(ENN) Alaska's Columbia Glacier has increased its speed from 82 feet per day to 115 feet per day in recent months and within the next few years it could fill Prince William Sound with icebergs, according to a University of Colorado glaciologist. Already the world's fastest moving glacier, the glacier is all of a sudden flowing even faster down its channel. Because icebergs are breaking off the glacier faster than the rate of flow, the glacier is retreating and may soon retreat back to where its channel rises above sea level.

Since 1982, the Columbia Glacier has retreated about seven miles. It is currently about 34 miles in length, three miles wide and more than 3,000 feet thick in places. The end of the glacier, known as a tidewater glacier, rests in waters 300 to 600 feet deep.

If the glacier continues to retreat the end of the glacier will soon be resting in waters that are 2,000 feet deep. Glaciologists are not sure why, but icebergs tend to calve off of glaciers more frequently when the glacial end is in deeper water.