A hot summer in Alaska

This has been a hot summer in Alaska, and the glaciers show it. Last week I had the opportunity to fly into the Alaska Range and to Black Rapids Glacier. The upper areas were a bit cloudy, but the picture below shows an area that should really be snow covered at the end of the summer.

 

The different bands show areas where not only last winter's snow melted, but successively older snow packs (firn) as well. We have a mass balance model site there, which was traditionally in the accumulation area. No more.

Here are a few more pictures from the flight (all by A. Mahoney):

Kennicott Glacier and debris covered ice

We were back on the Kennicott Glacier in late August to disassemble the weather station we had put up earlier (see previous post). The goal was to collect detailed meteorological data over debris-covered ice, so that we can estimate the amount of melt that happens under the layer of rocks. Despite the appearance, the rock layer on this glacier is mostly quite thin (a few 10s of centimeters or less), but that's enough to insulate the glacier significantly and reduce ice melt.

(Photos are all by A. Aschwanden)

Pascal is digging out thermistors that were used to measure the temperature profile.

We are dismantling the weather station with the spectacular background of the Stairway Icefall

Weather stations make for awkward loads and require a special kind of pack animal ...

The abandoned copper mining town of Kennecott with the huge processing mill building. A giant rock glacier provides a spectacular background.