A couple of things to consider, especially about the glaciers retreating.
All glaciers in Alaska aren't retreating. Some are advancing. In the same icefield some are retreating while others advance (College Fjord is an example). The galloping Hubbard Glacier (near Yakutat) advanced so much two years ago that it sealed off Disenchantment Bay and created Russell Lake. The dam has broke now, but the ice is still very close to making landfall again.
Another thought is that glaciers have been retreating since the last ice age, if they hadn't, there would be no Valdez, and the majority of the Sound would still be ice-locked. The Bagley Icefield, the largest subpolar icefield in the hemisphere, seems to be thickening, from the last reports published. This will cause some glaciers to advance. The areas of Vitus and Berg Lakes at the terminus of the Bering glacier vary substantially from one year to the next, some years the different lobes of the glacier advance and some years they retreat. In 86 the Steller lobe advanced suddenly and sealed Berg Lakes until pressure undercut the glacier and flooded the entire Bering River valley.
While we may be warming, I'm not convinced its as much doom and gloom as has been reported the last several years. Some of this warming trend is cyclical. This warming trend started some 10,000 years ago. The hasty retreat of the Columbia will probably cease or at least slow greatly when the glacier retreats to land. The Columbia experienced this exact phenomena when it "beached" against Heather Island and the subtidal zone along that formation. After it receeded over that high point, with nothing to support it, it retreated more hastily again. The effects of the warmer ocean currents of El Nino also played a large role.
The Malaspina Glacier near Yakutat is an ideal study for the effects of the "warming" environment. Since it is the largest Piedmont style glacier in North America and is land based, there are no other factors causing recession or advancement, other than air temp and snowfall. In other words, El Nino or ocean storms don't have the single year dramatic effects on it the way they would on a tidewater glacier.
For the past 3 or 4 years we've had "mild" winters compared to what we have seen in the past. However, if you look at the record cold temps and record highs, most of the record cold temps are fairly recent. Record high's are usually date from the 40's and 50's. It does seem that every year we do see a high temp or low temp record being broken though.
A good record and plot of current temps and historical temps can be found at
http://pafc.arh.noaa.gov/As far as the global warming effecting
hunting, I haven't seen any real noticeable effects.
