Alaska's top-heavy glaciers are approaching an irreversible tipping point

Anecdata, but the glaciers where I grew up have all but disappeared in the last 20 years, instead of ~100s of years.

I used to be able to walk to the river canyon behind my childhood home and touch actual glacier ice hanging off the walls. That glacier is now gone from view, receded miles back into the ice field.

Most of the glaciers I could see growing up in the mountains surrounding town have suffered the same fate, diminished in size, no longer visible.