Father and daughter team up for crucial project in US mountains: 'My life has been shaped by this'

A family's research into melting glaciers paints a troubling picture.

What's happening?

For more than 40 years, Mauri Pelto has visited, studied, and measured the glaciers within Washington's North Cascade Mountains, CBS News reports.

"My life has been shaped by this ice," Pelto told CBS News.

His trips began as a grad student in 1984, when he founded the North Cascade Glacier Climate Project. Now a glaciologist and professor at Nichols College in Massachusetts, he has returned each year and has noted the drastic changes within the glaciers.

On that first trip, he monitored 47 glaciers. Now, he said, a dozen of those are gone, including nine in the past five years. Overall, the glaciers have shrunk by 40%.

Pelto's family has joined him in this research, including his daughter, Jill, who now serves as the project's art director. She incorporates her father's data into her art, showing how the glaciers have receded as global temperatures have risen.

"The average person is not going to read a scientific report, but they will see a painting," CBS News said. "And it does impact you in a different way."

Why are glaciers important?

As Jill Pelto's art shows, glacier loss is a direct result of our planet's increasing temperatures.

As humans burn more and more fossil fuels, heat-trapping gases continue to be released into our environment, causing the planet to warm. Each of the 10 warmest years in recorded history has occurred within the past decade.

Not coincidentally, seven of the 10 years with the most glacier mass loss have occurred since 2010, Climate Central reports.

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And with glacier loss come major consequences. Glaciers are vital sources of fresh water and agricultural irrigation for people across the planet. Their melting also contributes greatly to global sea level rise, which could put coastal communities and wildlife at risk.

What's being done to protect glaciers?

Pelto's research focuses on Washington, but similar glacier loss is occurring all over the world. And the only real way to stop it is to reverse our planet's warming trend.

Global efforts, such as the Paris Agreement, are necessary for this. But so are local efforts, including ones in each home. That can be as simple as taking reusable grocery bags to the grocery store, or it can be a larger action, such as installing solar panels or buying an electric vehicle.

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