{"id":15923,"date":"2016-03-29T16:02:21","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T15:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.journals.cambridge.org\/?p=15923"},"modified":"2016-03-29T16:04:28","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T15:04:28","slug":"study-says-alaska-could-lose-massive-icefield-by-2200","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/study-says-alaska-could-lose-massive-icefield-by-2200\/","title":{"rendered":"Study says Alaska could lose massive icefield by 2200"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Source: Study says Alaska could lose massive icefield by 2200<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The study Modeling the evolution of the Juneau Icefield between 1971 and 2100 using the Parallel Ice Sheet Model (PISM)<\/a> by Florian A. Ziemen et al. was published in\u00a0the Journal of Glaciology<\/a><\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“The massive icefield that feeds Alaska\u2019s Mendenhall Glacier may be gone by 2200 if warming trend predictions hold true, according to\u00a0University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers.<\/p>\n

The estimate is the product of the first detailed look at\u00a0the future of the Juneau Icefield, source of\u00a0the Mendenhall and about 140 other glaciers, said Regine\u00a0Hock, a glaciologist at UAF\u2019s Geophysical Institute.<\/p>\n

The terminus of Mendenhall Glacier, 10 miles northwest of downtown Juneau, is visible from a\u00a0U.S. Forest Service center visited by\u00a0450,000 people in 2015. If warming continues, the terminus will retreat up the valley and withdraw from view around a corner.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the end of this century, people will most likely not be able to see the Mendenhall Glacier anymore from the visitor\u2019s center,\u201d Hock said.<\/p>\n

Hock is one of the authors on a paper published in the\u00a0Journal of Glaciology<\/a> that outlines their findings. UAF postdoctoral fellow Florian Ziemen, UAF glaciologist Andy Aschwanden, Hock and five others used past and present observations and mathematical models to predict how North America\u2019s fifth-largest icefield would react under different climate scenarios.<\/p>\n

The icefield covers\u00a01,500 square miles in steep mountainous terrain. Climate data for the area has been sparse. The\u00a0researchers were able to correct the data set from the Weather Research and Forecasting Model and combine that with the Parallel Ice Sheet Model. The Parallel Ice Sheet Model,\u00a0developed by UAF researchers, is widely used by glacier researchers around the world.<\/p>\n

The team\u00a0predicted that\u00a0more than\u00a060 percent of the ice will be lost by 2099 if warming trends continue, Hock said. The entire icefield could be\u00a0gone\u00a0by 2200.<\/p>\n

However, if temperatures remain the same as they are today, the Juneau Icefield\u00a0will retreat only slightly and then stabilize. The researchers found interesting the model results that also show that the icefield would regrow to almost its current shape if the area were ice-free right now. That\u2019s because the high-altitude cold weather of the mountains would cause snowfall to start the glacier-forming process again, Hock said. This is very different from other glaciers and icefields in Alaska that are at lower altitudes.”<\/p>\n

Read the Open Access study Modeling the evolution of the Juneau Icefield between 1971 and 2100 using the Parallel Ice Sheet Model (PISM)<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: Study says Alaska could lose massive icefield by 2200 The study Modeling the evolution of the Juneau Icefield between 1971 and 2100 using the Parallel Ice Sheet Model (PISM) by Florian A. Ziemen et al. was published in\u00a0the Journal of Glaciology. “The massive icefield that feeds Alaska\u2019s Mendenhall Glacier may be gone by 2200 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":422,"featured_media":15972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1,9],"tags":[519,1828,1827,1826],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-15923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-sciences","category-news","category-science-technology","tag-climate-change","tag-glaciers","tag-igs","tag-journal-of-glaciology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/422"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15923"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=15923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}