NASA showed 40 years of melting of a huge glacier in Alaska

NASA space agency showed two images of Mendenhall Glacier taken 39 years apart. They clearly show how much this giant block of ice has changed.

It is located in the Mendenhall Valley, located about 20 kilometers from downtown Juneau in southeastern Alaska. Its length is 19 kilometers. The site is a popular tourist attraction, attracting many people every year. However, travelers may soon lose this pleasure.

Scientists have noticed that the glacier is getting smaller and smaller. And they demonstrated this in two photographs, one of which was taken in 1984, and the second in 2023. Over four decades, it has receded by about 1.6 kilometers and narrowed by 60 meters.

The experts used artificial colors that mix infrared and visible wavelengths to make it easier to distinguish areas of ice, rocks and vegetation. Ice and snow are depicted in blue in the images.

And although Mendenhall began to retreat back in the mid-1700s, scientists still sound the alarm: this process is accelerating, and Alaska has recently been warming about twice as fast as the rest of the mainland. This can lead to the complete disappearance of the glacier.