wilderness lecture series

Climate Change Impacts More Than Glacier’s Glaciers

By Peter Metcalf, 2-13-08

	Caption: A mountain goat along the Hidden Lake Overlook trail in Glacier National Park. Photo by David Restivo, courtesy of Glacier National Park.

Thanks to a changing climate, not only may Glacier National Park need a new name, but eventually a new mascot. The park’s iconic mountain goats are already feeling the impacts of climate change, said Dan Fagre, a research ecologist for the U.S. Geological Survey’s Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center in Glacier National Park.

“This is ironic because the mountain goat is the icon of Glacier National Park,” Fagre told a mixed crowd of students and community members at the University of Montana Tuesday night.

Fagre lectured on the “Cascading Climate Change Impacts on the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem,” as part of the University of Montana’s 2008 Wilderness Issues Lecture Series.

The predicament for mountain goats is the conversion of important sub-alpine meadow habitat to trees. Lower winter snow accumulation combined with earlier spring melt off has allowed young sub-alpine fir trees to survive the winter and colonize formerly open meadows. The new stands of trees reduce available forage, provide shelter for predators and fragment habitat. To date, Glacier has lost about four percent of its alpine zones to trees.

Mountain goats are not the only species impacted by a changing climate. Rising temperatures and altered precipitation patterns will provide some species opportunity expand their range, while others will shrink or die out altogether.

	Courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey, www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/repeatphoto/gg_overlook.htm

“There are winners and losers” to climate change, Fagre said, “but there is definitely fundamental change.”

The difficulty in predicting precisely how a species will be impacted by climate change is a lack of certainty to the rate of change and the amount of change a species can tolerate, Fagre said. All species can tolerate incremental change, but at some point they cross a threshold from which there is no recovery.

One thing that has certainly crossed a threshold is the park’s glaciers.

“There is no partisan politics involved with glaciers,” Fagre said to laughter from the crowd. “They can’t vote. They just sit there and melt.”

And they are melting faster every year. Grinnel Glacier in the Many Glacier region has lost 90 percent of its mass since it was first documented in the late 1800s. The glacier continues to shrink at nine percent a year, the ice turning into a pale green lake.

“Grinnel Glacier is basically melting into its own puddle,” Fagre said. He predicts the glacier will disappear within 20 years.

The same is true of the rest of park's remaining 20 to 24 glaciers. Photographs taken from the same vantage point over the decades provide a stark record of the glaciers march toward extinction. In a photograph from 1932, four hikers appear as tiny figures in front of the Boulder Glacier’s massive wall of ice. In 1988, exposed rock and new vegetation cover the hillside revealed by the now extinct glacier.

Glaciers that have been on the landscape for at least 8000 years will be gone in about two decades, Fagre said.

“One of the recurring themes of climate change is things are happening faster than we thought."

The decline of the glaciers leads to a cascade of affects on the rest of the park's ecosystem. Many of glacier’s plant communities rely in late summer on water released by glaciers. Declines in frigid glacial melt water raises stream temperatures which in turn changes the stream’s composition of microorganisms. These changes hit native bull trout hard, eliminating habitat for these temperature sensitive fish and extirpating food sources that cannot tolerate the warmer water.

Like the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, Glacier is experiencing rising temperatures and declines in winter snowfall. Snowpack across the northwest is about 60 percent less on April 1st than historical norms.

“We have spring a month earlier than we used to,” Fagre said.

These temperature and snowfall changes mean more winter precipitation falls as rain, increasing the likelihood for unusual weather events, such as the November 2006 flood that wiped out portions of the east side of Going-to-the-Sun highway. The decline in winter snow also means fewer avalanches to scour away trees and keep the avalanche shoots open that provide essential forage for grizzly bears and a host of other species. These trends to warmer temperatures and earlier springs also increase the frequency and scale of wildfires in the ecosystem.

According to Fagre, the thresholds we’ve crossed in altering the planet’s climate are irreversible. At least in the near term. People need to not only work to keep from crossing new thresholds of climate change that will lead to a cascade of other consequences, but need to prepare to live on an altered planet, he said.

“We have to adapt to the new regime."

For the speaker schedule for this year's Wilderness Issues Lecture Series at the University of Montana in Missoula, click here. [End of article]

Dan Fagre's lecture was a stark reminder of the damage we've already done to our fragile earth. Glacier Nat'l Park, aptly named for its glaciers, is about to need a name change: Deglaciated National Park. Within our lifetimes, there will be no more glaciers in the park! If this isn't a clue something is horribly wrong, I don't know what is.

We're already too late to save them now. Now we're talking about large-scale adaptation, not large-scale solutions. We've crossed a global threshold which now means more than small sacrifices--we're looking at entire ecosystem losses and decreases in biodiversity on par with prehistoric mass extinction events.

If you don't believe in Global Warming, why don't you check out this site: http://www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/repeatphoto/

If these images aren't enough to convince you, I don't know what would. These photos are a pure example of the devastation we've already done. You don't need to understand or agree with the science to relate to these images. And perhaps that is what glaciers do best: transcend the politics and science, and offer a non-partisan simple image of our effects on the environment.

Thanks Brett. I've added a couple of those photos to the story.

One of the things I never hear mentioned and have long wondered about is the effect of a prolonged drought like we have had on glaciers. One of the things that brought it to mind is a little puddle where my gutter drains by the house. It formed early on this winter before it got so cold, even though it never got warm enough to melt as winter went on, I could see it getting smaller. We finally got a foot of snow a month ago so now it is burried and I can't see how it is doing.

I can't help but wonder what the talk would be if winters were a month longer and the glaciers growing.
Never mind the ice has been in recession in both Glacier and the North Cascade parks for almost all of recorded history.
Never mind the shorelines of old Lake Missoula. What the heck would things be like if mankind had been 12,000 years earlier in technological development? And why DIDN'T man develop earlier, or later? Climate change, maybe?

Marion, decreased snowfall (i.e. drought) is a huge problem facing the glaciers. More snow equates to a thicker "blanket" which results in prolonging or increasing glacial mass. Studies show that decreased snowfall is a leading cause of glacier loss. Where snow once fell, recharging glaciers, the ground now goes bare much of the year. This has the interesting effect of decreasing "albedo" which is the reflectivity of the earth's surface. This creates a positive feedback loop, increasing the speed by which the snow melts in the first place. The same effects can be seen in town. If you look at a south-facing dark wall (which absorbs uv-heat much like dirt) you'll notice that the snow on the ground below it is typically melted away. This is the same for parking lots.

Dave, I think you're onto a pretty interesting concept. I know I wouldn't want to live during an ice age, but the key to our climate problems today lie in the speed at which things are changing. Ice ages (at least the big ones) took millennia to set in. Last week's lecture by Brian Fagan addressed some of these ideas. I'm assuming you didn't make it. You might google his name and check out one of his books on the subject.

Hey, Dave, just dropped in, and back out.

I don't know why man didn't develop earlier or sooner, but I can say for sure he/she better develop real fast now, and figure out a few things, or we'll all be like Lake Missoula, busted, dried up and gone.

The WSJ reported yesterday that coal consumption had DOUBLED in 2007, and that our economy had softened enough to allow alot of that West Virginia mountain top removal coal to be sold to China. Wild huh? America as a resource colony for China. And how do they ship it over there? Anybody know? Seems like that would be cost prohibitive?)

Here's the scenario I imagine: the head guy of the Central Appalachian Coal Producers is saying how powerful this new market is. The mountains of West Viginia are being blown to pieces to get the coal, aquifers, ancient deciduous forests, all of that. The Stephn Griles amendment on "valley fills" allows billions of tons of overburden to be poured into valleys and creek bottoms, pollutin water supplies and drying up fresh water supplies for the forseeable future, even as water is recognized as the commodity of the next century. The coal is shipped to China, to be burned in some of the dirtiest power plants left on earth (I think Tennessee Vally Authority still has some that rival them), even as we know that, even if you don't "believe" in global warming, mercury and other pollutants from burning coal are contaminating water and fisheries worldwide.

And the celebrations in the boardrooms include Mumms.

Heck, what's to worry?

Hal

Living in an Ice Age would be great. There'd be lots of big game and very few people.

There is no doubt that climate change is occurring. There is no scientific consensus, however, that humans are causing this change. Even a cursory understanding of past climate changes point to solar activity as the main driver with Earth's volcanism also factoring in. I know one thing for sure: If I wanted serious money to study how mountain goats in Glacier Nat'l Park are affected by a variable climate I would title the proposal "Will Man-made Climate Change Wipe Out Glacier Park's Goats?"

The most powerful driver of man-made climate change is political correctness and a blind-zealous acceptance of dubious "facts" by evangelical environmentalists.

Okay, Bob, give it a whirl.
Should be pretty ice-agey around your place about now.
Shut down your computer, unhook the power, put the yurt or tipi up, and get back to us in about a year, that is, if you ain't in the pen for poaching.

Once again Dave, you've proven yourself a true gentleman and a true wit.

James,
I'm afraid you're right about there being no scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change, because there will never be complete, 100% consensus on the subject, and that's just the tragedy of it. Not only is it difficult for those who study global warming to state conclusively that humans are responsible for climate change - though the vast majority of respected science circles have done - but the wonderful human right in the United States that is free speech ensures that any shoddy scientist and twenty ardent believers can muddy pro-activity into some kind of petty debate and bar complete consensus on the subject.
If environmentalists have become evangelical as of late, it is for the same reason religious nuts have: we believe life as we know it is going to be over very soon if we don't change our ways, but unlike religious nuts, environmentalists and the new environmentalists - scientists - have the facts to back such a belief up. And the melting glaciers are our burning bushes.

It's sad, and also a waste of time, that the "consensus" issue will be battled fiercely from both sides while each would probably agree on similar goals: Clean and efficient energy usage while backing away from dependence on Mid-east oil.
Personally, I agree with Weather Channel founder, John Coleman, who stated that man-made climate change is the "biggest scam in history." With that said, I feel unequivocally that the US should adapt a clean-energy, alternative-energy policy that should proceed with the unwavering focus of a great-white zeroing in on a foundering seal pup. And screw the corporate interests and power-grubbing pols who stand in the way.

It's amazing how fast global warming is destroying the earth. We need to sacrifice our freedoms and spend trillions now before we actually know what's going on.

For what it's worth, Montana mountain snowpacks are in excess of 100% of normal. And the arctic icepack has returned. See this graphic. http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/arctic.jpg

Then read this CBC article from Mukluk Land: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/02/15/arctic-ice.html

>>>>>>>>>>>
Recent cold snap helping Arctic sea ice, scientists find
Last Updated: Friday, February 15, 2008 | 10:17 AM ET
CBC News
There's an upside to the extreme cold temperatures northern Canadians have endured in the last few weeks: scientists say it's been helping winter sea ice grow across the Arctic, where the ice shrank to record-low levels last year.

Temperatures have stayed well in the -30s C and -40s C range since late January throughout the North, with the mercury dipping past -50 C in some areas.

Satellite images are showing that the cold spell is helping the sea ice expand in coverage by about 2 million square kilometres, compared to the average winter coverage in the previous three years.

"It's nice to know that the ice is recovering," Josefino Comiso, a senior research scientist with the Cryospheric Sciences Branch of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, told CBC News on Thursday.
<<<<<<<<<<<<

Craig,
I don't think that means the arctic sea ice is returning. The arctic sea ice is still losing, whether northern Canada has had a "cold snap" for "the last few weeks" or not. Expansion of the ice sheet during such a short period in the winter is not worth batting an eye at, because as your article says, "the ice shrank to record-low levels last year", and a mere 2 million square kilometers does nothing to normalize the current amount of ice in the Arctic.

Let me see if I have this straight, a few years of above temperature means the earth is frying as we speak, but record breaking cold temps have nothing to do with the climate. Receding glaciers also mean the earth's climate is overheating, but growing glaciers mean nothing.
The only way to save our selves is to fall down and worship at the Gore altar, and pile every nickle we can get for carbon credits to ward off the evil warmth spirits.
When you get right down to it any changes seen in the last 30 years since the last global freeze aren't even a hiccup in the overall millions of years of the existence of this planet. It is being used to make money by snake oil salesmen

Craig Moore,

You state "for what its worth" and then proceed to once again describe a localized, moment-in-time, weather occurence in a discussion of GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE.

Well . . . its not worth anything (just as it is not worth anything to mention how hot it was in MT last summer as evidence of global climate change - equally worthless and lame). Not that it will stop you from posting your meticulously researched data on the latest snow fall in China. But truly, it is not worth anything in a discussion of GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE.

If this was a discussion about ANNUAL INTERESTING WEATHER EVENTS - your posts would be right on point.

It is interesting how you continually castigate people for failing to add to a serious discussion here (generally when they attack your biases); meanwhile, your continual localized, moment-in-time weather anectdotes add NOTHING to a discussion of global climate change. Take your own advice, acknkowledge the distinction between WEATHER and CLIMATE, and make a serious contribution to the discussion.

However, continued posting about localized weather only serves to illustrate that you either: 1) don't understand the distinction between weather and climate (and thus are not really able to seriously participate in this discussion); OR 2) you don't care about the distinction and are using weather to subvert a serious discussion of climate change.

Which is it?