Gore started this. Note to journalists everywhere: IT’S THE EVAPOTRANSPIRATION STUPID!
See this article to understand why linking Kilimanjaro glacier retreat to small changes in global temperature is just flat wrong. The plains around Kilimanjaro have gone through years of deforestation. Less trees > less evapotranspiration > less snow.
Don’t believe me? Here’s news of a recent study from Portsmouth University Of Mt. Kilimanjaro ice waving us good-bye due to deforestation. Here’s another peer reviewed study from UAH saying the same thing.
From News.com.au
Agence France-Presse
The ice sheet that capped Kilimanjaro in 1912 was 85 per cent smaller by 2007, and since 2000 the existing ice sheet has shrunk by 26 per cent, the paleoclimatologists said.
The findings point to the rise in global temperatures as the most likely cause of the ice loss.
Changes in cloudiness and precipitation may have also played a smaller, less important role, especially in recent decades, they added.
“This is the first time researchers have calculated the volume of ice lost from the mountain’s ice fields,” study co-author Lonnie Thompson said.
Mr Thompson is the professor of Earth Sciences at Ohio State University.
“If you look at the percentage of volume lost since 2000 versus the percentage of area lost as the ice fields shrink, the numbers are very close,” he said in the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
While the yearly loss of the mountain glaciers was most apparent from the retreat of their margins, Mr Thompson said an equally troubling effect was the thinning of the ice fields from the surface.
The summits of both the Northern and Southern Ice Fields atop Kilimanjaro have thinned by 1.9m) and 5.1m respectively.
The smaller Furtwangler Glacier, which was melting and water-saturated in 2000 when it was drilled, has thinned as much as 50 per cent between 2000 and 2009.
“It has lost half of its thickness,” Mr Thompson said. “In the future, there will be a year when Furtwangler is present and by the next year, it will have disappeared.
“The whole thing will be gone.”
The scientists said they found no evidence of sustained melting anywhere else in the ice core samples they extracted, which date back 11,700 years.**
They said their findings show that current climate conditions over Mt Kilimanjaro were unique over the last 11 millennia.
See the story at news.com.au
=========================
** There wasn’t organized farming near Kilimanjaro until the last century. Farming preparation clears trees, trees evapotranspirate mositure. Less trees, less moisture.
No surprise then they don’t see it in the ice core record. It is simply bad science to not consider land use issues looking you in the face while you drill ice cores on the slopes. – Anthony
Just goes to show that A Little Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing ( people who have only a little knowledge about something often make big mistakes becuase they think they know more than they actually know … )
@Anthony
I read an article about the paper in a German Newspaper, they give a link to the original paper and I read it. I was interested in it because I was remembering the other factors that were discussed here or also in other blogs like RealClimate. They authors discussed many points after presenting the results of the ice observations. There are surely many different factors which have an influence to the glaciers there. The authors concluded that percipitation and land use, cloudiness play a smaller role and warming plays a larger role. They give valid reasons for it. Other scientist may and do see it differently. That is science. This is good science. This is scientific discussion.
This is also in the press release that you showed:
“The findings point to the rise in global temperatures as the [b]most likely[/b] cause of the ice loss.
Changes in cloudiness and precipitation may have also played a smaller, less important role, especially in recent decades, they added”
But you say: IT’S THE EVAPOTRANSPIRATION STUPID! How can you be absolutely sure?
PS: sorry, for my english.
REPLY: read the two papers I cite in the article. here’s another from Nature in 2003
http://www.nature.com/news/2003/031124/full/news031117-8.html (paywall)
excerpt from Nature’s Betsy Mason, “Although it’s tempting to blame the (Kilimanjaro) ice loss on global warming, researchers think that deforestation of the mountain’s foothills is the more likely culprit.”
Forests at the base of Kilimanjaro have been steadily disappearing for decades.
“Without the forests’ humidity,” Mason reports, “previously moisture-laden winds blew dry. No longer replenished with water, the ice is evaporating in the strong equatorial sunshine.”
– Anthony
This AM’s local paper has an AP story reporting uncritically on the new PNAS article by Lonnie Thompson saying that the Kilimanjaro ice field melting is unprecedented in the past 11,700 years.
The New York Times has a similar article, but the reporter, Sindya N. Bhanoo, also got a second opinion:
The title of the NYT article itself expressed that the science is perhaps unsettled: “Mt. Kilimanjaro’s Ice Cap Continues Its Rapid Retreat, but the Cause is Debated.” (NYT 11/3/09).
me (10:29:09) :
“hmpf, fine.
@Anthony
two questions:
* have you read the actual paper? The authors described and discussed several possible factors in detail, inclusive percipitation, land use, cloudiness, etc etc. and of course, higher temperature. Why do you accuse them to do bad science?
* where can I find your detailed analysis about the percipitation, cloudiness, temperature trends in this area and in the area of other tropic shrinking glaciers? What are your sources? Your little picture is a little bit embarrassing, isn’t it? Can you write up a nice post about it with all the stuff: sources, uncertinaty, alternatives, possibilities, etc etc.”
Sorry, that was five questions. Here’s one for you. What is “percipitation” and “uncertinaty”?
@Anthony
you see, the other authors say the deforestation is more likely. Thompson says, warming is more likely. May be both is more or less correct and both factors play a role. That is my conclusion as layman.
To be a university coward has its advantages: the article of Betty Mason cites also Thompson about the future of the glaciers and of course, it references Thompson et al in Science 2002. Maybe, it is not bad science what Thompson et al do (Science is almost always teamwork). Think about it.
Thank you for the discussion.
REPLY: It boils down to who do you trust, A guy who Al Gore says is his pal in AIT that won’t provide data for true scientific replication, or people who have done work independently of the hype surrounding Gore? Easy choice for me. Further weather stations in the area don’t show a significant regional signal.
I can’t believe that you aren’t concerned by Thompson’s failure to provide data for replication, I think you choose to ignore it because his conclusion suits you. – Anthony
The article referenced:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/10/30/0906029106.full.pdf+html
Curiously, edited by none other than James Hanson. Authors include Thompson and Hardy.
“Over recent decades there has been a continual transformation of the landscape surrounding Kilimanjaro into agricultural land, thus, unraveling large-scale climate
forcing from regional forcing caused in part by landscape changes is difficult.”
Of course, they *try* to do just that, although in this paper not much more than mention of “regional forcing” is mentioned. This ends up in the news as “global warming did it”.
How are conditions on the other peak?
me (11:31:05) :
“you see, the other authors say the deforestation is more likely. ”
Scientifically speaking, what constitutes “likely” is a problem for those that want to attribute this glacial melting to global warming but are unable to quantify “likely”, or “some” or “part of”. If you can find where deforestation has been ruled out, or natural variability ruled out scientifically, or any combination (including “global warming”) quantified, you’re left with deforestation, what is actually *known* to have happened, and what is actually causing ice loss, which is not directly a temperature increase of the ice, but of other factors such as humidity. Reasons for these factors, such as air current patterns, past ocean temperatures, regional temperatures, have not been positively identified as being responsible, nor have changes (either known or inferred) in these factors been shown to be caused by “global warming”.
@Anthony
I do not agree, it is NOT about trust. I do not believe. There is no black or white in science. I do not personalize research, results, and science. But, that is only my opinion. Actually, I believe only in two things: honesty in science. There is honesty, “believe” “me”, hihi. 😉 And the big urge to find new things, to understand the world, to be better than the related work, to improve knowledge. In this environment, you cannot find a big conspiracy.
Okay, again, thank you for the discussion and sorry, I have to improve my English.
REPLY: “Honesty” in any form is moot without data verification. If Dr. Thompson wants trust, he should make his data available as requested. – Anthony
Strange it is
The ice at Kilimanjaro was formed about 11.000 years ago AFTER the last ice age.
When the earth was going into a warmer period.
That’s why is called “CLIMATE CHANGE”, and not just “Global Warming”.
CLIMATE is temperature PLUS HUMIDITY, RAINFALL, WINDS, CLOUDS , etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
An UNPRECEDENTED DROUGHT is certainly something than can be called “Climate Change”
Ric Werme (10:00:37) :
Science News has the story too, see http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/49038/title/Mount_Kilimanjaro_could_soon_be_bald
They have a photo, credited to “Thompson et al./PNAS 2009″ that looks like a photoshop fake.
I have never seen anything like it at its scale. Looks very suspicious, but this isn’t like 60 Minutes and the faked National Guard letters, so it’s not like there will be any reprecussions from a photoshopped picture. This is science after all.
My significant other has a master’s in glacial geology from Michigan State and she thinks it’s a faker.
REPLY: Clarify please, Anthony
1) While it is difficult to get a sense of scale, she says it appears not thick enough (50m or more) to be a piece of a glacier. It is more like a short pile of snow on a gravel surface, rather than a tall piece of ice on a cobbled surface.
2) The talus at the base of the object looks more like snow than ice. One would not expect talus at the base of a remnant receding through sublimation. The layers in the thing make it look more like a portion of a cut though snow with a rotary.
3) She says that ice blocks separated from a receding glacier that persist and make kettles are not shaped thin and tall like this one. These isolated remnants are more block shaped. (My engineer/physicist eye tells me that sharp edges vanish quickly with melting, but sublimation can make scalloped shapes with some sharpness to the surface. )
4) I don’t see the shadows as being right. The shadows on the ice remnant seem to come from Sun at a high angle, almost overhead, but the shadows on banks of the gullies come from a lower sun ahead of the camera.
5) Also patterns in the clouds appear to change right next to the ice above it and on its left side. It is almost like someone used the healing tool on these areas. At the interface between the ice and the soil there are many long horizontal trends, whereas the soil surface elsewhere is blocky, and covered with cobbles.
Perhaps it’s all a coincidence. I wish someone who knows more about editting images would weigh-in.
Kevin Kilty (20:14:10) :
Ric Werme (10:00:37) :
“Science News has the story too, see http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/49038/title/Mount_Kilimanjaro_could_soon_be_bald
They have a photo, credited to “Thompson et al./PNAS 2009″ that looks like a photoshop fake.
I have never seen anything like it at its scale. Looks very suspicious, but this isn’t like 60 Minutes and the faked National Guard letters, so it’s not like there will be any reprecussions from a photoshopped picture. This is science after all.”
Since the date of the article, text of the article and caption indicates the pic is from the current online paper ahead of print and since the pic is not in the full access online paper or supplemental, it was not from “Thompson et al/PNAS 2009”.
It may have been provided to the reporter by one of the authors, the only pics I found are from “recent fieldwork” on Hardy’s website:
http://www.geo.umass.edu/climate/tanzania/oct09/
Closest is picture 26 in “recent fieldwork”. Not quite as “shocking” as the sciencenews pic.
REPLY: I did an extensive search for this photo in PNAS in the orginal article, plus the SI for the article,
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/10/30/0906029106.full.pdf
http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2009/11/02/0906029106.DCSupplemental/0906029106SI.pdf
plus the Ohio State Newsroom, and I found it here:
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/lonkilipnas.htm
It doesn’t look quite the same, but it does appear to be the same ice structure, perhaps taken at different times from a slightly different angle, possibly in a different season. – I don’t see any reason to suspect a fake. – Anthony
“This Ohio State University handout image shows one of a growing number of isolated remnants of ice spires that were once full glaciers in the crater of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.”
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2009-11/03/content_8907855.htm
“Credit: Ohio State University”
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/3109/kilimanjaro-snow-vanish-20-years
So it appears that the sciencenews caption was misguiding, but probably not intentionally. It appears that if anyone photoshopped the pic it was no one in the press, and since it appears to have been officially sourced to the press from Ohio U or Thompson, it is genuine.
Another paper on the spread
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26303346-5012765,00.html
Ric Werme and WUWT:
I got up this morning and dug through older issues of American Scientist. There is an article by Mote and Kaser (Vol 95 July-August 2007) which shows photos of these glaciers, and there are occasional features exactly like this one. They are close to the glacier edge, and the way this photo was taken it looks like a completely isolated feature, but I withdraw any suggestion I made that it is fake.
However, my significant other returned from her walk early this morning to explain to me one again that these “glaciers” are only about 40 m tall, and are 10m too thin for the internal deformation required of a glacier. Thus, technically they are “snow fields” and not glaciers. This probably explains why they look so like a pile of snow, with granular talus at the base, rather than like a block of ice. She grumbled that anyone with a special theory to prove always points to these snow fields (like Saint Mary’s Glacier–a snowfield in Colorado) and calls them glaciers, but they are not glaciers.
So there. We are all correct.
e procurement software comparison (01:57:19) :
Spam
Larry
[Thanks. Trashed. ~ E]
Funny all this argument over if it’s a glaciers or compacted snow fields if land use has contributed to the melt and perhaps not global warming. Makes me wonder about the sanity of everyone when all the ice is gone who gives a rats back side. There will simply be water shortages for folks. Climate change is real in the long run if coastal cities go under water supplies disappear and whole migrations of millions of people start immigrating all over the world will it matter if it’s CO2 or deforestation any combination of human caused climate influences. The crap still hits the fan.