bordered on the left by the Black Buttes
(an older [half a billion years ago] volcano that was destroyed
by the current volcano [Mt. Baker] sometime in the last 140,000 years.

When I came over the ridge and saw this I said OMG!!!
It was something primordial. The topography is so raw,
its awe-inspiring. To see a river of ice falling is pretty cool.
You could hear the waterfalls (there are two if you look closely)
and for the first time in so many years, the sound of large blocks
of ice falling to the rocks below, making a beautiful booom.

The exposed rock in the middle of the Deming Glacier is Portrait Rock
(see the waterfall on it's lower right side?). The peak directly above
Portrait is Colfax Peak (9,155 ft.). Lincoln is on it's left and
Grant Peak is on it's right.

The upper portion of the Deming Glacier is not in bad shape so that
if it doesn't get any warmer than the one degree rise we've experienced,
it would re-stabilize.

Unfortunately, we are now on track to raise the world's average
temperature by 4-6 degrees C (7-11 degrees F) by 2100.
(This is the IPCC's A1F1 scenario - considered the severe scenario.).
There is enough carbon still in the ground to raise the temperature
to 10 degrees C (18 degrees F).

While some researchers say no problem many others say Armageddon type impacts.
The major scientific issue is no one has a good handle on
determining what the extreme values will be. They are just
now hypothesizing what the climatic impacts will be from the
loss of the arctic ice cap during the summer which is expected
to happen much sooner than thought.

Mean temperature is relatively easy to determine as its basically
an energy mass balance. What all this extra heat/energy does to
the jet stream, oceanic impacts, and extreme events is a bit of an unknown.

All in all, it doesn't look good.