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Study planned on calving Alaska glacier
The Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council is sponsoring a study of the retreating Columbia Glacier, which poses a threat to oil tankers.
The council is a congressionally mandated nonprofit organization that monitors the Valdez oil terminal and associated tanker traffic.
“Columbia Glacier has long been of interest to the council,” said an article in the January edition of the council’s newsletter, The Observer. “The glacier has been in a state of rapid retreat since the early 1980s. The reduction in mass has been mostly in the form of calving icebergs. These icebergs sometimes drift with the current and the wind into the vessel traffic lanes used by oil tankers in Prince William Sound. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez grounded on Bligh Reef while avoiding ice in the tanker lanes.”
The council, in the late 1990s, helped fund the Columbia Glacier Iceberg Monitoring Project, which looked at the potential for calved ice to damage oil tankers.
Now the council is sponsoring a continuation of that project.
Role of climate change Glaciologists Tad Pfeffer and Shad O’Neel will conduct the new study.
“Pfeffer is regarded for his work in glacial retreat and for studying tidewater glaciers worldwide,” the newsletter article said. “O’Neel has been extensively involved with research conducted at Columbia Glacier.”
The researchers will attempt to document the current rate of iceberg calving and drift trajectories.
“Ultimately, over the next year, Pfeffer and O’Neel hope to develop a forecast for iceberg production by Columbia for the next 10 years,” the article said.
Columbia Glacier flows mostly south out of the Chugach Mountains to its tidewater termination in Prince William Sound, southwest of Valdez.
Prior to 1980, it had a long history of stability, with a length of 41 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey says. By late 2000, it was about 33 miles long.
“Though perhaps triggered by climate fluctuations, this major glacier retreat once initiated, has progressed due to the nature of the calving glacier cycle with little concern for the climate,” the USGS says.
—Wesley Loy
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