Featured Image Credit: mscornelius / Getty
The world is changing at an ever-increasing pace, and while climate change deniers continue to say it's all a hoax, floods, soaring temperatures, droughts, and an increase in devastating weather phenomena suggest otherwise.
When it comes to monitoring the state of our little third rock from the Sun, NASA helps keep a close eye on what's going on. While it's not known for giving us the most cheerful news, NASA has reported on everything from China's Three Gorges Dam slowing down the Earth's rotation, claims that the planet is running out of oxygen, and delivering horrifying simulations on how Earth could be 'ejected' from the solar system.
Continuing that theme of doom and gloom, NASA has flagged the concerning creation of a new landmass in Alaska. We recently covered how the Alaska capital of Juneau was battling record levels of snowmelt amid fears it could be swallowed by floods, but now, NASA has reported on a continuously melting glacier that has created a brand-new island.
Mindblowing retreat of freshwater calving Alsek Glacier between 2009 and 2023... more than 3 km! ❄️🤬
— Melaine Le Roy (@subfossilguy) August 15, 2023
Glacier Bay NP, Alaska.
Source @WaterSHEDLab
1/ pic.twitter.com/LGpRHjFwWM
A statement confirms how "water is rapidly replacing ice" along the coastal plain of southeastern Alaska, and as glaciers in the area continue to thin, a new island has appeared in Alsek Lake.
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Although the Alsek Glacier once surrounded Prow Knob, it broke from the small mountain in summer 2025 and left a five-square-kilometer island surrounded by the waters of the lake.
Over the past 40 years, both arms of the Alsek Glacier have retreated by more than five kilometers and have carved a proglacial lake.
According to glaciologist Mauri Pelto, the glacier terminated at Gateway Knob (five kilometers west of Prow Knob) in the early 20th Century. Pelto first observed the glacier in 1984, but got information from the late glaciologist, Austin Post.
Post took aerial photographs in August 1960 and told Pelto that he came up with the name (once referred to as a nunatak) because of how it resembled a ship’s prow. By 2016, two tributaries had stopped supplying the glacier with ice, and things accelerated from there.
With Alsek Lake continuing to grow as it fills the gap left by the equally retreating Grand Plateau Glacier, updated satellite imagery shows off the island.
There are obvious fears about climate change, and looking at the above, you can see how some of the mountain's perimeter had been converted to lakeshore as early as 1984. Both glaciers were retreating in 1999, and in 2025, the size of Alsek Lake has nearly doubled from 45 square kilometers to 75 square kilometers.
Amid concerns about Antarctica's 'doomsday' glacier's rapid melting and potential to affect sea levels, NASA and other agencies continue to monitor global temperatures and how the various delicate ecosystems continue to remain in balance.
Even though the formation of the island isn't exactly cause for celebration, Pelto previously spoke to NASA about the importance of studying glaciers: "The lakes that are forming in this region are immense, starting at the mountains and spreading toward the coast, making this a new lake district that is unique in our nation."
It's not just NASA that's keeping tabs on glaciers, and on March 21, 2025, the United Nations declared the first World Day for Glaciers in hopes of conservation.
