Despite warming, peak's glaciers still grow

MOUNT SHASTA, California (AP) -- Global warming is shrinking glaciers all over the world, but the seven tongues of ice creeping down Mount Shasta's flanks are a rare exception: They are the only known glaciers in the continental U.S. that are growing.
The Hotlum glacier on the northeast face of Mt. Shasta is one of seven ice fields on the mountain's volcanic flanks.





Reaching more than 14,000 feet above sea level, Mount Shasta is one of the state's tallest peaks, dominating the landscape of high plains and conifer forests in far Northern California.

Nearby Indian tribes referred to its glaciers as the footsteps made by the creator when he descended to Earth. Hikers flock to Shasta's peak every summer to scale them.
With glaciers retreating in the Sierra Nevada, the Rocky Mountains and elsewhere in the Cascades, Mount Shasta -- a volcanic peak at the southern end of the Cascade range -- is actually benefiting from changing weather patterns over the Pacific Ocean.
"When people look at glaciers around the world, the majority of them are shrinking," said Slawek Tulaczyk, an assistant professor of earth sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who led a team studying Shasta's glaciers. "These glaciers seem to be benefiting from the warming ocean."



http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/07/08/growingglacier.ap/index.html