Pictured above, the Jackson Glacier, taken at around its lowest point of the year, Sept. 13, 2015.
We at Lysander Spooner University are embarking on a continuing research project to study and photograph Montana or Wyoming glaciers each year from the same vantage points and dates of the calendar.
As many people know, various agencies of the government claim that human production of carbon dioxide is causing America’s glaciers to melt at accelerated rates. No one contends that the glaciers have not melted in the past century; but the government’s obvious motive to exaggerate the phenomenon begs for further inquiry.
The National Park Service and the U.S. Geological Survey each have produced web pages and imagery purporting to show glaciers much larger in previous decades (say, the 1940s or 1950s) than the same glaciers are today.
One glaring problem, however, is the fact that glaciers tend to melt continuously throughout each summer and rebuild during winter. Consequently, one can easily deceive viewers by showing a photo of a large glacier taken in the early summer of a past year juxtaposed against a photo of the same, much smaller glacier taken in the late summer of a recent year. The government’s “comparative” photo websites do not even try to match dates of the season. See here.
We picked a date that is reportedly the average date of first freeze in the town of East Glacier, Montana (bordering Glacier National Park)–September 13. As the date fell on a Sunday this year, it provided a great opportunity for Lysander Spooner University researchers to embark on a fun field trip.
We photographed the Jackson Glacier and other prominent glaciers and snowfields visible on the Going-To-The-Sun Highway inside GNP.
We hope to revisit GNP each year on or around the same week, and turn this research trip into an annual event. In the future we hope to include more glaciers, including some that require hiking into, and perhaps some outside GNP (such as those in Montana’s Beartooth Mountains or Wyoming’s Wind River Mountains).
Our long-term goal is to develop an accurate, continuing photo archive–always from the same week in September, when summertime melting has had its way with the glaciers of the northern Rockies.
Join us next year for a great time!
(Thanks to Kirsten Tynan for her wonderful photography.)
