Experts Say Global Warming Causing California Glacier to Grow

The glaciers on Mount Shasta in California are growing. The reason for the growth according to scientists at University of California, Santa Cruz is global warming. "When people look at glaciers around the world, the majority of them are shrinking," said Slawek Tulaczyk, a University of California, Santa Cruz, professor who studied the glaciers However, the seven glaciers on Shasta, part of the Cascade mountains in northern California, "seem to be benefiting from the warming ocean," he added.. As the ocean warms, more moisture evaporates and as moisture moves inland, it falls as snow and it has fallen enough on Shasta to more than offset a 1 C temperature rise in the past century. The three smallest of the Shasta glaciers are more than twice the length they were in 1950. The glaciers in Norway, Sweden, New Zealand and Pakistan, which were in the same position as Shasta, are now shrinking because rising temperatures have more than offset the increased snowfall. As many as 90 per cent of Earth's mountain glaciers are getting smaller. A U.S. government inventory has discovered that, except for one, Shasta's glaciers are the only ones growing on the U.S. mainland. The sole exception is a small glacier that is shaded in the crater of Mount St. Helens, Wash. It's unlikely to continue to grow once it leaves the shade. There are four glaciers which are on the shady north and east sides of Mount Rainier, Wash., and they are stable.