http://www.ecoenquirer.com/Frosty-Cove-Alaska.htmPristine Alaskan Glacier Turns Into Tropical Wasteland
(Frosty Cove, Alaska) Few places on Earth have suffered the ravages of global warming more than Alaska. While recent news reports have highlighted accounts of the native Inuits' snowmobiles falling through the ice, threatening their traditional way of life, there are isolated parts of Alaska have been completely transformed by global warming.
Possibly the most frightening example of this climate catastrophe that continues to unfold before the eyes of humanity is the case of Frosty Cove, Alaska. Once dominated by a pristine ice field, with a slowly advancing glacier dumping its frigid cargo into the sea, the Cove's original beauty has been forever lost.
1986: Frosty Cove's original pristine state featured majestic ice fields and rock outcroppings.
Totally devoid of the ice and magnificent rock outcropping that once adorned the lanscape, Frosty Cove has become the poster child for the ravaging effects of global warming. In the accompanying pair of photographs, taken only twenty years apart, the environmental degradation is immediately obvious. Types of vegetation totally foreign to Alaska have invaded the region, upsetting the delicate ecological balance that once existed. Clouds of mosquitos, once so abundant in the cool moist climate of Alaska, have all but disappeared.
2006: Frosty Cove's original beauty has been forever lost, now replaced with invasive foreign plant and animal species.
"We have been astounded by the environmental degradation that has occurred at Frosty Cove", said Dr. John Striker, director of Alaska's Cold Preservation Institute. "This level of transformation in only twenty years is sobering -- clearly, global warming has gotten out of hand in Alaska, and now other fragile ecosystems in polar regions are threatened as well".
