Glaciology Commons^™

Glacier Status And Contribution To Streamflow In The Olympic Mountains, Usa, Jon L. Riedel, Steve Wilson, William Baccus, Michael Larrabee, T.J. Fudge, Andrew G. Fountain

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Olympic Peninsula, Washington, USA, currently holds 184 alpine glaciers larger than 0.01 km² and their combined area is 30.2 ± 0.95km². Only four glaciers are >1km² and 120 of the others are -¹ (1900–80) to 0.54 km² a^-¹ (1980–2009). Thinning rates on four of the largest glaciers averaged nearly 1ma^-¹ from 1987 to 2010, resulting in estimated volume losses of 17–24%. Combined glacial snow, firn and ice melt in the Hoh watershed is in the range 63–79 ± 7 × 10⁶m³, or 9–15% of total May–September streamflow. In the critical August–September …