

The shrinking Lyell Glacier/NPS photos. The shrinking Lyell Glacier/NPS photos.

Is it time to start a pool over when the Lyell Glacier in Yosemite National Park is no longer classified as a glacier? Or when it vanishes from the landscape? Those are good questions to ask, as the glacier, the second largest in the Sierra Nevada according to the National Park Service, is continuing to shrink.

The National Park Service's Climate Change Response team says the glacier "has thinned rapidly over just the last few years. Note (in the accompanying photo) the newly exposed bedrock on the east (left) side; it's estimated the glacier may now be only 15-20 feet thick. Currently the glacier is losing on average about three feet of thickness each year. How much longer until it's gone?"

It was back in February 2013 when word came that the Lyell Glacier had stagnated, or ceased its downhill movement, while the adjacent Maclure Glacier was still moving at its historical rate, about one inch per day.