For over a decade, visitors at Montana’s Glacier National Park were greeted by signs stating that many of the park’s signature glaciers would melt by the year 2020.
Now that the year 2020 has begun, and the glaciers are still there and still frozen, the signs are being removed and replaced, according to a report by CNN.
Park spokeswoman Gina Kurzmen told reporters at KPAX that the placards were placed in the park based on U.S. Geological Survey data on climate change from the early 2000s.
According to CNN reports, officials at the park were told in 2017 that the U.S. Geological Survey no longer predicted the complete melting of the glaciers, but didn’t start removing signs until 2019. Many signs in the park remain into 2020 with their removal pending budgeting issues and permits, reports KPAX.
But the glaciers aren’t out of hot water yet. Signs in the park are not just being removed, but replaced with new signs, containing a similar warning.
The Washington Times reports new signs will read: “When they will completely disappear depends on how and when we act. One thing is consistent: the glaciers in the park are shrinking.”
While it may be easy to take glacier survival into 2020 as a victory, it is still evident to most observers that climate change is having an affect on glaciers across the globe. Iceland lost a glacier, Okjökull, in its entirety in 2019, and research teams at the University of Zurich have found that more than 9,000 billion tons of ice have melted since 1961.