Giving Compass' Take:

• Tim Lydon at YES! Magazine reports on new studies that are putting hard numbers to Alaska's glacial retreat, now plainly visible to tourists.

• How can aid workers, governments and donors help support the people who will be most affected by the melting glaciers?

• Here's an article on studying Greenland's melting glaciers to better understand climate change. 

The story of Alaska’s glacial retreat is plainly written across the landscape. Melting has left these slow-moving rivers of ice, while still spectacular, much diminished. And it is forcing us to think differently about them.

More than mere sources of beauty, they now represent a collapsing system that for millennia has helped cool the globe and kept sea levels stable. This more systemic outlook on glaciers is important to adopt, say some experts, as it can help people understand and perhaps act upon the growing climate emergency.

Today’s visitors to Alaska find a landscape transformed, with raw mountainsides only recently stripped of their ice. At visitor centers, they can watch the change unfold on time-lapse videos.  All the while, meltwater tumbles past in swift, cold rivers – destined for the ocean.

That was never truer than this past summer, when record-setting heat—including 90-degree temperatures in a region where 60s and 70s are more the norm—sparked severe melting that pushed rivers toward flood stage.

Read the full article about Alaska's melting glaciers by Tim Lydon at YES! Magazine.