Oregon State Study - Collier Glacier Has Lost 20% Of Its Mass Since Late 1980s - KTVZ

CORVALLIS, Ore. -- An Oregon State University research program has returned to Collier Glacier for the first time in almost 20 years, and found that the glacier has shrunk more than 20 percent since the late '80s. The findings are consistent with glacial retreat all over the world, and provide some of the critical data needed to help quantify the effects of global change on glacier retreat and associated sea level rise.

Flowing down the flanks of the Three Sisters in the Central Oregon Cascades, Collier Glacier is at an elevation of more than 7,000 feet. It’s one of the largest glaciers in Oregon, and is on a surprisingly short list – maybe 100 in the entire world – of glaciers that have been intensively studied and monitored for extended periods of time.

Glacier monitoring is difficult, dangerous and labor-intensive, OSU researchers say, and the current work, supported by the National Science Foundation, is showing an ice mass that by now has shrunk to about half of its peak size in the 1850s, when it once was nearly two miles long.

Monitoring has been aided by records from early Oregon mountaineering clubs, particularly the Mazamas, founded in 1894 on the summit of Mount Hood.

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