Adopt a Glacier
A: Arapaho Glacier, B: Franz Josef Glacier, C: Muir Glacier
Why Adopt a Glacier?
Glaciers are rapidly shrinking around the world in response to a warming Earth. Many of them will disappear in the coming decades, after having persisted for thousands of years.
Adopting a glacier is a great way to support glacier research. Your donation goes to the Roger G. Barry Resource Office for Cryospheric Studies (ROCS) to preserve some of the artifacts that show how these glaciers have changed over the last century, including historic glacier photographs, field notebooks, and maps going back to the 1800s.Of course, your adoption is only symbolic, but you can learn about your glacier and watch it change.
Donation Levels and How it Helps ROCS
Any donation amount is appreciated, but here are a few ways different amounts can help ROCS preserve data and materials.
- $10 donation: Allows ROCS to purchase 1 record box enabling ROCS to preserve up to 1 cubic foot of materials.
- $20 donation: Allows ROCS to purchase 3 document boxes preserving manuscript materials in acid free folders.
- $50 donation: Allows ROCS to purchase 5 photo safe boxes, helping to preserve our historic photograph collections.
- $100 donation: Allows ROCS to preserve and digitize historic materials such as the Glacier Photograph Collection.
All donations will go directly towards preserving these unique collections for future researchers. We may not be able to save your glacier, but with your help we can know more about how and why glaciers are changing.
What You Receive for Your Donation
We will e-mail you the following materials:
Adoption Certificate
Glacier Fact Sheet
Annual Newsletter
Historical Photo
Glaciers Available for Adoption
Arapaho Glacier
Located above Boulder, CO, USA at a latitude of 40.02° North and a longitude of 105.65° West, Arapaho glacier is a typical alpine glacier with an elevation of 12,434 feet (3,790 meters).
In 1962, Henry A. Waldrop published, "Arapaho Glacier, Boulder County, Colorado". In it, he notes that Arapaho glacier has receded 300 to 900 feet since its maximum around 1860. This equates to losing 29 acres (32%) of its area.
Franz Josef Glacier
Franz Josef Glacier is located in the Southern Alps on the south island of New Zealand at a latitude of 43.47° South and a longitude of 170.19° East.
Until recently, Franz Josef Glacier had been spared the fate of retreat that most of its neighboring glaciers in the Southern Alps have been experiencing for the past 30 years. It is classified as an alpine and valley glacier.
Muir Glacier
Muir Glacier is located below White Thunder Ridge, Muir Inlet, Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska, USA at a latitude of 59.10° North and a longitude of 136.38° West.
Muir Glacier has retreated so much in the last century that its classification as a tidewater glacier had to be changed to a valley glacier because its terminus no longer reaches the sea.
All of the photos on these pages came from NSIDC's Glacier Photograph Collection. To learn more about glaciers, see NSIDC's All About Glaciers Web site.
