Moving at Glacial Speed

Alaska is the new Wild West. With the exception of abused minorities of indigenous peoples, who have watched oil drillers and crazy white settlers take over increasing shares of natural resources, the state is all about conservative independence, ignoring the environmental risks and braving the elements for that frozen fall-winter/brief mosquito-ridden summer state’s massive opportunities, perhaps even sharing in the reverse income tax that comes with oil wealth. But as the New York Times (July 22^nd) points out, most of inhabited Alaska joins the deep south and the rust belt as the places with the lowest levels of social mobility – that notion of children doing better than their parents – in the United States. Still, for those with strong spirits, Alaska beckons with hope.

Exxon Valdez be damned, because there’s gold (and oil) in them thar hills! And even though the Northwest Passage is growing along the top of the state, Alaska is the home of Sarah Palin and climate-change-denying denizens who want her back to represent the state in the U.S. Senate. But aside from the potential benefits of that northern sea route and opening up areas to further exploration in the great de-frost, Alaska provides some of the most glaring evidence of climate change in the entire country.

The signs are everywhere in Alaska, but perhaps it is her glaciers where the consequences of greenhouse gasses are most obvious. That long finger of land at the bottom of the state, home to the capital Juneau, lays claim to one of the most obvious meltdowns, a mere 14 miles from downtown: Mendenhall Glacier. And that Mendenhall River below swells accordingly.

“Starting in July 2011, and each year since, sudden torrents of water shooting out from beneath the glacier have become a new facet of Juneau’s brief, shimmering high summer season. In that first, and so far biggest, measured flood burst, an estimated 10 billion gallons gushed out in three days, threating homes and property along the Mendenhall River that winds through part of the city. There have been at least two smaller bursts this year.

“‘That first one caught us by surprise,’ said Tom Mattice, the emergency programs manager and avalanche forecaster for the City and Borough of Juneau… That the Mendenhall Glacier is thinning, and has been for decades, is only part of the explanation. Water from snowmelt, rain and thawing ice are also combining in new ways, researchers said — first pooling in an ice-covered depression near the glacier called Suicide Basin, then finding a way to flow downhill.” NY Times, July 22^nd. Flood bursts?

“Glaciologists even have a name for the process, which is happening in many places all over the world as climates change: jokulhlaup, an Icelandic word usually translated as ‘glacier leap.’ … What prompts a surge, and the urgent search for a way to anticipate and prepare by scientists and safety officials like Mr. Mattice, is pressure. As water builds up in the basin and seeks an outlet, it can actually lift portions of the glacier ever so slightly, and in that lift, the water finds a release. Under the vast pressure of the ice bearing down upon it, the water explodes out into the depths of Mendenhall Lake and from there into the river.” NY Times.

Glacial speed may have to be redefined… it can get downright fast. But it also signals the challenges that humanity must address over the coming years. Not only do we face the slow rising of ocean tides, desertification and sustained drought elsewhere and the melting of once-frozen “wasteland,” there are the sudden unanticipated disasters or unknown brutal forces ranging from hurricanes/typhoons, ocean storm surges, unexpected flooding and yes, glacial jokulhlaup.

Our seeming global inability to grapple with the root cause of these phenomena, burning fossil fuels, and the fact that environmental change has outpaced even the most aggressive climatologists projections, suggest that humanity will face massive catastrophic disasters, taking tolls in human life, property and productivity, that will cost governments untold billions (trillions?) in unplanned emergency expenditures. It does seem as if that seemingly American tradition – ignoring the cost of fixing current problems that will inevitably generate massive multiples of cost in the future – has become a global pastime as well. 

I’m Peter Dekom, and when you look at your own life, how probable do you think it is that you personally will face some serious climate-related disaster in your lifetime?