NASA has issued a stark warning about the threat of climate change as a brand new island has appeared.
As captured over a period of four decades by NASA satellites, a melting glacier along the coastal plain of southeastern Alaska has formed an ever-growing lake around a patch of land.
So much so, the region is now considered a solitary island as of this year.
The area, measuring two square miles, is home to Prow Knob, a small mountain that once upon a time was surrounded by the frozen waters known as the Alsek Glacier.
Yet as the glacier thinned and thawed away, meltwater formed what is called ‘proglacial lakes’, the runoff of meltwater into the glacier basin, and took over the region over time.
Now, NASA says Prow Knob officially stands alone as a land mass, surrounded by the increasing Alsek Lake, as of summer this year.
It is feared the transformation is just another sign of the effects of climate change, with rising temperatures contributing to melting glaciers and reshaping coastlines around the globe.
The Landsat 5 satellite first took images of Prow Knob in July 1984, where the mountain’s western perimeter made contact with the lakeshore while the rest stood enveloped by the mass of ice from the glacier.
Over the last 40 years, the satellite has monitored the situation and the steady retreat of the Alsek Glacier and the southern Grand Plateau Glacier as they melted.
As they did, the lake expanded and started to fill in the void before gradually consuming the ice that stood around the mountain.
The last segment of ice was seen succumbing to the problem this summer, leaving Prow Knob as a solitary island.
