glacier – Noblesse Oblige

Time Lapse of Glacier Collapses

The extreme ice survey is recording the collapse and retreats of glaciers over time; these photos and the presentation are amazing and really bring home the retreats. I do not doubt that ice is in retreat; I grew up in Alaska and I have seen it in my lifetime and my own photos. This isn’t something that scientists anywhere argue about: Ice has been in retreat across the world for decades.

I used to argue about the cause, extremity, and urgency of it – I always placed energy and food security for 9 billion people ahead of that in the things to worry about queue, and still do. Global warming however is now higher in urgency after looking at data and studies the past two years. Whereas you can posit other possible causes for some of the alarmism as I have in the past, and you can criticize the models, you can’t argue that global warming is not occurring, and you can’t say that we don’t have some impact on it without being wholly unreasonable.

Glacier Overflight

While flying up to Alaska we saw quite a few signs of past glaciation in the Rockies, everything from hanging cirques, to tarns, to moraines in the plains leading to the mountains. It wasn’t until we got further north that we saw actual glaciers however. This series of photos were snapped while my aisle mate went to the restroom and I was able to get to the window. Just judging from the flight plan and the poor resolution pics of the areas in Google Earth, I believe most of these were snapped South of the Kluane icefield, with some of the mountains on the Canada side of the border, and some South on the Alaska side. I’m sure someone on the right side of the plane got to see Mt. Logan, but I did not.

Here’s hoping you enjoy the gallery below, the last two were taken through the fisheye lens in the exit door of the plane so there is some color shift and distortion in them: