Retreating glacier in Canada could destroy the river
Reduction of a massive glacier Kaskawulsh in the North-West of Canada leads to a redistribution of its waters between the two rivers, one of which actually ceased to exist.
The observations of scientists presented in the journal Nature Geoscience.
As the researchers note, over the past century the glacier has receded up the valley for about a mile.
Previously, he melt water fed Slims river, which flows into the Bering sea, but now the edge of the glacier moved so that the streams of water pouring into the river Kaskawulsh and further South to the Gulf of Alaska.
“Geologists knew about the seizures of the river, but no one has yet managed to notice this happening during a person’s life. People noticed it at the geological evidence, thousands, or millions of years ago, but not in the XXI century, when it happens under our noses,” said one of the authors, a geologist from the University of Washington in Tacoma Dan Shugar.
Source: Dan Shugar/University of Washington Tacoma
Source: Jim Best/University of Illinois