Peer-reviewedCC BY-NC-ND 4.0Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Extensive glacier loss in the coterminous United States
4 affiliations
- 1Department of Geology, Portland State University, Portland, OR 97201
- 2United States Geological Survey, Alaska Science Center, Anchorage, AK 99508
- 3Department of Geography Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Northern British Columbia, BC V2N 4Z9, Canada
- 4Hakai Institute, Campbell River, BC V9W 0B7, Canada
Abstract
Glaciers populate the mountain ranges of the western conterminous United States and despite their importance to alpine hydrology, their area and volume change have never been comprehensively evaluated. Our study shows that since the mid-twentieth century about one-quarter of the glaciers have disappeared and the overall area and volume are reduced by one-third. The pattern of glacier shrinkage suggests most glaciers in the conterminous United States are largely maintained by local topographic influences due to their small size. These results improve our understanding of evolving high alpine hydrology and importance to ecosystem processes.
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BibTeX
@article{fountain2026extensive,
title = {{Extensive glacier loss in the coterminous United States}},
author = {Andrew G. Fountain and Bryce Glenn and Christopher McNeil and Brian Menounos},
journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1073/pnas.2600941123},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2600941123},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Extensive glacier loss in the coterminous United States
AU - Andrew G. Fountain
AU - Bryce Glenn
AU - Christopher McNeil
AU - Brian Menounos
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/12
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
DO - 10.1073/pnas.2600941123
UR - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2600941123
AB - Glaciers populate the mountain ranges of the western conterminous United States and despite their importance to alpine hydrology, their area and volume change have never been comprehensively evaluated. Our study shows that since the mid-twentieth century about one-quarter of the glaciers have disappeared and the overall area and volume are reduced by one-third. The pattern of glacier shrinkage suggests most glaciers in the conterminous United States are largely maintained by local topographic influences due to their small size. These results improve our understanding of evolving high alpine hydrology and importance to ecosystem processes.
SN - 0027-8424
SN - 1091-6490
ER -