A Photographic RecordOf Rapid Glacial Retreat in Alaska

With the exception of the huge polar ice sheet in Antarctica, the globe’s cryosphere, or ice zone, is melting, and nowhere is that more evident than in the glaciers of Alaska. Bruce F. Molnia, a research geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, has compiled a striking set of photographs in a new book, Glaciers in Alaska, that documents that retreat. Comparing archival photographs from the first half of the 20th century with present-day pictures, Molnia illustrates a stark reality: 99 percent of Alaska’s 100,000 glaciers are shrinking, and those at elevations lower than 4,900 feet are thinning and retreating with stunning swiftness. Alaska’s two largest glaciers, Bering and Malaspina, are losing several cubic kilometers of ice each year to melting and calving, the process by which chunks of the glacier break off and collapse into the sea. About five percent of Alaska is covered by glaciers ”“ an area larger than the state of West Virginia.