Looking north into Columbia Bay, southern Alaska. Columbia Glacier has retreated almost 15 kilometers in the past 20 years. The glacial and paleoclimate record in the fjord has been the subject of several IS studies (see student IS web pages click here). The white foreground is floating ice choking the fjord. Note the trimline on the mountains that shows a 300 meter lowering of the ice surface over the past century. This photograph was taken by Tom Lowell (University of Cincinnati) from a helicopter while working in the fjord with Greg Wiles and Matthew Beckwith-Laube ('04).