Kaskawulsh glacier
| Kaskawulsh glacier | ||
|---|---|---|
 A side glacier flows into the main glacier (as seen from the plane) |
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| location | Yukon (Canada) | |
| Mountains | Elias chain | |
| Type | Outlet glacier | |
| length | 78 km | |
| Exposure | East northeast | |
| Altitude range | 2800 m - 800 m | |
| width | ⌀ 3.2 km | |
| Coordinates | 60 ° 48 ′ N , 138 ° 36 ′ W | |
|
||
| drainage |
Kaskawulsh River → Alsek River or Slims River → Kluane Lake |
|
 Kaskawulsh Glacier in June 1992 |
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The Kaskawulsh Glacier is located in the Kluane National Park in Canada .
It is part of the Kluane Icefield , which extends from the northeastern slope of the Elias Range to lower layers of the Yukon Territory . Its origin lies at an altitude of 2000 to 3000 m ; it reaches down to sea level.
The Kluane Icefield, from which the Kaskawulsh Glacier flows, covers approximately 25,000 square kilometers. It consists of two arms, the central one with a width of 3.5 km and the northern arm with a width of 2 km. At the point where both arms meet, it is 5 to 6 km wide. In the further course the Stairway-Glacier and a southern arm flow into the Kaskawulsh. Depending on the altitude and thickness, the glacier flows at a speed of less than 10 to 30 meters per year. Its meltwater flows from the terminus via two drains:
- over the Kaskawulsh River to the east into the river system of the Alsek River further south into the Pacific and
- over the Slims River to the north into the Kluane Lake and its drainage system ( Kluane River , Donjek River , White River and Yukon River ) into the Bering Sea .
Since the exceptionally warm spring, the runoff through the Slims River has only been low because the glacier is melting and the meltwater is looking for new paths. The sudden change took place on May 26, 2016. The Alsek River now carries significantly more water and flows faster; on the other hand, the water level of the so far almost Bodensee-sized Kluane Lake is sinking. An event of this dimension is so far unique in modern times.
Dynamics of the glacier
The glacier shows rapid temporal changes in flow and sediment transport throughout the Holocene . It reached its greatest extent in the Holocene around 1700 to 1750 and kept it for about 100 years. He is currently on the retreat. From 1977 to 2007 it lost between 3.3 and 5.9 cubic kilometers in volume and about 50 cm in thickness per year. In 2012, too, the glacier system is in dynamic imbalance and continues to lose volume.
An even more dramatic retreat occurred in the late Pistocene 9,000 to 12,000 years ago.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Canadian Glacier Inventory Project: Kaskawulsh Glacier
- ↑ Canada: Melting glacier diverts river. Business Week, April 18, 2017, according to Dan Shugar, Jim Best, University of Washington , Tacoma site.
- ↑ Abrupt diversion for the meltwater. In: scinexx.de, April 2017.
- ↑ Alberto V. Reyes, Brian H. Luckman, Dan J. Smith, John J. Clague, Richard D. Van Dorp, Tree-Ring Dates for the Maximum Little Ice Age Advance of Kaskawulsh Glacier, St. Elias Mountains, Canada. In: Arctic , Vol. 59, No. 1 (Mar., 2006), pp. 14-20 online , accessed December 5, 2012
- ↑ Foy, Norah; Copland, Luke; Zdanowicz, Christian; Humility, mike; Hopkinson, Chris, Recent volume and area changes of Kaskawulsh Glacier, Yukon, Canada , Journal of Glaciology, Vol. 57, Number 203, June 2011, pp. 515-525
- ↑ Flowers, GE, Copland, L., Schoof, CG: Contemporary glacier processes and global change: recent observations from Kaskawulsh Glacier and the Donjek Range, St. Elias Mountains. In: Arctic , Vol. 67, No. 5. (2014), pp. 22-34. doi: 10.14430 / arctic4356 Online
- ↑ Harold W. Borns, Richard P. Goldthwait, Late-Pleistocene fluctuations of Kaskawulsh Glacier, southwestern Yukon Territory, Canada , [1]