Alaskan glacier melt is accelerating — and the effects could be irreversible: Study

The melt rate of a major Alaskan icefield is accelerating and could reach a point of no return much sooner than previously anticipated, a new study has found.

The thawing of glaciers in the Juneau icefield, which connects Alaska and British Columbia, has surged dramatically since 2010, according to the study, published on Tuesday in Nature Communications.

Across the icefield, rates of glacier shrinkage were five times greater from 2015 to 2019 than they were from 1948 to 1979, the researchers observed.