AQUA

MELT WATER

Alaska’s furrowed Bering Glacier in the East Chugach Mountains, made grey by dust blown in by the wind, often forms large cracks, filled with glacial water. With an area of 3,200 square kilometres, the Bering Glacier is the largest in North America after the Malaspina Glacier. The environmental group Greenpeace estimates that because of global warming, it has lost 130 square kilometres of ice at its edge during the twentieth century. The average ice thickness of some 800 metres has been reduced by around 80 metres.