Disappearing glaciers of the Oregon Cascades, USA
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The Oregon Cascades had 35 named glaciers on seven volcanoes in the 1980s, with 34 of those glaciers remaining by 2000. Here, we document the glaciers that fall into the Global Glacier Casualty List categories based on five years of field observations of these 34 glaciers. Five glaciers have disappeared, four have almost disappeared and eight are critically endangered. Thus, half of the Oregon Cascades named glaciers have disappeared, almost disappeared, or reached critically endangered status in the 21st century. Between 1980 and 2024, the May–October ablation season of the Oregon Cascades region warmed at ∼0.3°C per decade, with a 2020–24 mean temperature ∼1.7°C warmer than the 1975–84 mean. In contrast, there was no significant trend in November–April accumulation season precipitation. Given the significant rise in melt-season temperature, we attribute ongoing glacier disappearance in the Oregon Cascades to the warming climate.
Date Issued
2026-01-01
Date Acceptance
2025-12-16
Citation
Annals of Glaciology, 2026, 67
ISSN
0260-3055
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Journal / Book Title
Annals of Glaciology
Volume
67
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of International Glaciological Society. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
License URL
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
e1
Date Publish Online
2025-12-26