Olympic Peninsula glaciers expected to disappear in 50 years

By JOHN RYAN
KUOW

OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK, Wash. (AP) — Portland State University professor Andrew Fountain has been researching the dwindling glaciers of the American West since the 1980s. Fountain told KUOW that last year, he had an epiphany that in 20 or 30 years, everything he’s studied is useless because there are no glaciers.” A new study by Fountain and coauthors from Washington state and British Columbia shows the Olympic Peninsula has lost 45% of its glacier coverage since 1980. The study found the peninsula’s remaining 250 glaciers, which covered about two square miles at last estimate, should be gone in another 50 years as humanity’s pollution continues to overheat the planet.