Mapping the Shrinking Glaciers

Disappearing Glaciers is an Esri StoryMap designed to highlight the alarming speed at which glaciers are disappearing around the world.

The map looks at recent aerial imagery of six different glaciers. Polylines have been overlaid on each glacier aerial image to show the glacier's size through time, demonstrating how far each glacier has reduced over the years.


Timelapse - aerial imagery of the Mendenhall Glacier in 1991 & 2012

Another interesting way to examine the loss of glaciers is with Google Timelapse. Timelapse allows you to compare aerial imagery over time for any location on Earth. You can therefore enter the name of any glacier into Timelapse and observe the effects of global warming for yourself.

Timelapse provides links to the Medenhall Glacier and the Columbia Glacier but you can use the search box to locate any glacier. You can therefore use Timelapse to search for the six glaciers used in the Disappearing Glaciers map and observe the highlighted loss of each glacier for yourself, using the historical aerial imagery.