Earth Equity News

California's Mt. Shasta is the Exception; Its Glaciers are Growing, Despite Warming. By Samantha Young, AP, July 8, 2008. "With glaciers retreating in the Sierra Nevada, the Rocky Mountains and elsewhere in the Cascades, those on Mount Shasta -- a volcanic peak at the southern end of the Cascade range -- are actually benefiting from changing weather patterns over the Pacific Ocean... Climate change has cut the number of glaciers at Montana's Glacier National Park from 150 to 26 since 1850, and some scientists project there will be none left within a generation... But for Shasta, about 270 miles north of San Francisco, scientists say a warming Pacific Ocean means more moist air. On the mountain, precipitation falls as snow, adding to the glaciers enough to overcome a 1.8 degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature in the last century... The Sierra's 498 ice formations -- glaciers and ice fields -- have shrunk by about half their size over the past 100 years, said Andrew Fountain, a geology professor at Portland State University. He inventoried glaciers in the contiguous U.S. as part of a federal initiative. He said Shasta's seven glaciers are the only ones scientists have identified as getting larger."