The Cowlitz Glacier is on the southeast flank of
Mount Rainier
Mount Rainier ( ), also known as Tahoma, is a large active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest in the United States. The mountain is located in Mount Rainier National Park about south-southeast of Seattle. With an off ...
in the
U.S. state
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...
of
Washington
Washington most commonly refers to:
* George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States
* Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A ...
.
The body of ice covers and has a volume of 6 billion ft
3 (170 million m
3). The glacier starts at an elevation of and flows southeast. An adjacent glacier, the
Paradise Glacier, is connected to this glacier on its southwest margin. As it flows down the slopes of Mount Rainier it nearly meets up with the
Ingraham Glacier and during the
Little Ice Age
The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It was not a true ice age of global extent. The term was introduced into scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939. Mat ...
, which ended around the year 1850, the two glaciers shared a common terminus.
Meltwater from the glacier drains into the
Cowlitz River
The Cowlitz River is a river in the state of Washington in the United States, a tributary of the Columbia River. Its tributaries drain a large region including the slopes of Mount Rainier, Mount Adams, and Mount St. Helens.
The Cowlitz has a ...
.
History
About 35,000 years ago, the combined Cowlitz and Ingraham glaciers terminated some from Mount Rainier. As the
Ice Age
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and g ...
ended the glacier retreated north back to Mount Rainier.
[ In recent times, the glacier has retreated and thinned, except for the period between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s, during which the glacier made a notable advance.
]
See also
*List of glaciers in the United States
Glaciers are located in ten states, with the vast majority in Alaska. The southernmost named glacier is the Lilliput Glacier in Tulare County, California, Tulare County, east of the Central Valley (California), Central Valley of California.
Apa ...
References
Glaciers of Mount Rainier
Glaciers of Washington (state)
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