All About Glaciers
Could this be a result of global warming?

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Alaska’s Columbia Glacier, heralded as the world’s speediest glacier, appears to be on a course to disintegrate and evolve into a spectacular fjord rivaling Glacier Bay in the coming years.

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The glacier continues to move at speeds of up to 34 meters a day, a snail’s pace to most but astoundingly swift to glaciologists. Descending from the Chugach Mountains into Prince Williams Sound near Valdez, the Columbia Glacier has retreated more than 12 kilometers since 1982 and thinned significantly in that time.

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The glacier is calving icebergs into Prince Williams Sound much faster than it is accumulating new snow. The glacier either will retreat rapidly up the fjord or thin rapidly and essentially disintegrate in an abrupt event.


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The glacier’s terminus, or toe, has stayed in roughly the same place for the past year, its bottom resting on bedrock about 500 to 550 meters below sea level, said Pfeffer. The Columbia Glacier is the last of Alaska’s 51 tidewater glaciers to begin a drastic retreat.


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The Columbia Glacier currently is about 54 kilometers long, 5 kilometers wide and more than 1,000 meters thick in some places. Because the glacier bed is underwater at its terminus, water pressure floats it slightly, increasing its speed and stretching the terminus like a piece of taffy. The glacial thinning and mass loss in recent years have caused more frequent calving events.


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The rapid flow and calving began in 1982 and the terminus has been stretching as much as 1.5 percent per day. Modeling calculations have shown the terminus will continue its retreat upstream in the coming years, where the glacier bed drops to as deep as 700 meters below sea level.


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As the terminus retreats into the deepening glacial bed, researchers expect significantly increased calving events into Prince William Sound.


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The Columbia Glacier is expected to eventually retreat as far as 25 kilometers up the glacial valley to a point equal to sea level. It should be quite a spectacular sight in the not too distant future.

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Science Daily

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