The USGS website has a “Glacier and Climate Project” section for those interested. On that main page, is a tab “Benchmark Glaciers” (of which Sperry is one) where focused monitoring and study is being conducted by the USGS and others on a glacier by glacier basis. At the bottom of the Sperry page is a list of referenced items, of which the first one listed was a link to the above mentioned study at ESSD.

The Wikipedia site has an entry for “Glacier Mass Balance.” It does an acceptable job of proving a cursory introduction to how and what mass balance measurement means, the ways measurements are obtained, etc. The page also had info on various glaciers around the world, but I did not review that info so I can not attest to its validity or how timely it currently is.

Also, much info can be gleaned at the World Glacier Monitoring Service site for anyone interested about glaciers.

I agree with Mr. Zimmerman’s comment about the posting of specific dates when the glaciers at that National Park are supposed to disappear. Not only does the science of climate change have a ways to go before such specific predictions can be made, the use of them by the gov’t is counter productive. Instead of signs, films, etc showing what is currently known to have happened as well as the current status of the glacier(s), and providing sources of information for visitors to look at for more education, saying a outcome will happen by 2020 then changing it to 2030 only sows confusion, doubt, and sometimes outright dismissal. This does no one any good.

Interesting that the authors noted that these glaciers were not there 7000 years ago. The is evidence showing up via C14 dating that glaciers in the area (northern US and southern Canada) were no there as early as 5000 years ago when trees grew there.

Seems the geology texts need rewriting!!!

We used to drop down to the park and ski the avalanche slopes (when danger was zip). Sure like cycling over the pass.

Worse than contradicting the nearby display, it either contradicts itself or blames humanity for ending the Little Ice Age (LIA). Does the National Park Service believe that the LIA ended due to natural causes or due to human causes? Without further explanation, the casual reader would conclude the latter. Very sloppy indeed.

At least the film in the auditorium seems to accept that the end of the LIA, not humanity, is the reason for the receding glaciers.

wodun asked: “So the current glaciers formed after the end of the last period of glaciation. Were there glaciers there during the glaciation?”

The temperature chart that Wikipedia has for Ice Age temperatures shows that at the end of the last glacial period there was a spike in temperature. I suspect that glaciers that do not survive our current temperatures likely did not survive those elevated temperatures. This would allow for new glaciers to form in the same locations, as the temperatures declined after the spike. I would also expect the glaciers to expand in size during the LIA and shrink in size as the LIA ends.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ice_Age_Temperature.png

I hope you all had better skies. When I visited haze from the wild fires.obscured the views.

Why the loss of habitat?

Woodland areas are growing back after being clear cut in previous centuries for farming.

The environmentalists cannot seem to decide which “pristine habitat” they want to stabilize. If they’re going to be intellectually honest, they should be cheering the return of the woodlands rather than bemoaning the loss of habitat for the Kestrel, which benefited from human geo-engineering in the form of clearing land for farms, which left them with a far greater open hunting area than they would have otherwise had.

It really is a great example of the natural variation of climate. Glaciers can come and go on their own without humans. They said the peak was in the mid 1800’s but there surely were ebbs and flows over 7,000 years.

I am one who thinks you can’t stop nature from changing, regardless of what is causing change at any given time, nature will always change. And the only successful way forward is adaptation, not the magical belief that we can stop nature’s change through flagellation.