeastern Alaska, in separate fatal incidents, authorities said.  Thomas Casey, 69, was last seen early Saturday, Alaska Wildlife Troopers said in a dispatch. The Arizona resident was hiking in the area around Juneau, Alaska’s capital city, and had not returned by the following morning as planned. Casey did …

A researcher from Italy is missing after falling into a stream on Alaska’s Mendenhall Glacier – after the body of another man, a hiker from Arizona, was found earlier this week off a trail near the glacier, authorities said. According to the state department of public safety, Alaska wildlife troopers received a report on Tuesday that a man had gone …

Glacial outburst flooding — caused when natural dams of ice or sediment collapse and send a rush of floodwater downstream — are also a problem in Europe, Central Asia and South America, where they have historically been more deadly. Glacial outburst floods have killed more than 12,000 people worldwide, according to estimates in the journal Global and Planetary Change. Most …

Alaska’s capital city of Juneau is urging many residents to evacuate, bracing for the arrival of what could be record floodwaters flowing downstream from a basin dammed by the area’s Mendenhall Glacier, with the event being driven by climate change amid glacial retreat, according to a federal agency. Summer glacial flooding, known as a glacial lake outburst flood, or GLOF, …

Facebook Tweet Email Link A wave of water gushing out of an Alaskan glacier is threatening significant, potentially record-breaking flooding in Juneau for the third consecutive August. “A glacial outburst has occurred at Suicide Basin. The basin is releasing and flooding is expected along Mendenhall Lake and River late Tuesday through Wednesday,” Juneau officials said in a Tuesday news release. …

A huge basin of rainwater and snowmelt dammed by Alaska’s Mendenhall Glacier has started to release, and officials on Tuesday urged residents in some parts of Juneau to evacuate ahead of what could be a record surge of floodwater downstream. Officials in recent days have been warning people in the flood zone to be ready to evacuate. On Tuesday morning …

Officials on Tuesday urged residents in some parts of Juneau to evacuate ahead of what could be a record surge of floodwater after a huge upstream basin of rainwater and snowmelt dammed by Alaska’s Mendenhall Glacier started to release. Officials in recent days have been warning people in the flood zone to be ready to evacuate. On Tuesday morning they …

As Greenland’s ice retreats, it’s fueling tiny ocean organisms. To test why, scientists turned to a computer model out of JPL and MIT that’s been called a laboratory in itself. Runoff from Greenland’s ice sheet is kicking nutrients up from the ocean depths and boosting phytoplankton growth, a new NASA-supported study has found. Reporting in Nature Communications: Earth & Environment, …

The Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is nearly 80 miles wide, making it the largest glacier in the world by width. If it collapses entirely, the resulting changes could raise global sea levels. Scientists are racing to understand the forces at work before it’s too late. To better understand how this could unfold, researchers developed a new way to study …