From the UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH and the “lets ignore some of these other growing glaciers” department
The World Glacier Monitoring Service, domiciled at the University of Zurich, has compiled worldwide data on glacier changes for more than 120 years. Together with its National Correspondents in more than 30 countries, the international service just published a new comprehensive analysis of global glacier changes in the Journal of Glaciology. In this study, observations of the first decade of the 21st century (2001-2010) were compared to all available earlier data from in-situ, air-borne, and satellite-borne observations as well as to reconstructions from pictorial and written sources.
«The observed glaciers currently lose between half a metre and one metre of its ice thickness every year – this is two to three times more than the corresponding average of the 20th century», explains Michael Zemp, Director of the World Glacier Monitoring Service and lead author of the study. «Exact measurements of this ice loss are reported from a few hundred glaciers only. However, these results are qualitatively confirmed from field and satellite-based observations for tens of thousands of glaciers around the world.»
Global glacier decline
According to the international author team, the current rate of glacier melt is without precedence at global scale, at least for the time period observed and probably also for recorded history, as indicated also in reconstructions from written and illustrated documents. In addition, the study shows that the long-term retreat of glacier tongues is a global phenomenon. Intermittent re?advance periods at regional and decadal scales are normally restricted to a subsample of glaciers and have not come close to achieving the Little Ice Age maximum positions reached between the 16th and 19th century. As such, glacier tongues in Norway have retreated by some kilometres from its maximum extents in the 19th century. The intermittent re-advances of the 1990s were restricted to glaciers in the coastal area and to a few hundred metres.
In addition, the study indicates that the intense ice loss of the past two decades has resulted in a strong imbalance of glaciers in many regions of the world. «These glaciers will suffer further ice loss, even if climate remains stable», explains Michael Zemp.
###
The World Glacier Monitoring Service, with the support of its National Correspondents, compiles the results of worldwide glacier observations in annual calls-for-data. The current database contains more than 5,000 measurements of glacier volume and mass changes since 1850 and more than 42,000 front variations from observations and reconstructions reaching back to the 16th century. The international service is hosted at the Department of Geography of the University of Zurich, is co-financed by the Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss within the framework of GCOS Switzerland, and works under the auspices of several international organizations: http://www.wgms.ch
Literatur:
Zemp, Michael, Frey, H., Gärtner-Roer, I., Nussbaumer, S.U., Hoelzle, M., Paul, F., Haeberli, W., Denzinger, F., Ahlstroem, A.P., Anderson, B., Bajracharya, S., Baroni, C., Braun, L.N., Caceres, B.E., Casassa, G., Cobos, G., Davila, L.R., Delgado Granados, H., Demuth, M.N., Espizua, L., Fischer, A., Fujita, K., Gadek, B., Ghazanfar, A., Hagen, J.O., Holmlund, P., Karimi, N., Li, Z., Pelto, M., Pitte, P., Popovnin, V.V., Portocarrero, C.A., Prinz, R., Sangewar, C.V., Severskiy, I., Sigurdsson, O., Soruco, A., Usubaliev, R., and Vincent, C. (2015): Historically unprecedented global glacier decline in the early 21st century. Journal of Glaciology.
Doi: 10.3189/2015JoG15J017 [URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3189/2015JoG15J017]
My understanding is that more than 90% of the world’s glaciers are on the Antarctic continent and that the majority of the have been advancing in the past 30 years. Are any data available on aggregate ice mass in the global cryosphere or does the WGMS confine itself to easily accessible sites?
+1
B
It’s region dependent in Antarctica, but overall ice melt is much more than any increase. The GRACE satellite quantifies the loss – about 100 billion tonnes / year. From this 2015 research. http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S43/04/11E77/index.xml
The rest of the world is covered here, which again shows total glacier loss globally is much greater than increase: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/grace20120208.html
Grace has huge errors and within them it is possible to show any trend you want. Can anybody really expect some of those huge ice losses in temperatures much colder than -10 c all year round?
http://climateinsiders.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/800px-antarctic_surface_temperature.png?w=720
If those losses are anywhere near correct then it has nothing to do with climate in the region. Has anybody noticed great ice losses in their freezer? No?, me neither.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zMkTxvKAGRY/UuFRyF6YnGI/AAAAAAAADbo/ojOYR45qGGI/s640/20140124-Antarctica-GRACE-ice-mass-acceleration-rate1.jpg
The problem with GRACE is that it measures gravity, not ice. Changes in gravity can be due to a lot of different things beneath the surface of the ice. Antarctica has active magma chambers. Plate tectonics and isostasy also cause gravity changes.
GRACE shows increasing ice in Eastern Antarctica and mainly only huge losses in western Antarctica. Seems far fetched that air temperatures has anything to do with it.
Western Antarctica is known to have a huge volcanic active region and just so happens that the biggest ice losses are there.
Many do not appreciate just how much glaciers worldwide during the LIA. There is a summary here.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/01/25/glacial-advance-during-the-little-ice-age/
As HH Lamb commented
“Most – and perhaps all – of the glaciers present today in the United States Rockies south of the Canadian border are believed to have formed since 1500 BC.”
There is no evidence that the state of glaciers today is unusual
It will spell disaster for a lot of people when all the glaciers in the world stop melting and start growing.
This research group of the University of Zurich does know that it is a sort of lie to claim “faster than EVER”, because they know the findings of Prof. Christian Schlüchter and others (see e.g. here:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.ch/2013/07/paper-finds-alps-were-nearly-ice-free.html ),
which clearly indicated that the Alpine glaciers were much smaller in the Roman Warm Period 2000 years ago and certainly not bigger than today during the Medieval Warm Period, and therefore there is no need to go back until the Holocene Climate Optimum when the Alps were nearly ice-free.
So why do they still lie to the public by not mentioning this well known and (for them) rather inconvenient facts?
Because they are not true and consequently impartial scientists. They have an agenda and a clear target: COP 21 in Paris.
PS
They will claim to their apology that they only meant “faster than ever since the Little Ice Age”, but they know of course that the general public will only remember the head lines…
Nonsense! Glaciers are melting. The one in Alaska that is still growing is thinner and has received a lot of snow recently due to the polar vortex, which gave the eastern United States some of the coldest winters. The oceans are still getting warmer, the Himalayas glaciers are still melting, Greenland is still melting. Stick with the facts not some anecdotal baloney.
Glacier advances. forest is smothered.
Glacier recedes. dead forest discovered.
In-N-Out. In-N-Out. That’s what a glacier is all about.
I heard there was an old village exposed by a receding glacier in the Alps. One old cabin was still intact. Inside, researchers found an old sandwich—anecdotal baloney on wry.
@bobthebear
You missed the crucial point.
The majority of glaciers (apart of East Antarctica) are melting of course since we have overcome the temperature depression of the Little Ice Age at last (and have reached similar temps as in the MWP now). But it’s a lie to state they melt “faster than EVER”. Given the indisputable evidence of old trees (partly still with their roots in the ground) which emerge from under glaciers which are melting just now, and which can be dated rather precisely by the radiocarbon method, it’s absolutely clear that the Roman Warm Periode, the Minoan Warm Periode, and of course the Holocene Climate Optimum, were significantly warmer and must have melt the glaciers faster than today. Consequently there were much less remains of glaciers in the Alps than now. Even the Medieval Warm Period, with comparable temps as today, left some regions ice-free, which are still covered by glaciers today, as e.g. the so-called “Wetterlücke” in the Bernese Alps. For more information see here:
http://notrickszone.com/2014/06/09/giant-of-geologyglaciology-christian-schluechter-refutes-co2-feature-interview-throws-climate-science-into-disarray/#sthash.UGGINLxI.5yTcCxUI.dpbs
I may have missed your point, but my point is a lot simpler. All the scientist working today are aware of your point, but they still say that man made global warming is a fact and that it is warming faster than predicted. the facts are in ocean warming, ocean acidification, insects, mammals, birds moving to cooler areas. What is the purpose of your denial of what’s going on? If you are right no harm done, if you are wrong, catastrophe. Why not play it safe? Probability is on the side of the 97%.
@ur momisugly bobthebear
Well, your answer shows that you are a 150% believer of the main stream IPCC orthodoxy and that you are not aware or don’t want to engage with the manyfold informations, e.g. given here on wuwt, which deliver a lot of qualified reasons to doubt or at least discuss all the usual scare stories you mentioned (like ocean acidification, endangered animals etc.).
But, though it’s unlikely I can convince you, here is my reply:
– It is unethical and unscientifically to manipulate the general public by claiming in head lines “glacier melting faster than Ever” when this claim is simply and knowingly wrong.
– The infamous 97% study, though still often used in political propaganda, was just ridiculous because the majority of climate skeptics belong to the 97% given the imprecise categories used there.
– It is quite wrong to claim “All the scientist working today are aware of your point, but they still say that man made global warming is a fact and that it is warming faster than predicted.” Many working scientists are skeptical (you will find here on wuwt a lot of critical contributions of working scientists of all fields) and even some prominent climate researchers would not back your claim fully like Judith Curry or John Christy. BTW: The real question is not if “man made global warming is a fact”, but how much and will it be dangerous.
– There are some examples in science history when the majority of scientists an their “settled science” were actually totally wrong. For instance in plate tectonics, or quite recently, in the debate about “saturated fats and cholesterol in food as reasons for heart disease”.
– It is unethical and unscientifically to abuse opponents in a scientific discussion as “deniers” or people which do purposefully propagate “denial”.
– You asks “What is the purpose of your denial”? To make it clear: I have no financial interests in oil or coal at all? As a trained natural scientist myself, I’m only disgusted by the corruption of science and public communication by political goals and the ruling “zeitgeist”.
If you are right, I don’t believe in an catastrophic result for us or the planet. Warmth is better for mankind and nature than coldness, and humans can adapt. The real danger would be a new big ice age, which is rather overdue after about 12’000 years of our current interglacial.
– If you are wrong there is already done (and will be much more) harm owing to the current war on plant food CO2: The greening of the planet (because of more photosynthesis with less water) thanks to increased CO2 air concentrations will stop, especially in half deserts. And the energy prices will rise strongly, particularly for poor people and countries. BTW: Wind energy is ruining the landscape and kills many birds and bats. And other forms of Green Energy are also not very green at all. See e.g. here:
https://youtu.be/5igyXyJKL_0
‘reaching back to the 16th century.’
while that certainly leaves much for ‘adjustments ‘
‘the current rate of glacier melt is without precedence at global scale, at least for the time period observed and probably also for recorded history, ‘
well that is the BS tick box well and truly filled in in accordance with the ’cause’
Recorded history can be consider be a few thousand years old, and for most of that time the people recoding that history did not even know glaciers existed let alone record any factors related to them.
Tell us when they first had accurate measurements of glacier where taken , then we can see how much of recorded history that really represents..
Its pure Paris BS , and one of many to come .
Press release:
I’d rather more interested in minimum positions before the LIA. How small these glaciers were during the mediaeval times?
If diff between MWP min and LIA max is about the same as modern min and LIA max, then what is the news?
My take on that statement: what a f*cking surprise! It was an ICE Age. I just wonder how academics can be so stupid.
Even earlier the warming from AD 325 –
Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve located in southeastern, Alaska has a long and complex Holocene glacial history. Adams Inlet is a small inlet located within the East Arm of the Park where previous glacial stratigraphic and radiocarbon dating identified two major ice advances about 2500 and 1500 yr BP in the region. Ice from the West Arm flowed into the mouth of Muir Inlet from the lower bay area, while ice in upper Muir Inlet flowed eastward into the upper reaches of Adams Inlet, with lakes created during both events. Following these periods of ice advance and lake creation, ice advanced out of Adams and Muir Inlets into the lower bay during the Little Ice Age. Recession of the ice in Muir Inlet began about 1872 and continues today, with sediment infilling the bay concurrent with isostatic uplift. This study presents new tree ring data and calibrated radiocarbon dates that together with stratigraphic work details the First Millennium AD (FMA) advance for Adams Inlet including the Casement Glacier.Calendar dating of 87 tree cores and cross sections from detrital logs at five locations in Adams Inlet and a tree-ring-width series from Casement Glacier Valley from an overrun forest, show that trees were likely killed during three stages within approximately 200 years by a series of ice-related events centered on AD 600 years.
poster here – https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2012AM/webprogram/Handout/Paper210202/GSAPOSTER.pdf
“I just wonder how academics can be so stupid.”
It takes years of specialized training.
They’ve been taking ice core samples for years now. Some going back 800,000 years. Is that far enough? Step back and look at what is really happening. There’s plenty of evidence in favor of climate change, the deniers only have anecdotal evidence. In science that doesn’t cut it.
You said it, Bobthebear. There’s plenty of evidence in favor of climate change going back 800,000 years. I’ll bet it’s been going on even longer than that. Some people are in denial of this, and believe it’s only been changing for the past 150 years.
Eamon.
BS or not the trick here is that scientist say gletjers are melting so it must be tru. We can not argue whit this one because they already believe those scientist saying so.
‘Ronald on August 4, 2015 at
3:35 am
BS or not the trick here is that
scientist say gletjers are
melting so it must be tru.’
____
agreed, Ronald –
they may show small evidence.
But the label ‘science’ mimicks PROOF.
____
bad for science.
Hans
Oh my word, wait until the noble Lord Monckton sees this! I had the pleasure of seeing Christopher Monckton fielding a question as to “why are all the world’s glaciers melting?” at a lecture at Keele University in Staffordshire, UK, about three years ago. Without looking at notes he crushed his hapless, youthful, warmist inquisitor under a tonnage of referenced scientific papers (with dates and names of leading researchers) which showed emphatically that most glaciers were not melting.
So come on Lord Monckton! It is a cold, rainy, cloudy day here in England (high summer, of course) and we can feel the cold breath of a mini Ice Age pressing on our children’s necks, so please bring some cheer in the form of your glittering aperçus on the state of the earth’s glaciers….
Funny your need to go back to 2012, (recent alarmist good news must be scarce) and idiotic to think potboler had some influence on what Monckton writes about.
Contrary to The world is ending climate sites that will not publish Monckton other than through quote mining, Wattsupwiththat published Hadfield’s response in full. Which sites have more integrity, hmmm?
Interglacial, duh!
Time to panic when the glaciers are not melting, or as in the case of Europeans in the LIA, time to start praying.
We are about 10,000 years into an interglacial, which usually take about 10,000 years. So just to give you high hopes that CO2 can actually stop the next ice age starting before year 2100.
We are more like 12,500 years into this Interglacial. We are (over)due for the 85,000 years Glacial period.
If you regard the temperature trend from the peak of Holocene warmth, which was roughly 7,000 to 8,000 years ago, then quite the contrary, we have been sliding steadily into a glacial period since that point, which was also the period of maximum sea level if we accept evidence from the Pacific, Gulph of Mexico, Brazil, etc., where evidence indicates a marine high stand about 1.5 meters above the present. The cooling slope is not as abrupt as say the Illinoisian, but quite definitely there.
‘the current rate of glacier melt is without precedence at global scale, at least for the time period observed and probably also for recorded history, ‘
So is it without precedence at global scale or without precedence for the time period observed or without precedence for probably aw forget it!
I cheer them. They didn’t say ‘unprecedented’.
The authors knew you would be looking for “unprecedented” and changed it to: “. . .without precedence at a global scale. . .” They are devious and cunning, and bear close watching at all times.
I don’t know whether to save the glaciers first or the polar bears.
Decisions, decisions, decisions. It is just too much.
Don’t worry, relax and have another gin. They will save themselves.
Er, yes. The Earth seems to have got a bit warmer since the Little Ice Age, which is about the time they started measuring glaciers. I would expect some glaciers to melt a bit, and to melt faster than they did in the LIA. Why is this big news?
All must be made to fear uncontrolled nature and accept the belief that—with enough money and power—a cabal of enlightened regulators can ensure climatological stasis.
Some UN junk science propaganda on glaciers.
http://www.grid.unep.ch/glaciers/
“Albedo”. Carbon black (soot) explains nearly all of this.
Since we know glaciers were further receded in historical times, this is likely another example of how the climate obsession is hurting, not helping, the advance of science.
If a wx-forecaster fails it will be known within hours. If a glacial forecast fails it will take hundreds of years until impact. Glaceologists do make apodictic statements and are always right. What great a pleasure for them…
They don’t have to make forecasts, they have photos. The glaciers are melting every where.. Whether one likes it or not, they’re disappearing.
They got photos from several hundred years ahead, from the future? Really?
I saw this on Swiss news last night. The favorite “go to” are pictures of the Rhone glacier from the mid-1800s. It has indeed receded dramatically since then. Of course, they never mention that it’s extent was due to the Little Ice Age, which officially ended around 1850. So of course it’s smaller today.
The National Park Service pamphlet on Glacier Bay has a short history on glacier activity of the bay. What is now the bay was dry land ca 1600AD, then was completely filled by glaciers in 1800AD and the glaciers have been receding since. Sounds like LIA to me.
About 100 miles NW of Glacier Bay NP is Hubbard Glacier, which is the largest tidewater glacier in North America. It has been advancing since 1895:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-001-03/
Man is a law-making animal. We observe events and then generalize the impact of these observations into laws of nature and/or rules of conduct. But often very shallow reasoning is used to make these laws (a.k.a. “superstitions”).
“I got sick yesterday after eating that new food. So it must be cause. Don’t eat that food any more!”
“These glaciers are melting. They are probably melting all over the world because of global warming. Don’t make any more CO2!”
To make good rules about glaciers we need reliable metrics. Are there any objective global metrics that can measure the true state and trend of glaciers today with respect to their climate, geography, longevity and historical condition?
http://www.glims.org/RGI/
“The ice is melting” is such a great Alarmist talking point. They can cherry pick the glaciers and their time interval, and ignore inconvenient facts like it is only fairly recently that ice thickness has been measured, and factors such as sublimation. They are banking on people’s ignorance, laziness, and willingness to Believe, because the CAGW gravy train has some miles still left in her.
What do you mean by ignoring sublimation? Do you mean sublimation is not ‘melting’? That is not the point..
Sublimation is not equivalent to melting in the sense that it can make ice ‘disappear’ below the freezing point of water. Melting requires temperature to rise, sublimation doesn’t.
So ice mass can disappear without the ‘help’ of global warming.
Er.. well it could theoretically be GW caused even if it didn’t melt. The pressure at which ice sublimes increases with temp, even when they are below freezing point.
Sublimation can cause ice to disappear only if the ice is not renewed. That would be due to drier air – thus cooler air, not warmer. So, AGW is an unlikely culprit.
They also ignore changes in precipitation. For example, the Kilimanjaro glaciers were decreasing because of drop in rainfall caused by deforestation. The area in question was actually getting colder.
For those who want to make up their own mind look at this:
The Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI 5.0) is a global inventory of glacier outlines. It is supplemental to the Global Land Ice Measurements from Space initiative (GLIMS). Production of the RGI was motivated by the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR5). Future updates will be made to the RGI and the GLIMS Glacier Database in parallel during a transition period. As all these data are incorporated into the GLIMS Glacier Database and as download tools are developed to obtain GLIMS data in the RGI data format, the RGI will evolve into a downloadable subset of GLIMS, offering complete one-time coverage, version control, and a standard set of attributes.
http://www.glims.org/RGI/
In your link I see that the GLIMS folks freely admit that RGI was motivated by the IPCC:
“Production of the RGI was motivated by the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR5). “
So it is very difficult for me to believe that RGI management is not somehow influenced by this very powerful organization whose main goal is to serve as a lobbyist for global political activism, not for the sake of pure science (scientia sit ad scientiam propter)
I am with you, but have we got anything similar or better but unbiased?
That was my original question. It’s hard to find groups that don’t have an ax to grind, one way or another.
I usually like to take a look at the paper before trying to judge anything about it. Thankfully Anthony provided the link (Science journalists everywhere should follow his example). Also thankfully, the article is open access. Unfortunately, it did me no good because the “download paper” button does nothing. I was going to blame my computer for that until I noticed at the top of the page there’s a spot where it simply says “Journal of Glaciology Logo”…instead of the logo they have text to say where it goes. Give that it’s 2015 and the journal can’t even set up a functional website, I think I’ll go ahead and judge the quality of the research they publish without having read any of their articles.
I had no problem downloading all 18 pages of the document, using the latest FireFox browser. Try again.
This works fine with me:
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/igsoc/jog/pre-prints/content-ings_jog_15j017
The download button is in the middle
It would be interesting to see what the average for the 20th century they used. It would also be interesting to see how much decadal variability there is in the data. That would tell you if the current situation is outside the norm. But a claim like “Three times the recent average!” does sound like warm-up for Paris.
How Timely:
It is not temperature driving the purported melt.
Dr. Roy Spencer updated UAH 6.0 on his blog yesterday, global at +0.18 deg.
The Great Pause now at 18 years, 5 months with UAH v6.0b data and counting, gaining one month. I must say I did not expect to gain a month with an El Nino in progress.
And if RSS shows a similar drop in July, it will be at 18 years and 7 months.
Could be due to the blob. The tropics are warm but the NH is not as warm as it normally is during an El Nino. It could be the blob is not releasing as much energy into the atmosphere which is the reason for its existence and will hamper warming from the El Nino.
You can soot yourself over this topic.
[Ah, but have the readers, the writers, or the over-wrought righters-of-the-world soot themselves in the foot over this problem? .mod]
Perhaps that have soot themselves in their pants? Speaking of which the Aussies are going to save the world from cow burps. http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/diet-change-cuts-methane-emissions-in-cow-burps-20150804-girf6l.html
i put this report in the bin marked – Muir glacier-
As flagged up here on WUWT a while back , most of the ice loss happened in the early 20th century. Another alarmist claim that fell apart on closer inspection – of photographs.
The problem is: I no longer trust anything these people say. Why should I?
It’s funny that it’s UZ, since many of the glaciers in Switzerland have been growing over the last few years, and many of the North Slope Glaciers in the Himalayan Mountains are reported to be growing rapidly, although the Chinese do not allow anything close to routine monitoring, (you can be arrested for spying if you just take pictures without the permission of you state sponsored guide).
I’ve been on about 40 major glaciers and/or snowfields in the past 30 years, most of them in the European Alps, with a lot of time spent near Zermatt and Solden. Many snowfields saw substantial declines in the 90’s. But there’s also some general agreement among local guides that the primary culprit was the use of dirty diesel and the increased truck traffic as transit across Europe became more and more open. More than one ski was company was actually formulating glide waxes based on the notion that there were some substantial hydrocarbon residues at many of the World Cup venues. As the diesel fuel gets cleaned up the glaciers appear to be growing.
Conclusion: Schreibtischforschung or Davenport desk research.
National Geographic move the dates of Arctic sea ice extent to grovel to Obama.
So the National Geographic atlas is now “different” to every other Atlas.
They also conveniently decided to show the extent during 2012, one of the years of lesser extent.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/150803-arctic-ice-obama-climate-nation-science/
From that article:
BS!
“The ice is melting, the oceans they are rising, and as for the sky, she is falling” – Chicken Little, in his calmer state of mind.
Why is ANYONE surprised that as we exit the Little Ice Age, glaciers melt???
So, that’s why our rivers are shrinking. Hey? Disappearing of snow is not due to melting faster but snow not being added regularly as used to be because frequency of rain is decreasing.