The glaciers of one of the largest ice fields in the world are shrinking rapidly

According to Canadian scientists, North American glaciers covering Canada and the United States are shrinking at an unprecedented rate due to climate change.

In a recent study in the Yukon Territory of northwestern Canada, scientists have discovered that glaciers in the St. Elias Mountains are losing ice "faster than the rest of the country." The Guardian reported Tuesday. The mountain range extends over three national parks in Canada and the United States and is home to one of the world's largest ice fields outside of Greenland and Antarctica.

Saint Elias lost 22% of its ice cover between 1957 and 2007, according to The Guardian. And 6.6 square miles of ice disappeared from the Kaskawulsh Glacier of St. Elias, nicknamed the "Ice Road", between 1977 and 2007, where temperatures have risen 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit over the last 50 years, reported Sunday CBC News. Scientists followed the retreat of glaciers by collecting measurements of glacier area and mbad and also badyzed aerial photographs to better understand changes to their boundaries.

"The region is one of the hot spots of global warming, a reality we've been realizing for 15 years," said David Hik, professor of terrestrial ecology at Simon Fraser University. The Guardian. "The magnitude of the changes is dramatic."

Mr. Hik co-authored a report published in 2018 by the Alpine Club of Canada entitled "The State of the Mountains". This unique report aimed to highlight the effects of climate change in all Alpine regions of the country.

Over the last 50 years, a quarter of the global sea-level rise caused by shrinking glaciers around the world "would come from glaciers bordering the Gulf of Alaska," the report said.

"We are seeing a 20% difference in glacier coverage in Kluane National Park and Reserve and in the rest of the UNESCO World Heritage Site. [over a 60-year period]CBS News Superintendent Diane Wilson, Superintendent of the Parks Canada Field Unit, said, "We have never seen that. This is outside the normal range.

Glaciers like Kaskawulsh are declining at an alarming rate and are unable to compensate for the volume they lose each year, CBC News said. Glaciologists mapping Kaskawulsh – located in Kluane National Park and National Park Reserve of Canada, UNESCO World Heritage Site, covering an area of ​​over 15,000 square miles – have detected ice at depths of more than 2624 feet on radar, but the glacier is retreating at a rate of 1.6 feet per year.

As glaciers shrink, so do the meltwaters, as was the case for Kluane Lake, which is dependent on the Kaskawulsh glacial runoff fed by the Slims River. In 2016, the Slims River dried up – a phenomenon called "river piracy", or diversion from a creek or river to another water plane, which is not the same. It was not produced for 350 years. Rather than jumping into the Slims River, the Kaskawulsh meltwater changed direction and moved in the opposite direction to the Kaskawulsh River, ultimately leading to a 5.5-foot drop from Kluane Lake. , where he is currently.

The exposed sediments of a barren river, Slims, also create huge dust storms along the Alaska Highway where it once flowed into the area.

"We do not know of any other historical example of large-scale permanent piracy comparable to that of Kaskawulsh Glacier in 2016," the report says. "As we move towards a world with far fewer glaciers and ice caps, lands that have been continuously covered with ice for tens of thousands of years will become ice-free."

Zac Robinson, a mountain historian and professor at the University of Alberta, co-author of the report, said The Guardian that 80% of the ice cover in the Rocky Mountains, which also covers the United States and Canada, could disappear in 50 years.

In its annual report on the Arctic published in 2017, the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration warned that temperatures in the Arctic were increasing twice as fast as the rest of the planet, and characterized the phenomenon as "new normal" and "unprecedented transition in the history of humanity".