Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - Rogue Southeast Alaska glacier again getting attention

The giant glacier, located where the Southeast panhandle meets the rest of Alaska, advances toward Gilbert Point every year at about this time. In 1986 and 2002, the ice rammed the point with sufficient strength to turn Russell Fjord into Russell Lake; the lake endured for four months in 1986 before the ice dam broke.

On June 14, Hubbard’s wall of ice was about 300 feet from Gilbert Point, according to a lasermeasuring device set in place by scientists from the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab.

“Compared to last year, it looks way closer to Gilbert Point,” said Gordon Hamilton of the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute, who recently placed GPS devices on the upper glacier to help determine its flow. “When you fly through the gap in a helicopter, it looks really close.”