Repeat Photography

In 2003, USGS scientists joined the GL obal O bservation R esearch I nitiative in A lpine Environments (GLORIA) network in establishing vegetation plots at four alpine summits in Glacier National Park, MT, USA. Vegetation and temperature data collected at the GLORIA sites are used to understand trends in species diversity, composition, abundance, and temperature from climate sensitive alpine...

Notice the man standing on the glacier in the center of the historic photograph. The figure lends a frame of reference to the photo pair, allowing the viewer to more easily interpret the depth of ice and the loss of volume when compared to the 2016 image.

The historic image shows how the upper bench of ice flowed into the main body of Grinnell Glacier. By the early 1920s, the glacier’s volume had been reduced to the point that the two pieces became disconnected. The upper bench, considered a separate glacier, was later renamed The Salamander Glacier for its salamander-like profile against the headwall. The Continental Divide runs along the ridge...

This historic image is one of the oldest images re-photographed among the collection. The massive wall of ice that constituted the terminus of Grinnell Glacier has receded beyond view from this point. Each summer thousands of hikers take the well-worn trail to be rewarded with the sight of the remnant Grinnell Glacier and Upper Grinnell Lake. Image Use Most of the repeat photography images...

Climate change is widely acknowledged to have a profound effect on the biosphere and cryosphere with many and diverse impacts on global resources. Mountain ecosystems in the western U.S., and the U.S. Northern Rocky Mountains in particular, are highly sensitive to climate change. Warming in western Montana is nearly 2 times greater than the rise in global temperatures over the last 100+ years...

View and dynamically explore high resolution gigapixel images of Glacier National Park with GigaPan panoramas taken by CCME staff. This collection of images serves as landscape documentation and as an interactive forum for public exploration of Glacier National Park’s changing landscapes. Search “ccme” at http://gigapan.org By accessing these links you are leaving a U.S. Department of Interior...

Repeat photography provides objective visual evidence of landscape change. USGS scientists created approximately sixty repeat photography pairs that document glacier change in Glacier National Park. These photograph pairs are available as a collection hosted by the USGS Photographic Library and are publicly available for download. Modern (1997 to 2019) photographs were taken from precisely the...