Mountains Are Breaking Down

Climate change, landslides, and the science of predicting disasters

Imagine standing beside a beautiful glacier lake in Alaska. Tour boats move across the water. Mountains rise high above the valley. Everything looks calm.

But hidden inside the mountains, the ground is slowly moving.

In some places, entire sections of rock are creeping downhill by several feet every year. Scientists fear that one day these slopes could suddenly collapse, creating enormous landslides and giant tsunami waves.

And climate change is making the danger worse.