The daily Astorian., April 28, 2020, Page 2, Image 2

A2
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 2020
IN BRIEF
Clatsop County coronavirus
unemployment claims near 3,000
Nearly 400 people in Clatsop County fi led unem-
ployment claims over the past week, part of nearly
2,900 people who have applied since the beginning of
the coronavirus-related economic crisis.
More than 26 million Americans have fi led for
unemployment over the past fi ve weeks, including
more than 333,000 in Oregon.
The state Employment Department, which has ded-
icated 520 employees to processing claims, awarded
$119 million in benefi ts last week.
By the end of the month, the Employment Depart-
ment hopes to start taking applications for the Pan-
demic Unemployment Assistance program. The pro-
gram will provide benefi ts to the self-employed,
contract and gig workers not already eligible for
unemployment, along with people with too few hours
or earnings and those who were going to start work
but could not.
County to get fewer virus
testing kits than expected
The Clatsop County Public Health Department
announced Friday that the county would receive 500
coronavirus testing kits from the state and the supply
would be replenished as used.
Following the announcement, the county said late
Friday they would only be given 20 testing kits.
“This is an example of how quickly things are
changing every day during the response to COVID-
19,” the county said in a post on Facebook. “We are
working hard to get more tests and will keep you
updated throughout this process.”
State liquor offi ce moves to Astoria
The Oregon Liquor Control Commission has
moved offi ces from Warrenton into Suite 302 of the
Taggart Building on Pier 1 at the Port of Astoria. The
offi ce oversees Clatsop and Tillamook counties.
The Port recently moved its administrative offi ces
from the third fl oor of the Taggart Building to the
older Gateway Building at 422 Gateway Ave., leasing
suites to the state and Watershed Wellness.
— The Astorian
DEATHS
April 27, 2020
In SHAW,
Brief
William Don-
ald “Bill,” 75, of Warren-
ton, died in Warrenton.
Deaths
Caldwell’s Luce-Layton
Mortuary of Astoria is in
charge of the arrangements.
April 24, 2020
AUDET, James, 65,
of Grays River, Wash-
ington, died in Astoria.
Hughes-Ransom
Mor-
tuary is in charge of the
arrangements.
April 23, 2020
BARNUM, Rebekka,
41, of Barstow, Califor-
nia, formerly of Asto-
ria, died in Barstow. She
will be buried at Green-
wood Cemetery in Asto-
ria. Hughes-Ransom Mor-
tuary is in charge of the
arrangements.
ON THE RECORD
degree and criminal tres-
pass in the fi rst degree.
Reckless driving
• Collin Jacob Wong,
25, of Vancouver, Wash-
ington, was arrested Satur-
day on the Astoria Bridge
for reckless driving.
Criminal mischief
• Amber Leanne Wil-
son, 36, of Astoria, was
arrested Sunday on Ray
Brown Road in Arch Cape
for criminal mischief in
the fi rst degree and crim-
inal trespass in the second
degree.
DUII
• Brandon Michael
Davis, 37, of Astoria, was
arrested Friday on 32nd
Street and Franklin Ave-
nue in Astoria for driv-
ing under the infl uence of
intoxicants and reckless
endangerment.
On the Record
Weapons charges
• Lonie Charles Davis
Jr., 41, was indicted Fri-
day for possession of
prohibited fi rearms or
silencer, felon in posses-
sion of a fi rearm, felon in
possession of a restricted
weapon and criminal tres-
pass in the second degree.
Davis was also indicted
Friday for unauthorized
use of a vehicle, theft in
the fi rst degree and crim-
inal trespass in the second
degree.
Theft
• Joshua Van Hoo-
rebeke, 31, of Siletz,
was arrested Sunday at
Walmart in Warrenton for
theft in the second degree.
• Cristen Warren, 53, of
Clatskanie, was arrested
Friday at Walmart in War-
renton for theft in the fi rst
PUBLIC MEETINGS
TUESDAY
Clatsop Diking Improvement Co. No. 7, 10:30 a.m., annual
meeting, Brownsmead Grange, 42880 Fish Lane, Astoria.
Knappa School District Board, 5:30 p.m., (electronic meeting).
Warrenton City Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 225 S. Main Ave.
WEDNESDAY
Astoria School District Board, 10 a.m., (electronic meeting).
Warrenton-Hammond School District Board, 6 p.m., (elec-
tronic meeting).
PUBLIC MEETINGS
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Shrinking glaciers could
impact life in central Oregon
A symptom of
climate change
By MICHAEL KOHN
Bend Bulletin
BEND — When Peter
Keane started running moun-
taineering tours in the Cas-
cades 30 years ago, he helped
climbers summit peaks well
into August. These days, he
has to stop running his trips
in early July due to the gla-
ciers melting away in the
summer sun. It’s simply too
dangerous to trek up the
melting glaciers due to loose
rock and snow.
“We have lost a month of
the climbing season in the
Oregon Cascades because
of the melt off,” said Keane,
the co-owner of Timber-
line Mountain Guides Inc., a
Bend-based mountaineering
company. “Back in the ’70s
and ’80s, it could go much
later into the
summer.”
Keane
and his crew
of trekking
guides are
witnesses to
one of the
most tangible impacts of cli-
mate change — the disap-
pearance of glaciers.
The glaciers are “interest-
ing and majestic and to see
them go away has been hard
to swallow,” Keane said.
“It’s defi nitely happening.
You can see the lower part
of the glacier moving slowly
uphill year by year.”
In Oregon, glaciers pro-
vide opportunities for trek-
king and skiing, but they also
affect the local water supply
by stabilizing the snowpack
and regulating the fl ow of
water through the year.
Enjoy their benefi ts while
they last, say Oregon scien-
tists, because climate change
is pushing them toward
extinction.
“Glaciers are a real tangi-
ble indicator of the climate,”
says Andrew Fountain, a
professor of geography and
geology at Portland State
University. “If they are
retreating, you know the cli-
mate is getting warmer, and
then you can think about all
the effects, if glaciers are
staying (in) position, then the
climate isn’t changing.”
Ice Age remnants
There are more than 460
glaciers or permanent snow-
fi elds in Oregon, with 36 of
them named. Most of them
are on Mount Hood, Mount
Jefferson and the Three
Sisters.
Close to Bend, hikers
enjoy the walks alongside
Bend Glacier and Crook
Glacier, both on Broken Top.
Heading up to the summit of
South Sister, climbers will
encounter Lewis Glacier.
The Collier Glacier between
North and Middle Sisters has
notably retreated.
Glaciers are essentially
rivers of ice that move under
their own weight, pushed
downhill by new snow that
accumulates high in the
mountains. They form when
the amount of snow exceeds
the loss by natural melt off.
Their mass has extraordi-
nary power, able to slowly
push rock and boulders, even
forming dams that can create
mountain lakes. Their move-
ment creates crevasses, large
cracks that develop in the ice
that can exceed 100 feet in
depth.
Most glaciers have been
visible near the tops of Ore-
gon’s mountain peaks since
the last Ice Age, which ended
12,000 years ago. They have
gone through periods of
advance and retreat, slowly
carving up the valleys and
Portland State University
TOP: Collier Glacier in 1934. ABOVE: Collier Glacier in 2010.
mountains into the shapes
we can see today.
They are all shrinking
again. In the past 10 years,
some have retreated up to a
quarter of a mile and lost 20
to 30 feet of thickness, Foun-
tain said. Their loss will dis-
rupt the way water moves
through the mountains, cre-
ating more snowmelt in the
winter and less in summer
when it’s needed most.
“Glaciers are a signal of
our snowpack,” Fountain
said. “The more they disap-
pear, the less snow we have.
And the less snow, the less
water. And that is going to be
a problem.”
In the early 1900s, the
Mazamas Mountaineering
Club started documenting
the glacier retreat with pho-
tographs. What’s different
now, scientists say, is human-
made infl uences are increas-
ing the rate of glacial loss.
Half their size
Oregon’s glaciers are
less than half the size today
compared to their mass in
1900, and their rate of retreat
has accelerated in recent
decades.
“Our temperatures have
been getting warmer, such
that the glaciers melt more
in the summer, and in the
winter, they don’t get quite
as much snow as they used
to, so its a double whammy
for these glaciers,” Fountain
said. “That is why they are
retreating as fast as they are.”
A handful of glaciers have
disappeared
completely,
though not necessarily due
to human-caused climate
change.
A glacier once covered a
portion of Mount Bachelor.
Known as Dutchman Gla-
cier, it was located on the
northwest side of the moun-
tain and retreated to an insig-
nifi cant size by the 1940s.
A glacier on Diamond Peak
was once the southernmost
glacier in Oregon. It has also
gone the way of the dodo.
“Retreat of both these gla-
ciers was likely due to nat-
ural fl uctuations, but they
do tell a prescient story of
how diffi cult glaciers are to
rebuild once they’re gone,”
said Larry O’Neill, a faculty
member with Oregon State
University’s Earth, Ocean
and Atmospheric Sciences
s
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Dramatic retreat
Gordon Grant, a Corval-
lis-based research hydrolo-
gist with the U.S. Forest Ser-
vice, said the retreat of the
glaciers over the past cen-
tury has been nothing short
of dramatic.
“A hundred years ago,
you might have been stand-
ing in a place looking up at
ice, and in that place now,
you are looking down at the
ground, and in some cases,
losses of hundreds of feet
vertically are apparent,” he
said .
Grant said the loss of the
glacial ice has been particu-
larly sharp in the past 30 to
40 years, largely driven by
human impacts.
“It’s not the movement
of any single glacier but the
broad trend of glaciers in
many different places that
give confi dence that this is
not driven by local changes
in precipitation and tempera-
tures, but by the global kinds
of changes that are indicated
by all the climate records and
models,” he said .
Scientists anticipate that
the impacts of global warm-
ing on glaciers in the Pacifi c
Northwest could accelerate
glacial losses in the coming
decades.
“Scientists do not wish
to be proven right about
how quickly the climate is
changing and to view the
negative impacts on both
humans and Earth’s envi-
ronment,” O’Neill said. “It
would be tragic if we con-
tinue to ignore the warn-
ings that nature is provid-
ing us that our actions are
unsustainable.”
Wide-ranging impacts
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Department.
Will humans still be able
to marvel at Oregon’s gla-
ciers in the 22nd century?
That’s becoming unlikely,
Fountain said.
“By 2070 and 2100
they are largely going to be
gone,” he said . “The only
glaciers left will be those that
are really high up, like those
on Mount Hood, but most
on the Three Sisters will be
gone because they are rela-
tively low elevation.”
He adds a caveat. “If we
can stop the rise of green-
house gases, we will still
have the glaciers, just in a
slightly smaller size.”
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The loss of Oregon’s gla-
ciers will have wide-rang-
ing effects. For outdoor
enthusiasts and tour com-
panies, the risk is losing a
slice of nature. But glaciers
also improve conditions for
people enjoying the rivers
closer to Bend. Kayaking,
boating, fi shing and other
watersports depend on sum-
mer melt from glaciers, and
improve conditions in the
rivers, O’Neill said.
There
are
possible
impacts on Oregon’s for-
ests, too. Smaller glaciers
and lower snowpack can
result in soil moisture stress,
says O’Neill, which can
change the lifespan of trees
and the composition of for-
est vegetation. The result is
increased wildfi re danger, as
well as lower timber yields
for the logging industry.
Glaciers and large snow-
pack also improve water
quality and help preserve the
crystal clear water that fl ows
through taps across c en-
tral Oregon. They help by
extending mountain runoff
into the drier seasons, which
benefi ts municipal water
users and irrigators.
“Earlier snowmelt causes
forests to transpire ear-
lier, resulting in decreased
springtime streamfl ow, and
ultimately reduces water
availability during summer
when demand is highest,”
O’Neill said.
Keane, the climbing
guide, said it’s dishearten-
ing to see the glaciers retreat
over the years, but it’s
just as frustrating to speak
with people who deny it’s
happening.
“That is the toughest
part,” Keane said. “To know
that it is happening and hear
people who think it’s not
happening. But they proba-
bly don’t live near the snow
to see the permanent snow
lines fl uctuate.”
Is it too late to save Ore-
gon’s glaciers? Based on
recent historical data, their
lifespan may be coming to
an end. Once they are gone
they take decades or longer
to reform. But O’Neill says
humankind can still make a
difference. Limiting global
warming by reducing car-
bon emissions in a mean-
ingful way would be a good
start, he said.
“Awareness of the impor-
tance of glaciers and how
they are changing is the fi rst
key step to address the prob-
lem,” he said . “Addressing
the human role in climate
change will be necessary if
we are to slow glacial retreat
or restore them to a more
natural state.”
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