From glaciers to icebergs

Global warming could be causing melting glaciers and fires.

By Matt Reinig

Published Nov. 6, 2007

At the Great Rivers Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit annual meeting, glacier and global warming researcher Daniel Fagre made a case for global warming being caused by carbon dioxide emissions.

The MU School of Natural Resources, the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, and the Division of Applied Social Sciences sponsored the meeting.

Fagre delivered the keynote presentation.

Fagre, a Northern Rock Mountain Science Center staff member stationed in Montana, has been heading the Climate Change in Mountain Ecosystems Program since 1991.

He spoke about the effect global warming has had on glaciers in the state's Glacier National Park.

"We don't predict a healthy future for them, especially after summers like the one we just had, breaking record temperatures," he said.

He said the Grinnell Glacier went from a solid mountainside glacier in 1900 to a pool of water at the base with floating icebergs in 2006.

"We estimate that up to 90 percent of Grinnell Glacier has melted in the last century," Fagre said. "It's almost gone."

The observations led Fagre to conclude that either global warming is induced by carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or that global warming is based on a natural process.

He said if carbon dioxide is responsible, he predicts the glaciers will disappear by 2030.

Fagre said he thinks carbon dioxide is responsible.

"It is definitely hurrying up a bit," Fagre said. "Temperature and carbon dioxide has gone up on the planet. We're outpacing ourselves, essentially."

The increasing temperatures are also affecting plant life in Glacier National Park, he said.

"We're having more fires more frequently," he said. "We burned 13 percent of the park in 2003."

There are also aquatic invertebrates in the rivers and lakes that depend on cooler temperatures for survival, and increasing temperatures are affecting the food chain, he said.

Jinelle Hutchins, a doctoral student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, attended the presentation with members of her own research team.

"I came because the speech looked interesting," Hutchins said. "I also have to speak tomorrow on rat snakes."