Where Portage Glacier used to be.

[Blue_In_AK]

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]

1. I first saw Portage Glacier when I was a young kid in 1969.

It is my understanding that the glacier's retreat is mostly due to calving rather than melting from global warming.

[Blue_In_AK]

3. That may be, but it's still kind of startling

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]

5. I did not make any statement where I indicated I denied global warming.

[flying rabbit]

14. Nor did Blue in Ak say that you did. nt

[Jenoch]

15. Maybe I read into it, but this sentence put me on the defensive a luttle.

"It's really kind of hard to deny global warming after you've been up here a while."

[Blue_In_AK]

20. No, I wasn't directing that to you at all.

I was speaking of the "generic" you, not you specifically. I apologize for any misunderstanding.

[Jenoch]

21. Thanks for that.

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]

22. Why I always try to say "climate change"

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]

2. Reminds me of the Childs and Sheridan glaciers, on the Copper River

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]

4. K & R !!!

[Blue_In_AK]

6. Here's a nice comparison.

This photo was taken in 2007



This one about 1915

[mountain grammy]

9. Wow, that's remarkable!

[Botany]

7. ATTN Blue in Alaska

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]

8. Yes, we saw that movie when it first came out at a movie theater.

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]

13. That is fine by me ..... just fish in a nice eddy below some rapids when the rainbows are ....

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]

10. Amazing film, no question on what's happening.

[mountain grammy]

11. This evening we watched and actual documentary on the local NBC station

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]

12. Mother nature doesn't deal in politics or economic systems.

We are more than welcomed to fuck ourselves over.

[uppityperson]

16. Whoah, that is way back there.

[Blue_In_AK]

17. I know you know. :)

[uppityperson]

18. I saw pictures of Mendenhall recently and :(

[MissB]

19. Shocking. I saw it last in 1997.

Dh and I drove out there when we were in town for my class reunion. Hard to believe it had receded that much!

[onethatcares]

23. my heart is broken

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.