Glacial Change in Rocky Mountain National Park

Tyndall Pit: Collaborator John Knowles digs a snow pit on Tyndall Glacier to measure snow density.

NPS/Dan McGrath

Dr. Daniel McGrath, Colorado State University

RMNP has a significant relationship with glaciers – indeed, from popular destinations like Moraine Park and Sheep Lakes, much of RMNP has been shaped by past glacial activity. There are even glaciers that exist in RMNP today. While they are not the massive glaciers that once carved valleys through this landscape, these cirque glaciers provide unique opportunities to study how small glaciers influence their downstream environment, and also how they respond to a changing climate.

Scientists study the health of glaciers, referred to as their mass balance, by measuring the amount of snowfall that is added to them during the winter and the amount of snow and ice that melts the following summer. Current research seeks to discover and document the current health of RMNP’s glaciers, and understand the controls on their past behavior in order to predict their future.

Glaciers in RMNP tend to be found in high-elevation east/northeast facing cirques where they benefit from additional wind-blown snow input and reduced melt due to shading by surrounding peaks. In fact, some of the glaciers in RMNP accumulate 5 to 8 times as much snow as the surrounding landscape because of wind redistribution. This additional input appears to have made them less sensitive than other glaciers in the region to warming temperatures in recent decades, although there is concern over how long this buffering impact will persist.

Globally, meltwater from glaciers support unique downstream environments and can provide important drinking water and hydropower resources. Although the glaciers in RMNP are comparatively small, current research seeks to explore and quantify these hydrologic connections in the alpine environments of RMNP.