--- title: Climate Change: Canadian River Disappears description: Scientists said the river flowing from the Kaskawulsh Glacier rerouted, which normally takes thousands of years, in just a few months canonical: https://time.com/4744208/canada-river-glacier-recede-climate-change/ author: Mahita Gajanan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-04-18T13:27:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:04:14.774Z article:section: Science og:title: Canadian River Gone Due to Climate Change, Scientists Say og:description: A river flowing from a glacier rerouted, which normally takes thousands of years og:url: https://time.com/4744208/canada-river-glacier-recede-climate-change/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Canadian River Gone Due to Climate Change, Scientists Say twitter:description: A river flowing from a glacier rerouted, which normally takes thousands of years twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # An Entire Canadian River Vanished Due to Climate Change, Researchers Say ## Video: Three Decades of Earth Seen From Space [Watch (HLS stream): Three Decades of Earth Seen From Space](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/lYIwmkts.m3u8) (2:16)  _Published 2016-11-29. Various views of Earth taken via satellite from 1984 to 2016._ by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Apr 18, 2017 1:27 PM UTC by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Apr 18, 2017 1:27 PM UTC Scientists said a river that flowed from one of Canada’s [largest glaciers](http://time.com/3894137/antarctica-glaciers-melting/) was rerouted — a process that normally takes thousands of years — in just a few months, due to climate change. Meltwater that usually flows north from the Kaskawulsh Glacier into the Bering Sea through the Slims and Yukon Rivers was diverted south in 2016 in what researchers dubbed “river piracy,” or when one river hijacks the water flow of another. The water now goes into the Pacific Ocean. A paper published in [Nature Geoscience](http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2932.html) on Monday documented how global warming impacted the retreat of the glacier and altered the river drainage pattern at a rapid pace. “Based on satellite image analysis and a signal-to-noise ratio as a metric of glacier retreat, we conclude that this instance of river piracy was due to post-industrial climate change,” the authors wrote. The now mostly dry Slims riverbed went through several dust storms through spring and summer 2016, according to the study. Researchers were taken aback by how quickly the “river piracy” occurred. “We may be surprised by what climate change has in store for us — and some of the effects might be much more rapid than we are expecting,” lead author Daniel Shugar [told the New York _Times_](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/science/climate-change-glacier-yukon-river.html?%5Fr=0). 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