Weather variations, not global warming cause glacier melt
From the The Hindu, 9 August 2009
excerpts:
New Delhi (PTI): Himalayan glaciers, including the world’s highest battlefield Siachen, are melting due to variations in weather and not because of global warming, Jammu University scientists have claimed.
…
Geologists R K Ganjoo and M N Koul of Jammu University’s Regional Centre for Field Operations and Research of Himalayan Glaciology visited the Siachen glacier to record changes in its snout last summer.
“To our surprise, the Siachen glacier valley does not preserve evidences of glaciation older than mid-Holocene, suggesting that the glacier must have advanced and retreated simultaneously several times in the geological past, resulting in complete obliteration and modification of older evidences,” they said reporting their findings in ‘Current Science’.
Ganjoo and Koul dubbed as “hype” some earlier studies which suggested that the Himalayan glaciers were melting fast and caused serious damage to the Himalayan ecosystem.
There is sufficient field and meteorological evidence from the other side of Karakoram mountains that corroborate the fact that glaciers in this part of the world are not affected by global warming, they said.
…
Ganjoo said that the east part of the Siachen glacier showed faster withdrawal of the snout that is essentially due to ice-calving, a phenomenon that holds true for almost all major glaciers in the Himalayas and occurs irrespective of global warming.
…
Ganjoo contended the Siachen glacier shows hardly any retreat in its middle part and thus defies the “hype” of rapid melting.
The research findings by R.K. Ganjoo and M.N. Koul are published in today’s issue of CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 97, NO. 3, 10 AUGUST 2009 and are available at http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/aug102009/309.pdf
(h/t to Benny Peiser)
dorlomin (15:15:00) :
“From memory I recall it was the antarctic but I may well be wrong”
There was also a post on the Arctic, the post that incidently brought this place to my attention as it was suddenly turning up all over the place.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/25/surprise-explosive-volcanic-eruption-under-the-arctic-ice-found/
Thanks for the pointer – before my time at WUWT. Reading the article is interesting – I quote: “What is unique about this situation is that it was a large eruption that went completely undetected, and under pressures that they thought not possible. The big question is then; where did the heat from the volcano go, and what effect did it have on the sea ice environment? Another question is how much CO2 would such an eruption emit, and how long would it take to outgas?”
Seems to be raising some quite reasonable points to me – nothing wrong with asking questions and/or suggesting alternatives; when we’re talking fractions of percentages of gas volumes, temperature changes and so on, it seems sensible to ask if other factors could be contributing to that.
“Watts, I don’t think WUWT claims to be a science blog per se”
Well someone does.
“2008 Winner Best Science Blog”
Indeed and when the time to vote comes around it’ll get my nod too. Do I think WUWT is a true ‘hard-science’ blog – no. Do I think it’s informative, friendly, accessible and a good route to some interesting science (which may well not get a wider audience in the current ‘climate’) then yes, absolutely.
Do I think the BBC’s ‘Sky at night’ is an excellent astronomy TV programme – yes for the same reasons as above; is it on the same technical level as the the (ex BBC) Open University’s Astronomy BSc-Course TV programmes – no. (Does it therefore mean that the ‘Sky at night’ isn’t presenting valid facts/theories/views – no).
Cheers
Mark
When I was up in the high Karakoram in the late ’90s, our guide pointed out all the glaciers that were retreating and extending. There did not seem to be much rhyme or reason to the pattern.
Smokey:
“BTW, chart #1 shows declining temps over most of the past decade”
Seriously, how delusional can you get? The data comes from HadCRUT. Get hold of it. Fit a trend. It’s going up, regardless of your constant stream of misunderstandings. The data is laughing in your face, Smokey.
“Same with chart #2, which shows current temps not much different than 1979-80 temps.”
Take a cold month in a hot period, and a hot month in a cold period, and they might look similar. Very young children can actually grasp the point that comparing outliers is stupid.
“anthropogenic CO2 [about 3% of total CO2]”
110ppm out of 390 total = 28%.
“That might be believable – if the planet’s temperature was rising right along with the increase in CO2. But it’s not, no matter how much you wish it was.”
Are you blind?
Mark T:
“Really? Why not? What is the proper length? There are dozens if not hundreds of cycles present in the temperature record so any length “trend” is just as arbitrary as the next. Why don’t we use a length of 100,000 years? I’ll tell you why: because the trend doesn’t go the way YOU want it to go.”
Would you try to measure the growth of an oak tree over 20 minutes? If not, why not? What about over 5,000 years?
How very weirdly presumptuous, to tell me which way I “want” a trend to go. The behaviour of people like you gets odder by the day.
“Just as arbitrary as any other beginning and end point YOU choose. So what’s the difference? Because you pick a length that fits your hypothesis, that’s the difference.”
I think most people can see that ignoring data from the last year is foolish. I don’t know if you’re just gullible or if you genuinely think it’s OK to ignore a year’s worth of data because it doesn’t fit in with your beliefs, but it’s quite obviously not.
“a warmer planet is a more productive planet.”
A banal and meaningless statement.
““anthropogenic CO2 [about 3% of total CO2]”
110ppm out of 390 total = 28%.”
Hmm 110ppm is an over estimate of Man’s total CO2 output. If Man had not output it then the oceans would have supplied it in order to get to the present concentrations, commensurate with its temperature.
There is an excellent short story writer called Saki and you, RW, remind me of one of his characters:
“Leonard Bilsiter was one of those people who have failed to find this world attractive or interesting, and who have sought compensation in an “unseen world” of their own experience or imagination – or invention. Children do that sort of thing successfully, but children are content to convince themselves, and do not vulgarise their beliefs by trying to convince other people. Leonard Bilsiter’s beliefs were for “the few,” that is to say, anyone who would listen to him.”
Mark Fawcett
“Seems to be raising some quite reasonable points to me – nothing wrong with asking questions and/or suggesting alternatives; when we’re talking fractions of percentages of gas volumes, temperature changes and so on, it seems sensible to ask if other factors could be contributing to that”
~snip~
Francis
Might the Greenland and Antarctica generalization also apply to the few high latitude glaciers that are expanding?
Increasing evaporation over warmer polar seas leads to increasing snowfall on land
Yes
Antartica is esentially a desert Snowfall equivalent 100-200mm per year at the pole – 300 -600mm at the coast. Still the accumulation less ablation is signifigant , 13million sq km x 150.mm of ice = 2000 cubic km of ice thats a lot of icebergs to calf every year. Greenland is probably the same. The key is the boundary at the ocean.
The crazy thing is that no one reports this while everyone jumps on the story of how this is affecting the newly discovered species in the area–even though there is no data to back up those claims!
http://nonmodern.blogspot.com/2009/08/353.html
http://news.google.de/news?q=eastern%20himalayas&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=de&tab=wn
Interesting that the dorlomins and RW’s of the AGW advocacy are spending more time over on this “non science” blog and becoming increasingly strident and shrill. It is merely a result that their house of cards is starting to collapse and will do so in earnest in the next 5 years, and they know it deep down and have little time to implement massive and deleterious changes to our political system. Tell you what, I am willing to state unequivically that the PDO now turned to the cool phase followed in a couple of years by the ADO doing the same will finally end the nonsense known as AGW. RW and dolormin, you want to act like men for a change (if indeed you actually are) and tell us how much AGW will raise the temps over the next 5 years and then we will meet back here and see who was right?
RW (02:12:24) is so full of misinformation, cherrypicking, and outright obfuscation that it’s no wonder most everyone disagrees with him. Mark T (12:05:53) deconstructs every RW point above. And not only on this site. The posters at Jennifer Marohasy’s site routinely rub his nose in the playground dirt for his easily debunked statements. A couple of examples from upthread:
I correctly pointed out that “…anthropogenic CO2 [about 3% of total CO2]…”. RW tried to pull a fast one again, by pretending that 28% of CO2 is manmade: “110ppm out of 390 total = 28%.”. But even his craven heroes, the thoroughly corrupt, science-fiction oriented UN, shows: click. Human activity doesn’t produce 28% of CO2 — it accounts for only one molecule in every 34 of CO2. 33 out of every 34 CO2 molcules emitted are of natural origin. Nothing to be alarmed about.
RW claims that the globe is heating up. As usual, he is wrong: click. And whenever the alarmist contingent tries to convince the more knowledgeable folks here that everybody needs to PANIC!!, I refer them to this chart: click. For that we’re supposed to give up our sovreignty, and $trillions in national wealth?? Who are these Bozos trying to kid? CO2=AGW is a scam intended to separate U.S. taxpayers from their savings. If it were about science, we would be having routine debates about it, and Al Gore would be setting the example by living in an average sized house and using average electricity. But since CO2=AGW is a scam, there are no debates and Gore and his hypocritical ilk profligately wastes limited resources. Some HE-RO.
Also, arguing that CO2 causes rising temperature by showing RW’s [bogus] chart, which completely omits CO2, indicates an inability to make a rational case. Why bogus? Because the temperature rise is exaggerated [I have blink gifs showing how GISS diddles with the numbers in order to show non-existent warming. Just ask, and you shall receive].
The noaa also admits their upward temperature “adjustments”: click. More proof: note that in the first half of the last century, raw temperatures and urban temperatures were almost identical. But gradually, urban temps began creeping higher and higher over the raw temps: click.
As I’ve pointed out many times, natural variability completely explains the climate without any need for an extraneous entity like CO2. After thirty years of rising CO2, the planet’s temperature is essentially the same as it was in 1979: click.
And once again, since some folks just don’t get it: it is not the responsibility of the mainstream scientists to disprove any wacko conjecture that comes along, whether it’s CO2=AGW, phrenology, or Scientology.
Rather, according to the Scientific Method it is the duty of those purveying their CO2=AGW conjecture to prove [or at least provide solid, falsifiable and reproducible evidence] that their new conjecture explains reality better than the long accepted theory of natural climate variability.
That they have failed to do so is clear from their weak, shaky arguments, and from the fact that any “evidence” comes from computer models. But that is not evidence; it is opinion, programmed into GCMs to obtain a particular result.
Michael Jennings (11:27:36) :
Interesting that the dorlomins and RW’s of the AGW advocacy are spending more time over on this “non science” blog and becoming increasingly strident and shrill. It is merely a result that their house of cards is starting to collapse and will do so in earnest in the next 5 years, and they know it deep down and have little time to implement massive and deleterious changes to our political system
———————————-
I think your tinfoil hat is constraining the blood to your head. 😀
Smoky (11:38:13) – The chart he posted does not support your position. It reflects annual fluxes to the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere, not total amounts. There is no need to be belligerent about your ignorance.
This chart indicates that in the 90s humans contributed 23,100 million metric tons of CO2 to the atmosphere PER YEAR of which approximately half was reabsorbed by “sinks” (mostly the ocean). Thus, each year during the 90s alone we added 11,700 million tons of CO2 to the air. That is 117,000,000,000 tones of carbon THAT WAS NOT REMOVED FROM THE ATMOSHERE added by man DURRING THE 90S ALONE.
At this time the overall mass of CO2 in the atmosphere is ~3,000 gigatonnes (3,000,000,000,000 metric tons). If this number reflected the preindustrial CO2 number (actually preindustrial levels were much lower). We could simply cancel some zeros and come up with the fraction for the human contribution to the CO2 content of the atmosphere that DURRING THE 90S ALONE as: 117/3000 or ~ 4%. This number is way too low because the preindustrial CO2 mass value (the denominator) was significantly lower.
How do I know that it was our CO2 that was not removed you may ask? Before we started burning the long sequestered carbon extracted from the ground the atmospheric CO2 levels were relatively stable for thousands of years. We know we released it. We know where it went. It should be no surprise that we find it accumulating in the air and oceans (except possibly to someone of extreme faith). Our activities are indeed now responsible for (387ppmv-280ppmv) / 387ppmv = ~28% of all the CO2 in the atmosphere.
RW was right.
So many errors so little time (sigh).
dorlomin (12:24:13) :
Michael Jennings (11:27:36) :
Interesting that the dorlomins and RW’s of the AGW advocacy are spending more time over on this “non science” blog and becoming increasingly strident and shrill. It is merely a result that their house of cards is starting to collapse and will do so in earnest in the next 5 years, and they know it deep down and have little time to implement massive and deleterious changes to our political system
———————————-
I think your tinfoil hat is constraining the blood to your head. 😀
No tinfoil hat but enough guts to offer you a challenge which you convienently ignored.
arch stanton (15:31:16)
Well then, I’m glad to see you’re above it all.
Now, which particular chart were you referring to? This chart? I doubt it, since the UN/IPCC numbers contradict your numbers.
So, was it this chart? Yes? No?
You need to be more specific than: “The chart he posted does not support your position.” Which chart? And, “This chart indicates that in the 90s humans…”. But again, what chart? You don’t say.
And regarding your claim that: “Our activities are indeed now responsible for (387ppmv-280ppmv) / 387ppmv = ~28% of all the CO2 in the atmosphere.”
“Indeed”?? Is that so? Or is that your opinion? Do you have an empirical measurement that proves the entire 28% increase is due to human emissions? Do you have a factual reason that the change in a minor trace gas can only be explained by human activity? Show me how that logically follows.
…
At this point, another recital is in order: I have never said that global warming does not occur. Of course it does. So does global cooling. And there is little doubt that human emissions make a *small* contribution to global warming; it is the magnitude that is in dispute. And at this point the planet is telling us that the climate sensitivity due to CO2 is low. Very low.
I am a skeptic. I am perfectly willing to accept everything that is proven, and most everything that has a strong evidentiary basis.
CO2=AGW does not have such a basis. Carbon dioxide has been an order of magnitude or more higher at various times in the past, and those increases can not be laid at the feet of the industrial revolution, since they preceded it.
Skeptics understand that the current climate is well within the natural parameters of past climate changes. Nothing out of the ordinary is happening. Therefore, there is no requirement that we must add carbon dioxide to the explanation.
Speculating that an increase in CO2 is causing anything noticeable only muddies the waters. No one has to believe that for most of the past decade both the atmosphere and the deep ocean has cooled, while CO2 has steadily risen. But as you can see from the charts I’ve been posting, several government agencies take that position. Argue with them if you don’t believe it.
What you lack is real world, empirical evidence; reproducible, falsifiable evidence. Provide that, and I will sit up straight and pay attention.
So far there has been no measurement of atmospheric CO2 produced by human activity. The planet breathes CO2 in and out in far greater volumes than puny mankind is able, and the planet’s year-over-year fluctuations in CO2 are greater than total human emissions. How can anyone even know what happens to the one molecule out of 34 that is attributable to humans?
Furthermore, all the evidence points to the fact that CO2 is completely beneficial, not harmful; more is better. CO2 is every bit as harmless and beneficial as H2O. Life could not exist without both.
Skeptics reject speculation masquerading as evidence. Get some real evidence if you can, then we can discuss it.
Smokey, Arch Stanton was the name on the grave in the movie The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. The treasure was in the grave next to his marked ‘Unknown.’
[snip]
Repy: Adopt a more respectful tone or post elsewhere. ~ charles the moderator
And my comment at 21.37.20
which was then changed by jerome at 01.01.56
shows you up.
[snip]
Go find your own word jerome. Stop co-opting mine
Smoky, my previous post contained several typos. For those I appologise. The chart I was referring to was indeed: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/eia_co2_contributions_table3.png that was taken from the IPCC TAR. You cited it to calculate your 1/34 fraction that had nothing directly to do with RW’s 28% percentage. I then used it to demonstrate approximately how far off you were, except that I used 2008 CO2 mass as a denominator (instead of preindustrial CO2 mass) which skewed my result to be erroneously low (but still much higher than you had indicated as relevant).
The 28% number: Given the mass of CO2 in the preindustrial atmosphere, and the mass of the CO2 that we have subsequently released into it through carbon burning and land use changes, the increase in atmospheric CO2 should actually be about twice as high as it is. These values have been measured. Most of the other half of the carbon has been absorbed into the ocean (also measured).
Since the transfer of CO2 in and out of the ocean is not only driven by water temperature but also by partial pressure of the gas, it is fallacy to try to claim that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is due to a warming ocean. The gradient runs the other way despite the increased warmth. If you want to claim that the ocean warming is not anthropogenic and therefore the 28% is a couple points high, you and I will have to disagree and even if you were right you would be picking at nits.
Quite true that atmospheric CO2 was much higher at periods in the past. So? This is a straw man. There were forest fires before man came along also, that does not mean that man cannot start forest fires. We know we put the CO2 into the air, why should there be any doubt at all about where it came from when we find it there? There is no lack of empirical real world evidence for these facts. The are falsifiable, and have been reproduced many times. To claim otherwise is false. Time for you to sit up straight.
Michael Jennings (15:53:23) :
No tinfoil hat but enough guts to offer you a challenge which you convienently ignored.
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You have the most remarkable idea of what constitutes masculinity if you think that posting wild guesses about short term climate fluxations makes one a man. You also seem to be projecting an illusion of what you wish I and my opinions are. What a curious individual.
~snip~
Multiple “denial” comments. ~dbstealey, moderator.
RW (02:35:31) :
~snip~
Multiple “denial” comments. ~dbstealey, moderator.
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Will you snip with mulitple ‘alarmist’ or ‘cultist’ coments….. of course not.
Jolly good laugh though.
Reply: Comments about ‘deniers’ are deliberately made to equate skeptics with Holocaust deniers, and are therefore extremely objectionable. ‘Alarmist’ does not rise to that level. Therefore, we do not snip ‘alarmist’ comments. I trust this makes the distinction clear. ~dbstealey, moderator.
Oh, good one dbstealey. I’m actually trying to tell the pitiable smokey that he’s embarrassing you all. It would be to your credit if any of you other “sceptics” were to point out his wildly obvious mistakes. Perhaps you too don’t know the difference between annual emissions of CO2, and atmospheric concentrations of CO2?
Gentlemen, please!
My own take is that man is putting out a little over 7 BMTC (Bil. Metric Tons Carbon) into the atmosphere per year. That is about 3%, give or take, of overall output per year.
But, all the natural output was reabsorbed–and then some (over half of what man contributes). CO2 has been declining since the end of the Cretaceous. So man’s contribution seems to be increasing CO2 by a little under half a percent per year.
So I find the 28% figure for man’s contribution since 1900 to be quite plausible.
On the other hand, I do not think a 28% increase in CO2 has had much of an effect, and I don’t think even a doubling of CO2 will have very much effect. I accept the direct effect computations as plausible, but the entire emergency is based on positive feedbacks which have been (preliminarily) falsified.
So, yes, I buy man’s “contribution” to CO2 levels. But I do not think it is any sort of an emergency, and I think mankind will, in his own good time, have left fossil fuels behind long before it becomes an emergency.
And it will do a great deal of harm, worldwide, if we rush in and break the bank to do it. That could cause more environmental — and human — harm than it would solve (if, indeed, it would solve anything).