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 One doesn't have to look far
to see the changes taking place. From the plants and animals that inhabit the park, to the
glaciers and snow cover which give it it's name, things are changing, but nowhere more so
than in the ice.
The glaciers of Glacier National Park, like glaciers all over the world, are shrinking.
Slowly, inch by inch, warming temperatures are melting them away. On any given day, or any
given year, the changes are not dramatic. But over decades, the impact rising temperatures
have had upon the park is truly awesome. If nothing is done to curb global warming, by the
year 2030 Park scientists predict there may not be a single glacier left in Glacier
National Park.
Some of the Park's best known glaciers have already shrunk by more than half.
The number of glaciers in the park has dropped from an estimated 150 in 1850 to
approximately 35 today. Since 1968, as the warming trend has worsened, and the human
influence on it been more sharply defined, many of the smaller glaciers have disappeared
entirely.
Boulder Glacier, shown in the animation, has already been a victim of global warming.
Warming temperatures over the last 60 years led to it's drastic decline. On
September 2, 1997 Vice President Al Gore visited Glacier National Park and witnessed
firsthand the damage warming temperatures have done to glaciers like Boulder. Park
scientist Dan Fagre pointed out the steady retreat of the glacier, and the damage warming
temperatures have done throughout the park.
 The retreat of the glaciers within Glacier National Park will mean more than
just less ice. It may have a devastating impact on natural ecosystems that have taken
thousands of years to develop. The natural treasures the park was created to protect may
disappear along with the ice.
Even more disturbing than the damage warming temperatures are causing in Glacier
National Park is the truly awesome impact that changes in the Earth's climate are having
in Antarctica. Parts of Antarctica have warmed as much as 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit in
the last 50 years, the most rapid rise anywhere in the world. With rising
temperatures has come the collapse of massive ice shelves, some of which had been stable
for over 20,000 years. In the last three years two massive, Rhode Island-sized
chunks of ice have collapsed, and warming temperatures threaten much of the remaining
Larsen Ice Shelf. A warming climate threatens an ecological nightmare in Antarctica,
the results of which will have global ramifications.
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