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Glacier Bay Podcasts:
Climate Change (14:30)
Interview Hosts:
Elizabeth Harriman & Paul Lasley
Interview Guest:
Patrick Hare, Park Ranger and Naturalist
PAUL: The natural history about Glacier Bay National Park is about change. Scientists
come here from all over the world to study change in the glaciers, in the oceans, in the
mountains, everything you see here in Glacier Bay is changing.
ELIZABETH: Welcome to Glacier Bay National Park. I'm Elizabeth Harriman.
PAUL: And I’m Paul Lasley. And we're taking you behind-the-scenes in Glacier Bay
National Park talking to the rangers and naturalists who work and study in the park.
And they're sharing with us some remarkable insights into the glaciers as well as the
spectacular wildlife and weather that you experience today on your Holland America
cruise into Glacier Bay. It's the experience of a lifetime, so let's begin this journey
together.
ELIZABETH: Patrick Hare is a ranger naturalist at Glacier Bay National Park. And Patrick
has been specializing in climate change and some of the observable effects that have
occurred here at Glacier Bay. Right Patrick?
PATRICK: Yes, I've been talking to visitors and I've specialized in talking to visitors
about this topic during my time here at Glacier Bay. And in other parts as well.
ELIZABETH: Tell us a little bit about why Glacier Bay is special. Because obviously so
much has happened here just within a few centuries in geological time that's just a
blink of the eye right?
PATRICK: Glacier Bay is special because it bucked the system of the glaciers. If I were
a glacier and I was looking for a place to live right now and do all right even in the face
of a warming of global climate, Glacier Bay would be a good choice.
Especially if I choose to be a glacier with its source in high coastal mountains. We have
several glaciers that have their source in those high coastal mountains and as a result
are as I said, they are bucking the system they are even advancing.
PAUL: This is one of the few places on Earth were glaciers are advancing. Even only a
few glaciers are remaining stable. Evidently that's because on Mount Fairweather thee
is a hundred and fifty feet of snow a year. Is that right?
PATRICK: Yes, when we look at the Fairweather range that a number of the glaciers
have their source from, you are looking at one of the snowiest places on Earth. There's
really no way around that. The Gulf of Alaska on the other side of those mountains, the
water that's coming in from the Japanese current, and precipitation that comes down in
the form of snow. It's in those high mountain peaks that we just get pummeled and
pummeled. And as a result when we have more snow accumulate than melts we end up
with glaciers.
PAUL: There's so much talk about climate change today and of course there's
absolutely irrefutable evidence that says Alaska is warmer than it was historically or
even prehistorically. And scientists have taken ice cores and all kinds of things to prove
that. Tell us a little bit about how you see Glacier Bay evolving in all of this. Because
there are things that illustrate climate change here and there are things that perhaps
work against climate change.
PATRICK: Well, you have to look at the big picture and understand the intricacies of
why some of the glaciers for instance are still advancing. And you have to ask a
question why are some of them advancing and some of them retreating? And when we
look to the answers, we look to see in specific detail what's going on, and the fact that
we do have these high coastal mountains where many of these glaciers are taking their
sources, if we look past just the data about well is this Glacier advancing or retreating,
and we ask that question, why the answers are pretty blatant as to why most glaciers
are bucking the system.
PAUL: That's right, you know why glaciers advance or retreat based on whether they're
in the water or on their moraines and there are actual technical verifiable reasons for
that. And so this must be a fascinating place to study climate change because of the
speed and rapidity of which it happens here.
PATRICK: In general this place is a place of change. It's not just a place of climate
change as it's a place of change altogether. We've got dynamic change in the secession
of the forest, we've seen the animals returning and the plants returning after the ice
has left.
When you throw into that modern-day climate change there is so much to see in one
spot that it can be a little bit overwhelming as well as the science goes. The question
of, is it happening because it's a natural phenomena or is it happening because of the
anthropological human-caused today. And it's hard to tell the difference sometimes in a
place where you see such rapid change.
ELIZABETH: Well, when we speak of rapid change we're talking of geological change
that happened so fast in Glacier Bay that it's almost mind-boggling. As we're sailing
through Glacier Bay the land around us is actually rising. Think about that.
PATRICK: Yes, the land is rising. When we hear about climate change we always have
the big fear of sea level rising in areas, but in Glacier Bay it's not so much concerned in
the small area because we have some of the fastest isostatic rebound anywhere.
About an inch and a half a year in some places in Glacier Bay, the land is rising because
those big hunks of ice those big glaciers that fill the bay that just a few hundred years
ago have left.
And if you can imagine it's kind of like, if I decide I would like to spend a year of my
life as a couch potato and sit down and hunker down on my couch and watch TV with
potato chips and did not leave my couch for an entire year, you can imagine I would
leave an indentation on that couch cushion.
And eventually if I saw an inspirational program that inspired me to get up off that
couch and get back to the game, and I decided one day I wanted to start a new life,
and left.
And if I stood up off that couch cushion, you can imagine you would still see that
indentation of my rump.
And overtime even though I didn't return to that couch for a whole year, over time you
would see that couch cushion slowly rising again. And that's essentially what happened
since the climate has changed here.
We aren't seeing the ice return much like that person who decided to lead a new life, if
the ice doesn't return, that land is going to rise up and we're seeing that happened here
today and it's really some of the fastest, and it's called isostatic rebound, that you'll
ever find anywhere.
PAUL: Only a naturalist could use that as an illustration of isostatic rebound. We're
really talking about 4,000 feet of ice compressing the Earth's surface and now that the
ice has gone the earth's surface is coming back. It is analogous to a couch potato on a
couch I suppose, but only a naturalist could come up with that analogy.
Well, we are talking with Patrick Hare who is a ranger naturalist a Glacier Bay National
Park. Patrick about the climate, what is the climate of Glacier Bay, because it does seem
to rain a lot here, there's no question about that. But it's beautiful. We're living in a
rainforest.
PATRICK: Yes, we're living in a temperate rainforest where a lot of folks can understand
this is maybe a Seattle temperature and climate but a little bit colder.
Maybe 10 degrees Fahrenheit colder-than-average. But we get quite a bit of rain here,
it is a rainforest as you said, and many of our days spent in the bay we see a lot of rain.
And when we see a rainy day we interpreters that work in the park, we refer to that as
Glacier making day.
In some of those few days when were able to see completely clear skies and see those
high mountain peaks and the Fairweather Mountains for instance, that are over 15,000
feet we call those a Fairweather day. And those are fewer and further between. If you
happen to be here on a fair-weather day it's a special event.
PAUL: And of course the ice is blue in many of the glaciers because of the compression
of the ice and the bending of light waves and things like that. You mentioned that Mt.
Fairweather goes from sea level to fifteen thousand feet and traps all of this moisture
from the Pacific, but in terms of climate of Glacier Bay, all of that works together
obviously, but would you characterize this as more of a rainy location or a sunny
location? That's probably an elementary question.
PATRICK: It depends what day you ask that question. The weather from day to day
does change, and we've had some summers that have been sunny summers, and
summer's that have been really cold and wet summers as well. 2009 for instance was a
very sunny summer and 2008 was one of the coldest summers we've had on record so
it changes from year to year, and I would characterize this as we have a little bit of
overcast and at times it rains during part of the day and you can see the sun peeking
out in part of the day as well. It's a little bit of both and not to be completely gloomy
and dreary all the time, but we do have our days.
ELIZABETH: Patrick, when you're talking to visitors as a ranger naturalist here at
Glacier Bay what are the most common questions they ask you?
PATRICK: Well, we do get asked quite a bit about climate change and there's a little bit
of confusion regarding why we are having such rapid of a retreat here at Glacier Bay.
We have a record-breaking retreat of ice over the course of just a couple centuries. 60
miles the ice has retreated. And an account of that retreat happened however before
the effects of the Industrial Revolution and so it's a little confusing for a lot of visitors.
We do get a lot of questions aboard the ships from the cruise ship passengers
regarding this.
If this could cause such a fast retreat, then why are we so worried about the retreat
globally that we are seeing with glaciers. The difference is that we are talking about
tidewater glaciers. Tidewater glaciers are glaciers that meet the ocean and you
introduce that variable of water into the scenario that say for instance valley glaciers or
alpine glaciers you find say at Glacier National Park in Montana, they do not have that
variable of the ocean's water.
On account of that ocean's water reaching the face of the glacier that is really what
created that rapid retreat. The glacier was able to push its way to the warmer parts of
the bay and pushing in front of it the moraine material that insulated it from the ocean's
water and it lost that protective layer and all of a sudden the ocean was able to reach
the face of the glacier.
Literally the glacier unzipped. We call it a Catastrophic Retreat. And that is why we saw
such a rapid retreat here. It's neither an indication for or against climate change. It's
more to do with the water than with climate change whatsoever.
But we do see today is that we do have some glaciers that are advancing once again
because they have their source in those high coastal mountains, but we have glaciers
that do not have their source in the coastal mountains, and they're not doing good at
all. They are all retreating and that's more of the situation we see worldwide.
PAUL: I've heard the figure that of 107,000 glaciers in Alaska, almost all of them are
retreating. And of course they are all over the world. But this must be from a scientific
point of view a fascinating phenomenon to observe and maybe calculate and watch
unfold in front of your eyes. Because it's not something that you have to wait 100 years
to see.
PATRICK: It truly is land being reborn here. And what that means for us as people and
what that means for the plants, and what that means for the animals is truly something
special to come visit and witness here. In Glacier Bay
PAUL: Well Patrick, you really provided some great information for us. Thank you very
much. And that's one of the good things about visiting Glacier Bay on a Holland America
cruise. The rangers and the naturalists will come aboard and they really know their
stuff.
ELIZABETH: I feel like I've been to school in a good way.
PAUL: Patrick, thank you for joining us.
ELIZABETH: Thank you for joining us in Glacier Bay National Park. This recording is a
copyright production of Holland America line and is made possible through the
cooperation of the rangers and scientists who work and study in Glacier Bay National
Park.