Top view: North Klawatti Glacier (zoom)
|
Glacial Monitoring Program
Research Summary
The National Park Service has monitored five North Cascades glaciers
since 1993. The glaciers are monitored at least twice a year, once
after winter and spring snowstorms have ended and once before new
snow falls in the late summer. Glaciers are sometimes measured a
third time to understand more about melting rate. Researchers monitor
glaciers to discover if they are gaining or losing ice mass.
To measure glacier mass, researchers estimate how much new ice
and snow is added each year by measuring snow depths at various
locations on each glacier. With these snow depth measurements, they
can estimate the volume and mass of the glacier. By comparing mass
measurements over time, scientists can find out if the glacier is
growing or shrinking.
Determining whether or not a glacier is diminishing in size or
gaining mass is quite challenging, because it takes many years of
reliable date. Since this study has been underway, glacier size
has changed an average of 11.5
feet per year. During some years glaciers gained ice mass while
other years they lost ice mass. When a glacier's mass fluctuates
that much every year, it is hard to make conclusions about what
the situation will be fifty years from now. However, if the glacier
were to shrink continuously for ten years straight, one might conclude
that the glacier was indeed beginning to vanish.
Scientists also collect information on the hydrology of glacial
river watersheds. How much rain and snow does a watershed receive?
How much water is provided to a river by a glacier? By analyzing
the data, researchers have found that glaciers can supply upwards
of 45% of the total water flowing into a watershed. That makes some
glaciers extremely important to all who needs water downstream,
which may include trees, fish, farmers and your own body's circulatory
system!
Scientists will continue to map these glaciers to predict the sustainability
of water supplies for people and habitats downstream from the glaciers
of North Cascades National Park.
|
