NBC Bay Area Meteorologist Rob Mayeda travels to the glaciers of Alaska to share an up-close look at climate change and how it's affecting the Bay Area. Not only is climate change real in Alaska, you'll find that its happening very quickly. Nowhere else on the planet will you find temperatures trending this much warmer than average in the last 30 years. In this segment, we take you directly to Mendenhall Glacier via helicopter to get a up close view of Summer glacier melting underway. Even a brief walk across the rapidly changing icy surface was one that needed to be taken very carefully with many hazards along the way." />
Rob Mayeda
NBC Bay Area Meteorologist Rob Mayeda travels to the glaciers of Alaska to share an up-close look at climate change and how it's affecting the Bay Area. Not only is climate change real in Alaska, you'll find that its happening very quickly. Nowhere else on the planet will you find temperatures trending this much warmer than average in the last 30 years. In this segment, we take you directly to Mendenhall Glacier via helicopter to get a up close view of Summer glacier melting underway. Even a brief walk across the rapidly changing icy surface was one that needed to be taken very carefully with many hazards along the way.
In this segment we travel through Tracy Arm fjord to visit South Sawyer Glacier, an area seeing significant recession of ice. More and more glacier-carved waterways like Tracy Arm are growing larger as ice continues melting away. As land/sea ice melt, darker soil/rock are exposed that absorb more solar energy that help to speed up the melting process. A natural process of glaciers meeting the open sea is highlighted by dramatic "calving" seen from our ship where house/building-sized chunks of decades old ice break and fall into the bay. This infusion of cooler water into the Arctic region may soon disrupt global ocean/weather patterns with far reaching effects.
Changes in sea ice and warming temperatures are already disrupting the food cycle for native species in Alaska. As Summer sea ice dropped to its second lowest level in the last 30 years, there were many noticeable changes to animal populations in Alaska. From the changes already being seen with Alaska's ecosystem, in this segment we give you a 'sneak preview' of what long term climate change may look like around the Bay Area.
"On Thin Ice" was recently awarded the American Meteorological Society's pretigious "Excellence in Scientific Reporting" award for "..highlighting the dramatic effects of Earth’s warming climate in Alaska and its future impacts on the San Francisco Bay area."
In Alaska, not only is climate change real, its happening really fast.
Our trip from Seattle to Skagway took in many wonderful views seen here with help from guest videographer, my wife Sarah. The line on the horizon here still shows ice, but some glaciers here are retreating by a couple miles per decade. That kind of change in such a short amount of time was stunning to see up close.
What we saw in Alaska inspired a closer look at climate change occurring near the Arctic and closer to the Bay Area in our NBC Bay Area news special, “On Thin Ice”.
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NBC Bay Area Meteorologist Rob Mayeda travels to the glaciers of 
