Video
Sperry Glacier Mass Balance Research: Fall
Descriptive Transcript
[Audio description]: Looking upslope at an expanse of ice in a mountain circle. A woman uses trekking poles and crampons to walk across it.
Narrator: I'm Caitlin Florentine, a glaciologist for the U.S. Geological Survey. This year, 2024, we're celebrating 20 years of mass balance research on Sperry Glacier and Glacier National Park.
[Audio description]: Hiking on a gravelly trail where green foliage is turning yellow and orange, a woman stands on the trail in shorts and a T-shirt wearing a large backpack.
Narrator: Our fall trip began on September 9th. Compared to the spring trip, trail travel was hot, dry, and dusty.
[Audio description]: A researcher kneels on the glacier using a tool to measure a white stake board deep into the ice. He wears a backpack with stacks of stakes strapped on either side.
Narrator: First, we collected glacier mass balance data.
[Audio description]: Standing amid deep crevasses, wearing crampons and a harness, he pulls lengths of connected white stakes out of the ice.
Narrator: We measured snow depth and density at our highest elevation stake site, where winter snow persisted.
[Audio description]: Markings on a stake still in the ice show the spring snow level higher up and the snow level on September 9th, 2024. Lower down.
[Audio description]: A researcher reaches into a bag of tools while another watches
Narrator: Snow had melted away entirely at the remaining five stake sites, exposing bare glacier ice.
Narrator: Second, we did some maintenance on the Sperry Weather Station.
[Audio description]: Photos of the weather station, a metal structure with solar panels, electrical equipment and weather instruments attached. The station sits on rock near the edge of the glacier. Its weathervane moves in the wind.
Narrator: This high elevation weather station captures wind speed, air temperature, solar radiation, and other critical data used for glacier research, as well as search and rescue, forest firefighting, and weather forecasts.
[Audio description]: A full view of the glacier from a distance. The ice encompasses a small part of the vast mountain cirque. Red and tan rocks surround bright turquoise meltwater pools.
Narrator: Throughout the last two decades of monitoring. Sperry Glacier has seen gains and losses, but the overall trend is stark: the decline of glacial mass.
[Audio description]: From partway down the glacier. Fast running meltwater carves a zigzagging crevasse down the length of the ice to the dry rock below.
Narrator: From 2005 to 2023, Sperry lost over 11 meters, or 36 feet, of water equivalent, roughly the same as a wall of water, three building stories tall, sluicing off the glacier.
Description
Join USGS Glaciologist Caitlyn Florentine and her fellow colleagues on their fall trip as they head back up into Glacier National Park to collect more field measurements and honor the 20-year legacy of mass balance research on Sperry.
Duration
1 minute, 29 seconds
Credit
NPS / Renata Harrison & Kylie Caesar
Date Created
11/07/2024
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