General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhere Portage Glacier used to be.
We took a little Sunday drive down to Portage Valley this afternoon, just for something to do, but I'm always saddened -- and a bit frightened -- when I see what's happened to the glacier. When I first came up here in 1972, the glacier came out into the lake about halfway. These days it's barely visible. If you look about a third of the way over from the left, just to the right of that little promontory there, you can see a bit of blue ice which is what remains of the visible part of the glacier from this vantage point. Of course, there's more of it back there behind the mountain, but it's just a shadow of its former self. Any of you who may have been up here in the '70s know what I'm talking about.
Jenoch
(7,720 posts)It is my understanding that the glacier's retreat is mostly due to calving rather than melting from global warming.
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)when you look at old pictures.
It's really kind of hard to deny global warming after you've been up here a while. We've had quite a run of warmer winters, at least compared to the '70s and '80s, and last summer was one of the hottest on record. As long as I've been up here, we could count days when it was above 80 in Anchorage on one hand. Last summer, we had probably a dozen or more and lots and lots of sun. A lot of people enjoyed it, of course, but it just didn't seem "right."
Jenoch
(7,720 posts)flying rabbit
(4,636 posts)Jenoch
(7,720 posts)"It's really kind of hard to deny global warming after you've been up here a while."
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)I was speaking of the "generic" you, not you specifically. I apologize for any misunderstanding.
Jenoch
(7,720 posts)While I am no climate denier, we just had one of our most brutal winters in decades in Minnesota. It was the 9th coldest winter, average temerature. The 8th and 13th coldest winters were in the late 70s when I was in high school.We just had a foot of anow fall last Thursday/Friday. It has since melted but we still have three foot piles of snow in the front yard (north side of the house).
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)I know you guys had a hell of a time down there this year. So many days it was warmer here than even Baton Rouge and Austin. It was a crazy winter.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)I moved to Alaska in 1998, and these things were, maybe not HUGE, but certainly imposing. when I left, in 2006, Sheridan was a heap of decayed ice and grit, and Childs had retreated so far from the river that you needed binoculars to see it.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)This photo was taken in 2007
This one about 1915
mountain grammy
(26,642 posts)Botany
(70,551 posts)Have you seen the movie "Chasing Ice?" I have an extra copy and if you get in
touch w/ me by DU pmail I would be happy to send it to you.
We have 400,000 years of data linking global temps. to atmospheric CO2 % and
yet for money, power, or pure bull headed denial / right wing Christian horse crap
people still say that global climate change is still in doubt.
Not like you are seeing Alaska but in the late June 2012 we had a "derecho" in the
midwest to the east coast .... and it was a bastard ..... a land hurricane that that
went from the Chicago area to the Atlantic oceans (N.J. to N. Carolina in width)
it killed a bunch of people in the storm and then more when the electric went out
and in Ohio we had 10 days in row of 100 + temps.
Oh well if you fish do me a favor and go catch a nice rainbow trout and have
it for a dinner w/a glass of wine ..... and then put the fish scraps in a republican's
yard ... so a brown bear can find it. Or maybe not.
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)It was amazing on a big screen. Believe it or not, there are even people here in Alaska who deny what's happening, or at least that humans have anything to do with it. But the Natives know -- they've been here at long, long time.
Most rainbows are catch-and-release now, but I'll have some sockeye salmon for you.
Botany
(70,551 posts)hitting and I will be happy. If you can get them to jump a few times that would be good too.
The nicest fish I have ever caught were 2 little native brook trout in Wisconsin .... the colors
were amazing. I put them back and cooked some brats that night.
"Believe it or not, there are even people here in Alaska who deny what's happening, ... "
Really?
BTW I saw little bits of her first reality TV show ...... she couldn't shoot, she couldn't catch
a salmon in a river w/ millions of them, and she looked really lost when she on some glacier
on a mountain someplace in Alaska.
mountain grammy
(26,642 posts)mountain grammy
(26,642 posts)about climate change. It's real, it's happening, it's hurricane Sandy, it's high tides in the streets of Miami. Finally, on the mainstream media, some attention! Finally a discussion about the extreme weather and how it IS the changing climate.
Rex
(65,616 posts)We are more than welcomed to fuck ourselves over.
uppityperson
(115,678 posts)Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)uppityperson
(115,678 posts)MissB
(15,811 posts)Dh and I drove out there when we were in town for my class reunion. Hard to believe it had receded that much!
onethatcares
(16,178 posts)I last saw the glacier in 1974. I still have pictures somewhere but they are in the boxes of 40 years of life.
there used to be a small waterfall there if I remember correctly.
man, that was a long time ago.