At first sight, it seems to stretch forever: a vast river of white ice, rising up into the sky, its edges framed by a translucent blue piping.
Sixteen kilometres north of this picturesque Alaskan fishing village, Exit Glacier is rare - the only one in Kenai Fjords National Park that you can reach on foot. A rock-bordered path cuts through an area of recently glaciated terrain, a spur trail lined with indigenous fireweed continuing to the glacier's edge. To stand at its base is to be in awe.
The glacier is fed by the enormous Harding Icefield, which accumulates 400 to 800 inches of snow each year. It takes between 30 and 50 years for that snow to compress into glacial ice. Looking around, there are no obvious indications of a glacier in retreat.
The evidence, however, lines the path to the glacier's edge.
You notice them on the ascent, small wooden signs with numbers: 1921, 1955, 1967. They represent where the front of the glacier existed that year.
Scientists figure Exit Glacier reached its maximum in 1815, during the Little Ice Age. Some believe it extended right to the edge of Seward itself. But in recent years, the glacier has been shrinking at a rate of about 15 metres annually. From the wooden sign that pinpoints the year 1951, the glacier has retreated 450 metres.
"There is no question this glacier is in retreat," says Shelley Hall, chief of resource management for Kenai Fjords National Park. "Although Exit is not the worst example."
A STUNNING RETREAT
Alaska's great glaciers are melting away. Some of the smaller ones have completely disappeared in the past few decades, and while many of the bigger ones will be around for a while yet, their yearly retreat is stunning nonetheless.
Alaska has warmed more quickly than any other place on the planet in the past 50 to 75 years, climate-change experts say. It holds a negligible lead over Yukon, which faces many of the same global-warming-induced challenges.
Statewide temperatures have increased about four degrees Celsius since 1950. There is a range of predictions for how warm it will get here in the coming years, but the most commonly used model sees temperatures rising by between three and six degrees by the end of the century and even more dramatically (up to eight degrees) along the coast, according to John Walsh, director of the Centre for Global Change at the University of Alaska.
Not all the warming can be attributed to the rise in greenhouse-gas emissions. There has also been an El Nino-like shift in wind patterns, a phenomenon known as Pacific Decadal Oscillation. The patterns in the waters surrounding Alaska go through a transition every 20 to 30 years, and their effect on the region lasts much longer than El Nino's does elsewhere. The last major wind-pattern shift here was back in the late 1970s, which pumped up temperatures by a degree or two.
Add to that temperature increases due to manmade global warming, and in a place such as Alaska you suddenly have a unique set of challenges.
According to a recent University of Alaska study, climate change could add as much as $6-billion to what is now expected to be the $40-billion cost of building and maintaining public infrastructure in Alaska between now and 2030.
Alaska's roads, buildings, railroads and airports are all going to cost more to replace in part because the foundation upon which they are built is turning into sludge. That once permanently frozen subsoil - permafrost - is thawing.
"This is a huge issue for the state," said Peter Larsen, co-author of the report by the Institute of Social and Economic Research. "Canadians should be interested in this issue as well because a place like the Yukon faces the same challenges.
