Climate change causes huge Canadian river to vanish in four days
Slims River in Canada is no more as the water that once fed it now flows south, not north.
A river disappeared in just four days after a melting glacier retreated so much that it opened up an alternative route to the sea.
Such dramatic changes are known in the geological record but this is believed to be the first time in 350 years that an entire river has vanished.
The Kaskawulsh glacier in Canada has retreated about a mile up its valley over the past 100 years, researchers reported in the journal Nature Geoscience. Until last spring, it sent meltwater into the Slims River, which eventually flowed north to the Bering Sea.
However the glacier shrank back so much that the water was able to join the Kaskawulsh River, which flows south into the Gulf of Alaska. And that saw the Slims River turn into a long thin lake and gradually start to dry up.
No comments:
Post a Comment