An international team of scientists from the US, UK, Norway, and several other countries has warned that Alaska's Juneau icefield, one of the largest icefields in North America, is approaching the point of no return. The respective research was published in the scientific journal Nature Communications (NatComms).

The Juneau icefield covers an area of about 3,900 square kilometers and includes more than 1,000 glaciers.

In the new study, the team found that the area of the Juneau icefield covered by snow today is declining 4.6 times faster than before the early 1980s. Between 2010 and 2020, this icefield lost about six cubic kilometers of ice per year.

The rate at which this ice sheet is turning into meltwater is currently about 189,200 liters per second—which is faster than ever before.

The scientists noted that the Juno icefield has become an example of a climate feedback loop.

The data show that as snowpack decreases and the summer melt season lengthens, the icefield darkens. Fresh white snow is highly reflective, reflecting much of the sun's energy back into space.

But the snowline continues to retreat, exposing older, darker ice. These surfaces absorb more energy, increasing the melting of snow and ice. As a result, less snow falls on the icefield, it melts more, and so on.