In contrast to your failure to cite anything, BBC’s conversations with scientists strike me as quite credible. Those reports would be legal in a court of law. They’re based on good research. Your opinion is pretty low, I admit, but I have nothing to suggest your opinion is better than any reporter anywhere. I regret I don’t know your science chops, but there you have it.

Of course glaciers advance and retreat on the basis of precipitation. Seasonally, there should be both advances and retreats; in some periods, glaciers should advance or retreat for a decade or so at a time. The reports I listed indicate glacier decline is a century-long trend in most cases. You’ve offered nothing in rebuttal.

So, since this is a century-long decline, which the science reports say are not the seasonal advances you offered, is there a reason I should have accepted your note as something more than it was?

I regret your joy at glacial decline. I wish you had evidence that would offer a glimmer of rebuttal to the claim that it’s human-caused activities that is causing the decline. Maybe someone with more information than you have will offer such a report.

The BBC’s opinion, however, is incredible. As in: not credible. And that link on Alpine glaciers only reports on a specific, localized area, not on global anything, which makes it a weather report. And it is from 2004 — meaning that the data was probably taken from the preceding decade, when temps were temporarily rising. Now, temperatures are falling, big time. That fact outdates your cite, no?

And Ed, you didn’t read the link I posted @09:44:28, did you? The information that glaciers advance and recede is primarily dependent on precipitation seemed to go right over your head too. That’s unfortunate, because precipitation is the cause of glaciers’ advance and retreat, not the silly, repeatedly falsified AGW hypothesis.

But that’s OK, you have your glaciers, and if their putative recession makes you happy, then I’m happy for you.

It’s got nothing to do with AGW, though.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119079325/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

Chacaltaya (in Bolivia) has lost 80% of its area in last two decades:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6496429.stm

Rapid decline of Alpine glaciers observed with satellite data, Geophysical Research Letters, 2004:
http://66.102.1.104/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:5CH9G0de9H4J:folk.uio.no/kaeaeb/publications/grl04_paul.pdf+

Switzerland’s glaciers are shrunken by two-thirds, and experts say almost all mountainous, non-polar glaciers are shrinking:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/glaciation/glaciersrev4.shtml

Almost all European glaciers are shrinking faster than had been expected:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7299561.stm

And I don’t reject peer reviewed data. I had asked you for more timely peer reviewed data, rather than your 1990 article. You could look it up @3:52:06^

The fact is that glaciers are fed by precipitation. A 0.6 degree C change in global temps isn’t going to make glaciers melt.

Is my statement in error? Show us the data. Got no data? That’s what I thought.

It is not the job of skeptics, or their duty, to prove that the climate is not well within its normal historical parameters.

It is the duty of climate alarmists who hypothesize runaway global warming and climate catastrophe, as a result of AGW, to prove their case. They have failed to do so.

I am willing to debate AGW, but you must submit something more credible than 1990 data, or an unfounded opinion from the Society of Environmental Journalists. I know you probably believe they are credible and even-handed. But they are not. They have an agenda, as we can see from the name of their organization.

If you can not provide timely peer-reviewed data that states [as you have stated] that only a “tiny” number of glaciers are advancing, then your AGW/CO2/catastrophe hypothesis fails. Doesn’t it? Because the climate alarmist contingent has the obligation, per the scientific method, to prove that we’re headed for runaway global warming as a result of an extremely small addition of CO2 to the atmosphere. Serious proof of that conjecture would be much appreciated.

The Sunset maps are good, I agree, E. M. Smith. Of course, they show warming, compared to the Ag maps. No, you wouldn’t have much change since the latest edition of the Sunset maps. But if you compare them to the 1990 USDA maps, you see the changes. There are differences between the Sunset and AHS maps, too — but nothing in the Sunset stuff suggests any problem with AHS’s conclusions that plants formerly hardy in many cities, no longer are, and that there is definite northward creep in plant zones.

Especially, nothing refutes the annual march of springtime. It’s not shown on the hardiness maps, but it’s still there.

Forgive me if I don’t buy into the pronouncements of the “Society of Environmental Journalists.” A couple of selected counties in Florida do not mean anything at all with regard to planetary climate change. You can always find specific locations that vary from the mean.

And your link to “Shrinking glaciers worldwide” is also risible. The date on the link is January 1999. See here for what has transpired since.

Is that the best you can do?

Here’s a note from the University of Wyoming on shrinking glaciers worldwide:
http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap10/nzglacier.html

Good and bad news from melting glaciers and decreasing sea ice in and around Greenland:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1001/p01s02-wogn.html

How climate change contributes to disaster in Darfur:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0727/p01s04-woaf.html

I think this is the current USDA map, from the National Arboretum — it’s based on the 1990 USDA update:
http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html

The American Horticulture Society has a grant to update the USDA maps; here’s a story on that process:
http://gardening.about.com/od/gardenprimer/a/Zone_Changes.htm

That’s three links, which probably push the spam filter limits on the blog.

http://www.iceagenow.com/PlantHardinessMaps.htm

Show me these maps, please. I’ve been alive and active in farming and gardening over those years and don’t remember seeing a lot of revising going on. My “Sunset Garden Book”(s) that have finer grained planting maps that the USDA show no change… (And yes, I have them from a 30+yr span)

until you convince me that pine trees, grasses and palm trees are moving north because they mistakenly trusted the weather station reports, I think it’s rather obvious that warming is an issue, it’s gone on for a long time, and it continues.

Again, a citation please. When I was a kid Oranges had a northern limit from cold. They still have the same limit. 10 miles north of where I grew up. Nothing has changed. My maps of the “northern limit of palms” shows no change. I see no new palm forests growing north of where they were before. I can still just barely get Saint Augustine grass to grow because it’s too cold for it. So show me the evidence that what you claim is happening really is happening…

BTW, this recent blizzard is sure going to crimp your style on showing any northern progress for palms … any that were alive above the northern limit will not be now.

Show me the planting zone where tropical plants are NOT moving north (or south, on the other side of the equator), and you’ll make step toward convincing me that warming isn’t going on.

Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. You made the claim that something different is happening, you have to provide the evidence. I have no need to “prove a negative”.

But just because I’m a good sport, try Sunset Garden zones 15 & 16. I live in it. Still can’t get cotton to grow worth a damn. Still can’t get Saint Augustine to stop sulking. Still have dormant Burmuda Grass in winter. Still have limited selection of fruits I can grow. Still can’t grow a banana tree (that DOES grow just a few hundred miles south of me…) AND still grow decent cherries and peaches that MUST HAVE enough winter chill to set fruit. This set means summers have not warmed and neither have winters.

And please don’t bother trying to complain about Sunset vs USDA. The Sunset zones are far more fine grained than the USDA and would show any changes far faster than the USDA zones.

Ed, you have so far provided NO evidence or citations. If you expect folks to interact with you for long you will need to provide some evidence, not just hand waving.

A stop to warming would disprove climate change — or more specifically, a stop to climate change.

Hmmm, I am confused here. There is no way to stop climate change. It has been changing in a cyclic fashion for a very long time, and it is likely that any cyclic behavior is superimposed on a gradual rise resulting from the fact that we came out of a big ice age some time ago.

Also, you seem to be confused. A stop to warming would not disprove climate change. Please also provide a theory of climate stability.