Study finds three US glaciers shrinking faster

Les Blumenthal and Erika Bolstad, McClatchy Newspapers: Climate change is shrinking three of the nation's most studied glaciers at an accelerated rate, and government scientists say that finding bolsters global concerns about rising sea levels and the availability of fresh drinking water.

Known as "benchmark glaciers," the South Cascade Glacier in Washington state , the Wolverine Glacier on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula and the Gulkana Glacier in interior Alaska all have shown a "rapid and sustained" retreat, according to a report by the U.S. Geological Survey that was released Thursday.

"They are living on the edge," Ed Josberger , a USGS scientist based in Tacoma, Wash. , said of the three glaciers. "We've crossed a threshold, and these glaciers along with those globally are shrinking."

…At the beginning of the 20th century, when glaciers were at their last peak in terms of size, the mass, or volume, of the remote South Cascade Glacier was estimated to be half a cubic kilometer, or about 654 million cubic yards. By 1958, it had shrunk to half that size. The latest measurement, in 2004, found that it had shrunk by half yet again….

The South Cascade Glacier in 2000, USGS