Once Bishop Glacier...Now Bishop Lake
Retreating Ice, Bishop Glacier, BC 1985-2017 (credit: Landsat and the AGU)
British Columbia's Bishop Glacier is turning into a lake having lost nearly 2 miles of its ice due to melting. According to the American Geophysical Union (the AGU), a rapidly expanding 'Bishop' lake has emerged where ice had once been.
Evaluating 32 years of Landsat remote sensing imagery and re-photography of Bishop Glacier shows its past and current status as well as the surrounding regional ice-fields. Red arrows represent the glacier's terminus in 1985; yellow its 2017 situation; while purple dots designate the snow lines of three related glaciers, Bishop (B), Ring (R), and Lillooet (L). Landsat is co-managed by NASA and the US Geological Survey (USGS). The geologic mapping service said:
"In 2017 the Bishop Glacier 'proto-lake' is ~2.5 miles long with a glacier retreat of nearly 10,000 feet (nearly 2 miles) in 32 years. Ring Glacier has retreated 2600 feet from Bishop Glacier. The lake is relatively free of icebergs in 2017, suggesting a reduced calving rate in recent years."
Also, clearly visible, is the advance in growth of shrub and forest vegetation (green) on the newly exposed landscapes once covered in ice. A perspective on Canada's glaciers, particularly in British Columbia, experiencing rapid decline from climate change, is provided in this video report. WHB