Decline in Glacier Mass Balance

Watercolor and Colored Pencil, 2015

I created a series about some of the major impacts of global warming that I witnessed in Washington State this summer, using scientific data to show how the drought is devastating the state.

Decrease in Glacier Mass Balance uses measurements from 1980-2014 of the average mass balance for a group of North Cascade, WA glaciers. Mass balance is the annual budget for the glaciers: total snow accumulation minus total snow ablation. Not only are mass balances consistently negative, they are also continually decreasing.

Reference: http://blogs.agu.org/fromaglaciersperspective/2015/08/20/disastrous-year-for-north-cascade-glacier-mass-balance-snowice-economy