![]() ![]() This will lead to a substantial negative mass balance this year. With daily ablation of 7-8 cm/day this will be gone by early September. However, snowpack averaged 1.7 m across the entire glacier on August 14th. The glaciers lower section had is often avalanche buried, this year the snowpack was gone on much of the lower section. The expansion of the area where 2013 has all melted expanded rapidly from 8/13 to 8/21. On the small and dying Ice Worm Glacier ablation and runoff were assessed simultaneously. Mount Daniels had the best snowpack of any location in the North Cascades. The mass balance of Sholes, Rainbow and Easton Glacier will all be close to – 1 meters water equivalent, that is losing a slice of glacier 1.1-1.2 m thick. By the end of August the snowline had risen to 1980 m, where snow depths had been 1.5 m three weeks previous. The snowline on Easton Glacier was at 1850 m on Aug. This represents a volume loss of 592,000 cubic meters of water in 16 days.Įaston Glacier terminus retreat since 1990ĭeming Glacier terminus-David Tucker Mount Baker Volcano Research Centerĭeming Glacier terminus from above, note debris cover extends across nearly whole terminus now. This coincided with the area where snowdepth was observed to be less than 1.2 m on Aug.4. 20th a satellite image indicates that the blue ice area had expanded to an area of square meters. 4th our surface measurements indicates a blue ice area of 12,500 square meters, which is also evident in a Landsat image from that day. On July 19th a Landsat image indicated 100% snowcover for Sholes Glacier. Of equal interest was the change in snowcovered area. Discharge became notably more turbid after 1 pm, peaking in turbidity around 5 pm. The agreement between ablation and discharge was a nice result. Average ablation during the week was 8.25 cm/day of snowpack or 5 cm of water, discharge measurements identified a mean of 5.2 cm/day of from the glacier during this period. ![]() With the water level gages in we all began work on a rating curve for the Sholes Glacier site directly measuring discharge on 14 occasions, kayak socks helped reduce the impact of cold water. With Oliver Grah and Jezra Beaulieu who work for the water resources section of the Nooksack Indian Tribe we emplaced a stream gage right below Sholes Glacier and one on Bagley Creek which is snowmelt dominated. We spent a week observing ablation and resulting glacier runoff on Sholes Glacier. Matt Holland and Jill Pelto at Lower Curtis Glacier terminus 21 the area had expanded to 200,000 square meters, the shift of the 2013 winter snowline during this period indicates a melt of m during the three weeks. The area of blue ice on August 1 was 50,000 square meters, by Aug. The glacier had a substantial area of blue beginning 200 m above the terminus and extending along the western side of the basin for 400 m. The Columbia Glacier terminus was exposed and has retreated 85 m since 1990. ![]() Alan Kearney, Photographer worked with us for the first week capturing time lapse imagery of our work.Īfter a month of perfect summer weather we arrived to a foggy and wet conditions on the Columbia Glacier. The field team included Stewart Willis and Matt Holland, Western Washington University, Jill Pelto, U of Maine, Ben Pelto, UMass,-Amherst, Jezra Beaulieu and Oliver Grah, Nooksack Indian Tribe research scientists And Tom Hammond, North Cascade Conservation Council. Graph of North Cascade glacier retreat of the 47 glaciers we assess 1967-2013. Notice AugustĪpril 1 SWE at Snotel Stations in North Cascades Seattle Minimum Temperatures this summer. ![]()
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