Page 21 - Flathead Beacon // 9.2.15

But Fagre focuses on more than melt- ing glaciers. He has dedicated most of his research time to seeing what impacts climate change is having on mountain ecosystems as a whole. Among the issues Fagre and his small team have studied include changes to alpine vegetation, snowpack and avalanches. In one recent study, Fagre’s team studied pollutants in snow samples. Much to their sur- prise, the snow included chemicals like Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, which are banned in the United States but are still used in parts of Asia; meaning they arrived in Glacier through Trans-Pacific weather patterns. Fagre’s likened his research to a good detective novel.
“The questions pile up much faster than answers and the more you study the more you start asking questions about this, that and the other. It’s an endlessly fascinating story,” he said.
In many ways, Fagre has become the spokesperson for climate change in Gla- cier Park, having appeared in dozens of newspaper and magazine stories over the last decade. In 1997, he guided Vice Pres- ident Al Gore to the Grinnell Glacier (on a recent trip to the glacier, he pointed out the massive rock the vice president hid behind to change out of his sweaty shirt before speaking to the media).
A colleague, Erich Peitzsch, said one of Fagre’s greatest talents is being able to “translate science to any audience.” Peitzsch, who has worked with the USGS
since 2007 and is also director of the Flat- head Avalanche Center, said the skill is especially important because it’s easy for people to get lost and confused in dense scientific data.
“He is a wealth of knowledge,” Peitzsch said. “There is no shortage of information from Dan.”
But sometimes the most complex issues can be conveyed in a photograph. Fagre and others at the USGS office in West Gla- cier have spent years working on the gla- cier recession repeat photography proj- ect. Fagre said someone with the National Park Service first showed him before and afterphotosofsomeofthepark’sglaciers more than 20 years ago and the differ- ences shocked him.
Since then he has worked with Lisa McKeon, a USGS physical scientist who has been at Glacier since 1997, on gather- ing historic photos and then going out and repeating them to show just how much the glaciers have changed. The photos have been used in textbooks, documen- taries and even in an Italian shoe catalog.
“People have found some really cre- ative uses for our photos and that’s great,” he said. “We have all of our science papers in PDF form online but no one downloads them. But there are days where 8,000 people have looked at our repeat photos online.”
While the photos are critical in con- veying information, Fagre is now also using them to gather data; specifically, he
ABOVE Dan Fagre checks his GPS as he takes repeat photographs of Grinnell, Salamander and Gem glaciers.
LEFT Fagre scrambles over boulders as he crosses the water pouring out of upper Grinnell Lake.
GREG LINDSTROM | FLATHEAD BEACON
SEPTEMBER 2, 2015 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
21