A recent study puts some hard numbers on the amount of meltwater contributed by the glaciers in Glacier National Park . . .
A recent study to be published in the University of Colorado’s Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research journal quantifies for the first time the amount of meltwater from Glacier National Park’s glaciers.
The peer-reviewed scientific study presents a model quantifying the contribution of the Park’s 39 named glaciers to local watersheds. Total glacial coverage in the Park has declined by 35 percent over the last half-century as an increasingly warm atmosphere outpaces the rate at which new precipitation allows glaciers to grow.
The research effort began about five years ago with Whitefish native Adam Clark’s graduate thesis at the University of Montana Geosciences Department, where he studied under another one of the study’s coauthors, Joel Harper. Clark now works for the U.S. Geological Service’s Northern Rocky Mountains Science Center with Dan Fagre, the other co-author of the study.