Scientists believe that global warming is responsible for rerouting the flow of a glacier's melt, a phenomenon they're calling "river piracy" because it took all of the water out of one river and put it into another.

The Kaskawulsh glacier in Canada's northwestern Yukon territory would melt into the Slims River every spring, creating a powerful three-meter deep current that traveled northeast and fed Kluane Lake.  But global warming has shrunk the glacier to the point that the melt no longer even reaches the Slims River anymore, leaving it a dry, dusty canyon. 

This canyon now carries almost all meltwater from the toe of the glacier down the Kaskawulsh Valley and toward the Gulf of Alaska.

Instead, the water goes down a different slope in the opposite direction joining the Kaskawulsh River, raising its level significantly as it flows south toward the Gulf of Alaska.

Kaskawulsh River

Usually when rivers change direction, techtonic forces are to blame, and scientists believe that here is only a one-in-200 chance that the retreating glacier and river piracy is completely natural without man-made global warming.

"Geologists have seen river piracy, but nobody to our knowledge has documented it happening in our lifetimes," said UWT geoscientist Dan Shugar.  "People had looked at the geological record - thousands or millions of years ago - not the 21st century, where it's happening under our noses."

The loss of the Slims River has already resulted in the lowering of Kluane Lake. 

Kluane Lake's exposed pinnacles

The exposed sediments from the dry lake bed are being kicked up by the wind, creating dust storms in a once healthy valley.