Glacial Melt – Of the more than 100,000 glaciers in Alaska, 95 percent are currently thinning, stagnating, or retreating, impacting both land and ocean environments.
These long- and short-term changes can generate a range of conditions, such as unstable discharge, glacier lake outburst floods, glacier and slope instabilities, erosion and sedimentation, iceberg production and surges that can impact infrastructure and threaten public safety. The data show that lake-terminating glaciers, which include the popular Bear Glacier and Pedersen Glacier, are retreating fastest. Bear Glacier retreated by 5 kilometers (3 miles) between 1984 to 2021, and Pedersen Glacier retreated by 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) during that period.
There is still some uncertainty about the full volume of glaciers and ice caps on Earth, but if all of them were to melt, global sea level would rise approximately 70 meters (approximately 230 feet), flooding every coastal city on the planet. Affecting mainly European, Australian and Asian countries!
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