For the first time on record, human-caused climate change has rerouted an entire river

A team of scientists have documented what they're describing as the first case of large-scale river reorganisation as a result of human-caused climate change.

A close-up view of the ice-walled canyon at
the terminus of the Kaskawulsh Glacier, with
recently collapsed ice blocks, taken in 2016.

They found that in mid-2016, the retreat of a very large glacier in Canada's Yukon territory led to the rerouting of its vast stream of meltwater from one river system to another - cutting down flow to the Yukon's largest lake, and channelling freshwater to the Pacific Ocean south of Alaska, rather than to the Bering Sea.

The researchers dubbed the reorganisation an act of "rapid river piracy," saying that such events had often occurred in the Earth's geologic past, but never before, to their knowledge, as a sudden present-day event. They also called it "geologically instantaneous.”

The process that would ordinarily take thousands of years - or more - happened in just a few months in 2016.

Read Chris Mooney’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “For the first time on record, human-caused climate change has rerouted an entire river.”