Jasper Burns
I've been hiking all day and I'm now resting in a balmy 17 degrees on a brilliantly sunny day by a glaciar in a State Park in Alaska, watching a glacier calve into a lake where people are swimming, while I'm reading the news that Jasper, Alberta has succumbed to a fire.
As is clear from the amount of ice entering the lake, Alaska's glaciers are in a state of decline. Currently, an overwhelming 95% of Alaska's more than 100,000 glaciers are thinning, stagnating, or retreating. The state is warming two to three times faster than the global average. Nothing can resist the accelerated warming of the Arctic. The glacier's dramatic retreat will inevitably create a profound ecological crisis, triggering a cascade of impacts on freshwater, marine, and terrestrial ecosystems throughout the state and beyond.
It's the twinned problems of water (too much, not enough, in the wrong places at the wrong times) and fire. Glacial meltwater is a crucial source of freshwater for many Alaskan rivers and lakes, influencing their flow, temperature, and chemistry. As the glaciers shrink past a "peak meltwater" point, the decrease in meltwater supply is expected to reduce streamflow, and even cause droughts in some regions. These changes will have profound impacts on Alaskan communities, particularly Indigenous peoples whose livelihoods, cultural practices, and food security are deeply intertwined with the health of these ecosystems. Declining availability of traditional foods and increased risks associated with hunting and fishing in changing conditions are major concerns.
But at this instant, I'm watching kids splash in the water and it all seems safe and sweet.
Jasper is burning, Jolene. I'm reading that the fire is so powerful that it generated its own convective winds and a pyrocumulus cloud, a thunderstorm generated not by water but by fire, strong enough to uproot mature trees and spread embers over kilometers
I hear your despair and worry and share it.
News about Jasper:
Footage from Jasper:
s://x.com/MikeHudema/status/1817173623683121314
https://x.com/MikeHudema/status/1817173623683121311
