feed to stay on top of the news.
Experts aren’t sure what causes the surge, but they suspect this particular one isn’t related to climate change. Still, a warming world is causing many of the world’s glaciers to recede and has been implicated in some surge events.
The bottom base of the ice creates a lubricant for the glacier to tile or move.
“The whole thing is flowing very slowly, and then suddenly it accelerates, and that can cause the glacier at higher elevations to thin, and then the ice slumps down to lower elevations,” Kingslake explained. “Then that happens, and it slows back down, and the material at lower elevations starts to melt, and the ice near the top thickens, and the whole thing repeats. It’s doing, like, a see-saw thing.”
To improve the performance of our website, show the most relevant news products and targeted advertising, we collect technical impersonal information about you, including through the tools of our partners. You can find a detailed description of how we use your data in our Privacy Policy. For a detailed description of the technologies, please see the Cookie and Automatic Logging Policy.
By clicking on the Accept & Close button, you provide your explicit consent to the processing of your data to achieve the above goal.
You can withdraw your consent using the method specified in the Privacy Policy.
Accept & Close
Sputnik International
If you’re visiting Alaska this year, you may get to experience a once-in-a-lifetime geologic event. A glacier in Denali National Park has started moving between 50 to 100 times faster than normal.
Photo: Lance King (Getty Images)
If you’re visiting Alaska this year, you may get to experience a once-in-a-lifetime geologic event. A glacier in Denali National Park has started moving between 50 to 100 times faster than normal.
Advertisement
Last month, a pilot flying over Denali a park home to the tallest mountain in the U.S. spotted unusual topography around Muldrow Glacier and took photos of the uneven landscape to send to a geologist friend. Using the pilot’s tip, the National Park Service confirmed that the glacier, which sits near Denali (previously known as Mt. McKinley), is experiencing what’s known as a glacial surge event.