At the head of an Alaska fjord, a slab of Dawes Glacier breaks loose with a sound between a crack and a thunderclap, drops into the sea and throws up a wall of white water. Hundreds of passengers at the ship’s railing gasp at once. Calving is one of the signature sights of an Alaska cruise, and it is also the glacier breaking apart, which is happening quicker now than it did a generation ago.

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