Scientists have made a surprising discovery while exploring Washington’s tallest mountain: it is shrinking.
Historically, Mount Rainier has stood at 14,410 feet tall, but researchers found that the volcanic mountain has dropped 10 feet since 1998.
The drop in height was due to a drop in Rainier’s former ice sheet, Columbia Crest, which melted nearly 22 feet.
An increase in fossil fuels and a warming climate likely contributed to the loss, and researchers reported that Mount Rainier has lost 42 percent of its glacial ice in the past 120 years.
Mount Rainier offers Washington’s highest peak, but has lost 42 percent of its glacial ice in the last 120 years.
Mount Rainier is known for having the highest volcanic peak in the continental US and the largest glacial cave system in the world.
But the discovery made by Erick Gilbertson, a mountaineer and mechanical engineer, on August 28 has changed the landscape of the Pacific Northwest.
“The summit area of Mount Rainier has a crater rim that melts into rock each summer, but historically there has been a permanent ice dome on the west edge of the rim,” he shared in a blog post.
Mount Rainier was first measured in 1914, and its Columbia ridge was considered Washington’s highest peak in 1956.
But Gilbertson’s new measurements suggested that Columbia Crest was knocked out of the top spot in 2014, surpassed by the crater’s southwest rim that measures 14,399 feet tall.
The height of Washington’s mountaintops fluctuates throughout the year as ice builds up on the summits during the winter and melts in the summer, making it essential for surveyors to document their altitude when the caps polar are at their lowest point.
And that’s why Gilbertson made the trip over the summer.
“Measuring this time of year ensures that seasonal snow does not count toward summit elevation,” Gilbertson said. news week.
Mount Rainier’s peak, Columbia Crest, which was the tallest in the state, has dropped nearly 22 feet since 1998.
About 40 percent of Washington’s mountaintops have lost their volume since 1984.
His discovery on Mount Rainier led him to wonder if other ice-covered summits in Washington had undergone a similar transformation, and he visited these peaks to confirm his suspicions.
On the north slope of Rainier is Liberty Cap, which has melted 26.3 feet since it was last measured in 2007, while Eldorado Peak, located south of Diablo Lake, has dropped 20 feet.
Gilbertson also checked Colfax Peak on the western slope of Mount Baker, and although the elevation appears to be the same, the lowest area between the peak has melted 16 feet in the last two years.
Mauri Pelto, a professor at Nichols College in Massachusetts, began taking annual measurements of glaciers on Washington’s mountaintops, but said since 1984 about 40 percent have lost their volume.
Eric Gilbertson (left) hiked Mount Rainier in August and September and used a GPS surveying unit to determine the mountain’s elevation.
“Obviously, we’ve seen a lot of them disappear,” said Pelto, who teaches at Nichols College in Massachusetts and returns to Washington to work each year.
he told the Seattle Times that the vast majority of the melting occurred in the last 24 years, indicating that it is accelerating.
‘We will still have mountains; “We will still have snow in winter,” he said. “But without glaciers, an important dynamic has been lost and the mountains will be poorer for it.”
Gilbertson’s new measurements of Columbia Crest have not been officially confirmed and are still under consideration by Mount Rainier National Park, who will decide to conduct a new study of the mountain or accept his findings.
Although Gilbertson did not name the cause, meteorologists have attributed the melting spikes to warming of the atmosphere caused by fossil fuels.
Year after year, researchers have recorded heat records around the world, with this summer being the hottest in 175 years.
At this rate, Earth’s surface warming could increase by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit as soon as 2040, surpassing what is considered a critical climate threshold and will continue to melt ice and snowy peaks around the world.
“There aren’t many glaciers in the North Cascades that can survive the next 30 years,” Pelto said.