【Online Selling (2025)】

Enjoy these views of Alaska's Wolverine Glacier while you can. Soon enough,Online Selling (2025) they'll be relegated to a distant memory.

As Earth's climate shifts under the strain caused by human civilization, scientists have turned to one of the world's oldest natural wonders for answers: glaciers. Since 1966, researchers have been measuring how the mass of these dense pockets of ice and snow changes over time.

The Wolverine Glacier is one of several examples in Alaska that has been monitored for decades. According to a U.S. Geological Survey study published in 2016 – 50 years after measurements were first taken – the stats aren't great.

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The mass of the three glaciers under observation decreased during the study's first 50 years, and the rate of reduction accelerated sharply in the final 15 years of that stretch. There's also an increasing amount of water flowing through them as long-frozen ice melts – contributing to the reduction in mass.

There are plenty of data points that tell us global temperatures are rising, and this is one more. The USGS research continues even now, and these photos, taken early in September, showcase some of the natural Earthly beauty we're at risk of losing in the face of climate change denial.

A glacier is seen in the Kenai Mountains on September 06, 2019 near Primrose, Alaska. Credit: Joe Raedle / Getty Images PRIMROSE, ALASKA - SEPTEMBER 06: Emily Baker, a Geophysicist with the United States Geological Survey, walks past the mouth of an ice cave carved out underneath the Wolverine Glacier in the Kenai Mountains on September 06, 2019 near Primrose, Alaska. Credit: Joe Raedle / Getty Images PRIMROSE, ALASKA - SEPTEMBER 06: A glaciers terminus in the Kenai Mountains is seen on September 06, 2019 near Primrose, Alaska. Credit: Joe Raedle / Getty Images PRIMROSE, ALASKA - SEPTEMBER 06: An ice cave is seen carved out underneath the Wolverine Glacier in the Kenai Mountains on September 06, 2019 near Primrose, Alaska. Credit: Joe Raedle / Getty Images PRIMROSE, ALASKA - SEPTEMBER 06: Shad O'Neel, Research Geophysicist with the United States Geological Survey, walks near the Wolverine Glaciers terminus as his team studies the water flowing out from the glacier on September 06, 2019 near Primrose, Alaska. O'Neel is studying how the water from glacial melt is interacting with the environment. Credit: Joe Raedle / Getty Images PRIMROSE, ALASKA - SEPTEMBER 06: A glaciers terminus in the Kenai Mountains is seen on September 06, 2019 near Primrose, Alaska. Credit: Joe Raedle / Getty Images

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