Short Term Glacial Degradation Within Glacier National
Park, Montana
INTRODUCTION
The effects of climate change are never ending.
Whether it is the changing temperatures, seasons, or
sea levels the consequences thus far have been
unfavorable. Another negative effect of climate change
is the melting of glaciers. Glaciers and other elements
of the Cryosphere make up 90 percent of the earths
freshwater. Furthermore, not only does the melting of
these glaciers destroy freshwater deposits it also is a
huge contributor to sea level rising.
Glacier National Park located in Montana was
created in 1910 by President Taft. At the time of its
creation it was home to 150 glaciers since then that
number has plummeted to below 30. Through image
analysis Glacier National Park can be analyzed to see
the change overtime to visualize the correlation.
METHODOLOGY
Soil temperature data from 2000 to 2017 was
collected from NASA Giovanni. The 213 files
containing the temperature data was then
analyzed in Rstudio. Soil temperature was
measured using a single point at coordinates
-113.7870 and 48.7596 which are the
coordinates for Glacier National Park.
Additionally, a polygon was drawn over the
entire park to study the temperature variations
for the region.
The two Landsat image files were collected
from EarthExplorer and also analyzed using
Rstudio. The images were plotted in RGB, and
a similar extent was drawn to be able to
visualize any differences in one area of the
park. NDVI was used to isolate vegetation
thereby allowing easy identification of anything
that was not vegetation, such as ice and water
bodies.
Final class project for GEOG 362 Fall Semester 2017. Instructor: Guido Cervone <cervone@psu.edu> TA: Carolynne Hultquist <hultquist@psu.edu> http://geolab.psu.edu
Brit Ickes, Malik Means, Ryan Hill
Department of Geography, The Pennsylvania State University
RESULTS CONCLUSIONS
Glacier National Park in 2000 Glacier National Park 2017 Climate change is slowly but surely occuring,
especially when looking at Glacier National
Park and its overall glacial loss. This doesnt
mean that the change is a rapid one. Our area
of interest was between 2000 and 2017. We
found that there was a rather insignificant
change in glacial motion and soil temperatures,
but none the less a change was observed.
Due to a muriad of recent reports describing
the importance of climate change, we wanted
These are the aggregated RGB images of Glacier National Park on 2000 (left) and 2017 to see the rate at which these changes occur.
(right) focusing on the area of Lake Mcdonald. This area was chosen to identify changes to Our study of Glacier National Park shows that
the lake size as a result of glacier degradation. As seen above, there was not a significant
there is not a significant rapid change to the
visual change in the glacier size or the lake. The Landsat 7 image from 2000 made it difficult
to analyze the lake, so NDVI was applied to the image. glaciers. Although the effects have been
noticed in the last century, just observing for a
NDVI of Glacier National Park in 2000 NDVI of Glacier National Park in 2017 small period of time does not indicate massive
change.
There have been drastic drops and rises in
temperature for specific years. However, this is
most likely due to teleconnections and the El
Nino Southern Oscillation variations yearly.
When considering a short term period like what
we did in this project, it's easy explain the
insignificant rise.
The two images above show the comparisons of the park from 2000 and 2017 using the red
band and near infrared band (NDVI). This enhances the spectral signatures defining The information we analyzed help
vegetation in the image, conversely giving significantly lower values to objects that are not understand that although the glaciers are being
vegetation (ie. ice, snow, and water). This allows us to see the ice features and water bodies degraded over long periods of time, we are
better. Just like the RGB images above, we do not see a significant change in this time unable to visibly see changes to Glacier
period. National Parks glaciers while observing them
Soil Temperature of -113.7870 and 48.7596 Soil Temperature of Glacier National Park
in a shorter period of time.
REFERENCES
Ambinakudige, S. (2010). A study of the Gangotri glacier retreat in
the Himalayas using Landsat satellite images. International
Journal of Geoinformatics, 6(3).
Glick, Daniel. The Big Thaw. Global Climate Change, Melting
Glaciers, 5 Oct. 2009,
Myrna H. P. Hall, Daniel B. Fagre; Modeled Climate-Induced Glacier
Change in Glacier National Park, 18502100, BioScience,
Volume 53, Issue 2, 1 February 2003, Pages 131140,
Photo Evidence: Glacier National Park is Melting Away [Online
image]. (2016). Retrieved November 2, 2017 from
https://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/ng-live/balog-prove-le
These two graphs show the soil temperature change from 2000 to 2017. The graph on the cture-nglive?source=relatedvideo
left shows the changes of coordinates -113.7870 and 48.7596. The graph on the right shows
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
the soil temperature fluctuations over the entire park. We see a slight increase in the higher
We would like to thank Dr. Cervone and Carolynne
temperature outliers in recent years, but no significant increase of overall soil temperature.
Hultquist for their assistance with our research.
We also see seasonal changes which is to be expected, but no significant increase in
temperature.