The landscape of Mount Baker, Washington’s third-highest mountain, is undergoing dramatic changes as its glaciers retreat at an unprecedented rate, reflecting a global pattern of accelerating ice loss. I’m doing it.
Recent satellite images and ground observations released by NASA’s Earth Observatory reveal how human-induced climate change is reshaping the iconic Washington Mountains faster than at any time in recent history. It has become.
“These glaciers have advanced and retreated quite a number of times over the past 5,000 years,” glaciologist Mauri Pärt said in a statement. “It’s not just a setback.”
But the changes he is witnessing today are far from typical.
Image of Mount Baker taken on August 17, 2024 using Landsat 9’s Operational Land Imager-2. Easton Glacier (labeled) is currently retreating at a rate of approximately 100 feet per year. Image of Mount Baker taken on August 17, 2024 using Landsat 9’s Operational Land Imager-2. Easton Glacier (labeled) is currently retreating at a rate of approximately 100 feet per year. NASA Earth Observatory
Pelt would know. For 41 years, he led the North Cascades Glacier Climate Project, documenting the ebb and flow of these ancient ice formations. His research found that while glacier movement has always been dynamic, the current retreat is unusual in its pace and magnitude.
The evidence is clear. Comparing NASA Landsat images from 1990 and 2024 shows that the extent of the glacier has shrunk dramatically. Areas that were once covered by thick ice are now exposed rock. The rock where Pelt sat to put on his crampons in 1990 now stands 600 feet down from the glacier’s current edge.
Regression has accelerated markedly in recent years. From 1990 to 2015, Easton Glacier retreated at a relatively slow rate of 30 to 40 feet per year. But over the past decade, that rate has more than doubled to 100 feet per year.
Even more amazing, in just the past two years, the glacier has retreated 450 feet, the fastest rate of retreat ever recorded at this location.
Mauri Pelt stands next to a rock on Mount Washington on August 8, 2024 (left) and an image of the new ice line (right). “I sat on that rock and put on my crampons. Image of Mauri Pelt (left) and the new ice line (right) standing next to a rock on Mount Washington on August 8, 2024. “In 1990 , I sat on that rock with one foot in my crampons on the ice,” Pelt said.
This rapid change is not unique to Mount Baker. “2023 was the first year in which all reference glaciers around the world lost mass,” Pelto said.
Of the 250 glaciers he studied around the world, 25 have already completely disappeared. This pattern is consistent across the continent, from New Zealand to Tibet to the North Cascades.
Its impact extends beyond mere measurement. These glaciers serve as reference points for a global network of 45 carefully monitored ice formations, each containing more than 30 years of continuous data. Their collective decline speaks to unprecedented global warming, accelerating the rate of ice loss beyond anything previously recorded.
“It’s only been in the last three years that it’s really reversed,” Pält said, pointing to a newly exposed rock face. The glaciers aren’t just receding, they’re thinning rapidly, losing about 6 feet of ice every summer starting in 2021.
Glaciers have advanced and retreated in natural cycles since the end of the last Ice Age 12,000 years ago, but the current pattern is different. The changes observed today go far beyond the normal changes seen during events like the Little Ice Age of the 1850s, when regional cooling caused many glaciers in North America and Europe to expand.
Pärt added: “The glaciers are telling us that they are suffering from rising temperatures and are disappearing.”
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