Himalayan warming – pulling another thread from IPCC’s fragile tapestry.

“The Kathmandu record, the longest in Nepal (1921–94), shows features similar to temperature trends in the Northern Hemisphere, suggesting links between regional trends and global scale phenomena. ”
Yes, climate regions are linked by their adjacent nature.
It’s not like galaxy clusters, with huge voids in between.
Irregardless of whether there are UHI or land-use issues in the path of the chain-reaction or not, each climate region passes on what it didn’t use in weather elements to the next region.
Eventually, they wrap themselves around the globe and ‘return to sending longitude’. The precise path is the devil in the details.

Times of India, 11/10/09, Discussed report from the environment ministry by Dr. VK Raina that there were no abnormal patterns in the Himalayas, and “there was only one automated weather station in the entire Himalayas to record climatic data” anyway. The report was said not to be the official position of the Union, but environment minister Ramesh said it did present valid points.The Times contacted Pachauri for comment, and he termed it “magical science.” He later told others it was “voo-doo science.” From the article it seemed no conclusive measurements were available for either side, but certainly not for the side saying they needed reparations for climate crimes.

Once again it would seem that the bulk of the warming seems to be happening in place where there are no instruments in place to record it. I wonder why?
This is an example of the IPCC cargo cult science par excellence – many more can be found in AR4, which reads more like docu-fiction rather than a scientific report.

Again. !! Mere facts. Where are the scary bits. Where is the snap of the Abominable Snow bunny stranded on a bit of glacial remnants. Good grief lads, sauce it up..
Poor old Pach is going to have to write more saucy novels at this rate.
regards

Australian ABC has always had a firm bias towards the government of the day because it is .inanced by the government. there is no real “free press” in Australia,…… nearly all newspapers are owned by one man LOL

“Of the stations selected for the analysis only 5 stations with records dating from or before the mid 1960s were located in the Himalayan Region”
How many dated after the mid 1960 were located in the Himalayan Region? What’s the reason to only look at stations dating before the mid 1960s? Did the paper set this boundary?

“For the Himalaya, the IPCC also cherry pick the highest seasonal value, the figure for winter (0.09º C.yr-1). The annual figure given by Shrestha et al., 1999 is less: 0.057º C.yr-1.”
That doesn’t look to be the case. It looks like the IPCC 0.09C figure is taken from the average annual for the trans-himalaya, which in the paper’s table 2 is 0.09C/year.
The IPCC afterall said “0.09°C per year in Himalayas and 0.04°C in Terai region, more in winter” which suggests the 0.09C figure is not for winter (otherwise they wouldn’t say “0.09C per year” and “more in winter”). Table 2 lists the trans-himalayan winter trend as 0.12C/year which is more than 0.09C per year. They also mention 0.04C in Terai region, which again matches the annual column from Table 2.
So I think the IPCC are referencing the trans-himalayan figure for the 0.09C. What the IPCC appear to have done is provide the low end and highend annual regional trends from the paper. They also mention the trend is higher in winter. As such I think the IPCC have just forwarded on the information the paper provides.

stephan says:
August 7, 2010 at 3:45 am
Australian ABC has always had a firm bias towards the government of the day because it is .inanced by the government. there is no real “free press” in Australia,…… nearly all newspapers are owned by one man LOL
__________________________________________________________
Not quite right Steven…. The ABC, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, is entirely a creature of the Left in Australian politics. It represents and supports the ALP, Australian Labor Party, exclusively and is a mouthpiece for all Socialist and environmental agendas.
There is not one single conservative journalist or interviewer within it’s dictatorial confines…. and now it just went 24/7 in news on the free to air digital channels.
The ABC is funded by the Australian taxpayer, but only represents one side of Politics. The Labor Party’s side. The ABC needs to be disbanded. It is an obscenity in a modern democracy.

Marc:
Nice piece of work. Do you know off hand who were the authors of this part the report? Are you pursuing a more complete set of data?

Readers may re-call the IPCC has a tainted record in reporting climate change in the Himalaya having been caught out using “grey literature” to back claims that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. These have now been shown to be false and the IPCC has issued a correction.

This is a common misconception. In fact, the IPCC “correction” was carefully worded so as to avoid any admission of error of fact. The only error they admit is one of procedure, by using the gray literature to substantiate a claim, instead of the primary literature. The claim in question is not even stated, but is merely referred to by page and paragraph number in a footnote.

It has, however, recently come to our attention that a paragraph in the 938-page Working Group II contribution to the underlying assessment [footnote 2] refers to poorly substantiated estimates of rate of recession and date for the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers. In drafting the paragraph in question, the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures,
were not applied properly.
The Chair, Vice-Chairs, and Co-chairs of the IPCC regret the poor application of well-established IPCC procedures in this instance.

They also make a point of affirming that they stand by their original conclusions despite this lapse in “procedures.”

They’re determining a trend with the newest bit of data being 15 yrs old? Fine, back in the 1700’s it was was significantly cooling. Proof positive the world will be covered with ice in no time flat!

Words like “attributed”, “suggest”, And “suggesting” should be forbidden in a scientific paper. This phrase, “contributions of urbanization and local land use/cover changes to the all-Nepal record are minimal”, raises both eyebrows. Take out Chialsa, and I see no rising trend at all!

Icarus says:
August 7, 2010 at 3:12 am
“Once again it seems important to point out that the satellite data series for global mean temperature (UAH, RSS) are virtually indistinguishable from the terrestrial data series (GISTEMP, HADCRUT etc.). They all show warming of 0.15 – 0.2°C per decade. Argue all you like about the attribution of that warming, but you can be sure that it’s not an artefact of the terrestrial instrumentation.”
There seems to be a widening gap appearing between GISS data and satellite inferred temperature data. The satellite data has problems as the algorithms used to convert brightness data to temperature anomaly tend to produce what the programmers expect to find. Many climate models suffer from this ‘programmer expectation bias’.
Finally it is worth pointing out that Dr. Jones of the CRU confirmed that there had been no statistically significant global warming for the past 15y. He also stated that there had been periods in recorded history when temperature trends had been similar to today, but CO2 was at a much lower level.

Melting of major Glaciers in the western Himalayas: evidence of
climatic changes from long term MSU derived tropospheric
temperature trend (1979–2008)
A. K. Prasad (1,3), K.-H. S. Yang (1,2,3), H. M. El-Askary (1,3,4,5), and M. Kafatos (1,3)
1Department of Physics, Computational Science and Engineering, Schmid College of Science, Chapman University, Orange,
CA 92866, USA
2Department of Biological Sciences, Schmid College of Science, Chapman University, Orange, CA 92866, USA
3Center of Excellence in Earth Observing, Chapman University, Orange, CA 92866, USA
4Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, Alexandria University, Moharem Bek, Alexandria, 21522, Egypt
5National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Science (NARSS), Cairo, Egypt
Received: 16 April 2009 – Revised: 19 August 2009 – Accepted: 9 September 2009 – Published: 11 December 2009
Abstract. Global warming or the increase of the surface
and atmospheric temperatures of the Earth, is increasingly
discernible in the polar, sub-polar and major land
glacial areas. The Himalayan and Tibetan Plateau Glaciers,
which are the largest glaciers outside of the Polar Regions,
are showing a large-scale decrease of snow cover
and an extensive glacial retreat. These glaciers such as
Siachen and Gangotri are a major water resource for Asia
as they feed major rivers such as the Indus, Ganga and
Brahmaputra. Due to scarcity of ground measuring stations,
the long-term observations of atmospheric temperatures
acquired from the Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU)
since 1979–2008 is highly useful. The lower and middle
tropospheric temperature trend based on 30 years of MSU
data shows warming of the Northern Hemisphere’s midlatitude
regions. The mean month-to-month warming (up
to 0.048±0.026K/year or 1.44K over 30 years) of the mid
troposphere (near surface over the high altitude Himalayas
and Tibetan Plateau) is prominent and statistically significant
at a 95% confidence interval. Though the mean annual
warming trend over the Himalayas (0.016±0.005K/year),
and Tibetan Plateau (0.008±0.006K/year) is positive, the
month to month warming trend is higher (by 2–3 times,
positive and significant) only over a period of six months
(December to May). The factors responsible for the reversal
of this trend from June to November are discussed
here. The inequality in the magnitude of the warming
trends of the troposphere between the western and eastern
Himalayas and the IG (Indo-Gangetic) plains is attributed
to the differences in increased aerosol loading (due to dust
storms) over these regions. The monthly mean lowertropospheric
MSU-derived temperature trend over the IG
plains (dust sink region; up to 0.032±0.027K/year) and
dust source regions (Sahara desert, Middle East, Arabian
region, Afghanistan-Iran-Pakistan and Thar Desert regions;
up to 0.068±0.033K/year) also shows a similar pattern
of month-to-month oscillation and six months of enhanced
and a statistically significant warming trend. The enhanced
warming trend during the winter and pre-monsoon months
(December–May) may accelerate glacial melt. The unequal
distribution of the warming trend over the year is discussed in
this study and is partially attributed to a number of controlling
factors such as sunlight duration, CO2 trends over the
region (2003–2008), water vapor and aerosol distribution.
http://www.ann-geophys.net/27/4505/2009/angeo-27-4505-2009.html

“Jenne says:”
You can see that aerosol layer in the satellite photo at the top of the post. What are the chances that has increased over the time in question?

And now it looks like the whole artifice is falling LOL
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg
This is just a joke BTW!

richard telford says:
August 7, 2010 at 4:16 am
Remind me, who invented the rule that the IPCC should not use grey literature?

I believe it was the IPCC who claimed (repeatedly) that only peer reviewed literature was used in the assessment reports. They quietly changed their policy several years prior to AR4, but continued to make this claim – as recently as 2009 as I recall.

……limited to 1977-1994……..
‘Cherry picked’ has become a hackneyed term in global warming. But in this case it applies.
There was a time of warming in the earth from 1977 to 1999 from PDO (+) and solar activity. The warming had nothing to do with manmade co2. The temperature data used in the study was only from that time. And it shows warming. That would define ‘cherry picking’.
3:02 video
Don Easterbrook, PDO warm, PDO cool

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR_dawnR7_M

How many times have we debunked the lies of the pro-AGWers?

No wonder that the Himalayas no longer have any polar bears!

Jenne says:
August 7, 2010 at 7:13 am
Melting of major Glaciers in the western Himalayas: evidence of
climatic changes from long term MSU derived tropospheric
temperature trend (1979–2008)….the Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU)
since 1979–2008 is highly useful.
Most of the years in your data set are from a time of natural warming in the earth. That is ‘climatic changes’ but it is completely normal. Climate has always changed.
The data set in the study you comment on is not useful in determining long term trend. This using of sort term time periods for determining ‘global warming’ has to stop. 29 years is not useful for determining long term climate.
1000’s or 100,000’s of years is what is needed.

Look at the Asian haze.
http://www.nasaimages.org/luna/servlet/detail/nasaNAS~10~10~68976~174005:Haze-along-the-Himalaya-Front-Range
http://geology.com/nasa/nepal-forest-fires/
http://geology.com/nasa/nepal-forest-fires/nepal-forest-fires-lg.jpg
“”During the last 20 years, the black soot concentration has increased two- to three-fold relative to its concentration in 1975,” said Junji Cao, a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and a coauthor of the paper…….”Fifty percent of the glaciers were retreating from 1950 to 1980 in the Tibetan region; that rose to 95 percent in the early 21st century,” said Tandong Yao, director of the Chinese Academy’s Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research. ….At Zuoqiupu glacier — a bellwether site on the southern edge of the plateau and downwind from the Indian subcontinent — black soot deposition increased by 30 percent between 1990 and 2003. The rise in soot levels at Zuoqiupu follows a dip that followed the enacting of clean air regulations in Europe in the 1970s.”
The study was published December 7th in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-12/nsfc-bcd121409.php
Alternative explanations are such a pain in the bu**

That, I am sure, it is happening because of all the heat produced by the XXX novels made by “Patchy”(A.K.A “Tantric doberman”) 🙂

Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
…”29 years is not useful for determining long term climate.
1000′s or 100,000′s of years is what is needed.” But – but we don’t have 1000’s of years. Global warming will not strike us the day after tomorrow, but two days before the day after tomorrow…. which is…. OMG!! run for your lives. Seriously, I will even go with the notion that the earth is warming slowly, but they mustn’t try sell me that they can detect it to tenths and hundredths of a degree – given the shoddy/uncertain state of the data – bollocks.

Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
…
The data set in the study you comment on is not useful in determining long term trend. This using of sort term time periods for determining ‘global warming’ has to stop. 29 years is not useful for determining long term climate.
1000′s or 100,000′s of years is what is needed.

That is clearly not true. What would happen to the much-celebrated Mediaeval Warm Period and Little Ice Age if we just drew a straight line trend through the last couple of thousand years of temperature data? What would happen to the last ice age if we used trend lines of hundreds of thousands of years? They would just disappear. That is not ‘determining long term climate’, it’s erasing it. The Earth does have inherent lags due to thermal inertia of the oceans etc., but periods of several decades are long enough to reveal substantial and significant changes in climate, especially in response to the relatively large forcings human activity has been responsible for.

It is hard to argue with the video evidence:

REPLY: Yes but video is not science. Would prefer a video report from an NGO (the Asia society) then? -A

Icarus says:
August 7, 2010 at 10:40 am
especially in response to the relatively large forcings human activity has been responsible for.
Since you claim it is clear then you must have clear evidence. But no one has evidence it is caused by man. There is only evidence it is caused by Nature and by the sun.
You say it is clearly man. So prove it.

Doug in Seattle says:
August 7, 2010 at 7:47 am
Please evidence your claim that the rules on grey literature were changed before IPCC AR4. The current rules on treating non-peer reviewed literature are at http://ipcc.ch/pdf/ipcc-principles/ipcc-principles-appendix-a.pdf
Those in force during AR3 are at http://web.archive.org/web/20000816183409/www.ipcc.ch/about/app-a.pdf
and are little different.
I don’t have access to the rules for AR1 or AR2, but since both reports cite non-peer reviewed literature, it is implausible that their use was forbidden.
The allegation that there is, or has been, a ban on IPCC using grey literature is a [SNIP]
[Strike one. ~dbs, mod.]

“No, but you can extrapolate into a data void.”
Kriging is a technique for interpolation, not extrapolation.

Whether the glaciers are melting or not, whether man had anything to do with it or not, is NOT the ultimate point.
The point is what will happen to LIVING things as a result–especially mammals and man.
We would benefit if there was warming. You find the most life in the tropics. You find a higher winter-death in people than summer death (and the alarmists would increase summer deaths by depriving us of air conditioning) when deaths-by-month are graphed.
I want to see more research into the health effects of small increases of carbon dioxide, but all I can find are less than a dozen studies–suggesting that even enormous increases of 50X CO (2) would be beneficial.

tty says:
August 7, 2010 at 12:52 pm
“No, but you can extrapolate into a data void.”
Kriging is a technique for interpolation, not extrapolation.

Kriging lets you interpolate or extrapolate, though of course the precision of an interpolation will be a lot higher than that of an extrapolation.
The valley of Nepal is a lot closer to the Himalayas than is say New Mexico, so I don’t see it as particularly egregious to use Nepal temperatures as indicators of Himalayan temperatures, in the absence of anything better.

Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
August 7, 2010 at 11:58 am
Icarus says:
August 7, 2010 at 10:40 am
“…especially in response to the relatively large forcings human activity has been responsible for.”
Since you claim it is clear then you must have clear evidence. But no one has evidence it is caused by man. There is only evidence it is caused by Nature and by the sun.

I’ll have a stab at it then:
Human activity has increased atmospheric CO2 by ~100ppm since pre-industrial times. We know this from straightforward calculations of historic fossil fuel use (how much coal, oil etc. we’ve burned) and from isotopic analysis of the atmospheric CO2 (fossil fuels have been in the ground for millions of years and therefore have a characteristic and detectable isotopic signature).
This additional ~100ppm of CO2, together with other human influences (both warming and cooling), amounts to a net anthropogenic forcing of ~1.6W/m² since the pre-industrial – IPCC figure from AR4.
Fast feedback climate sensitivity is around 0.75°C/W/m² – i.e. over a few decades, each additional W/m² of climate forcing will lead to around 0.75°C of global warming. Hence the current anthropogenic forcing should result in around 1.6 * 0.75 = 1.2°C of short-term warming.
The increased atmospheric CO2 from human activity should result in a top-of-atmosphere radiative imbalance (i.e. an enhanced greenhouse effect). This has been detected both by satellite measurements of reduced longwave radiation to space (Harries 2001) and by ground-based detection of increased downward longwave radiation (Wang 2009). Hence the Earth is warming up, as expected.
This enhanced anthropogenic greenhouse effect has so far produced around 0.7°C of global warming with a further 0.5°C in the pipeline (it takes decades for the climate system – primarily the oceans – to warm up enough for outgoing longwave radiation to increase and once again balance incoming solar radiation).
So, anthropogenic global warming is predicted by the straightforward physics of greenhouse gases and confirmed by experimental evidence from satellites and ground-based observations.
The evidence is very strong for the magnitude of changes in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and also very strong for the forcing which would result from such changes – it’s simply not credible that we could increase atmospheric CO2 without causing the forcing associated with that increase, as this is just basic physics.
Anyone suggesting that the warming of recent decades was due to some natural phenomenon (e.g. the sun) would have to also explain what happened to the anthropogenic radiative forcing which we know must exist. They would have to show that it was counteracted by yet another natural phenomenon which somehow masked its effects – i.e. a putative positive natural forcing entirely counteracted by a putative negative natural forcing, leaving just the anthropogenic forcing to cause the currently observed global warming… but of course that would be the same as agreeing that the anthropogenic forcing is causing the warming anyway. Otherwise, you have to resort to denying the basic physics of greenhouse gases, which is a nonsense since it can be proven in simple laboratory experiments.

Earth’s climate has been changing for millions of years and continues to do so. Here on the East coast we have been sweltering with 90 deg days for many weeks, while the West coast is shivering — even a heating contractor is having a far busier summer than normal. Is it due to an extremely fast transition from El Nino to La Nina? Global cooling concerns, anyone in far-out SF?
Here’s the whole story copied from today’s Wall Street Journal:
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
SAN FRANCISCO—While much of the U.S. is sweltering, the West Coast is experiencing one of its coolest summers in decades, putting a damper on everything from air-conditioning services to attendance at water parks.
The cool-down has stretched from Southern California to Alaska. The high temperature in Anchorage has reached just 73 degrees so far this summer, compared with 81 degrees last year. Portland, Ore., has seen only four days of 90 degrees or higher temperatures, compared with its usual seven or eight days at those levels by now, National Weather Service officials say.
Famously cool San Francisco had its coldest July since 1971, with high temperatures hovering around 63.2 degrees, 3.3 degrees below average, according to the National Weather Service. At Los Angeles International Airport, July’s average high was 70.5 degrees, 4.8 degrees below historic norms. With ocean temperatures as much as 10 degrees cooler than normal, Southern California’s famous beaches have been less crowded.
Southern California often experiences “June gloom,” a period of cool, damp weather in late spring and early summer. But this year, “the June gloom has been going on all summer,” said Leith Emery, owner of PV Surf Camp in Palos Verdes Estates. Mr. Emery said he has canceled four weeks of afternoon sessions so far this summer after three-quarters of his students dropped out.
In San Jose, Calif., where the average high temperature of 78.8 degrees in July was the coolest in 52 years, calls to service air-conditioning equipment have dropped 50% so far this summer for Valley Heating, Cooling & Electrical, owner Cindy Faulkner said.
“Normally on a good day, we get at least 30 to 50 calls in summer, but today so far we’ve taken four,” Ms. Faulkner said recently. Valley recently reduced its head count by three employees. “It’s definitely a struggle,” Ms. Faulkner said.
Attendance has been flat at three Raging Waters parks in California, despite new attractions and an improving economy, according to James Judy, vice president of operations for Palace Entertainment, a unit of Britain’s Candover Investments PLC that runs the water parks. Palace’s nine East Coast water parks were reporting stronger attendance this summer, he said.
“It’s definitely not the summer we were hoping for in California,” Mr. Judy said.
Meteorologists attribute the low temperatures partly to a trough of low pressure parking cooler air along much of the West Coast for months. That has created a thicker-than-normal marine layer, an air mass that develops over a body of water amid a temperature inversion, with stronger winds to bring the frigid air onshore, said Warren Blier, a weather-service science officer in Monterey, Calif.
Mr. Blier said the mirror image of that weather pattern is a high-pressure trough that has parked warm air over the East Coast.
“We don’t have a good understanding of why the trough is persisting here,” Mr. Blier said. “It probably has something to do with global distribution of sea-surface temperatures.”
One theory is that there has been an unusually fast transition from an El Niño condition, which features warmer waters in the equatorial Pacific, to a La Niña condition, with cooler waters. Meteorologists have credited El Niño for bringing a wet year to California after three years of drought. La Niña typically ushers in drier weather for California, but forecasting models so far are unclear what this winter will bring.
There are some pluses to being unseasonably cool. Alfresco Heating in Novato, Calif., is going out on four to five calls a day to install or service heating equipment, compared with the two to three calls it normally handles in July, said service manager Deanna Hoppin.
“This is normally one of the slowest times of the year, but now it has become one of the busiest,” Ms. Hoppin said.

Fast feedback climate sensitivity is around 0.75°C/W/m² – i.e. over a few decades, each additional W/m² of climate forcing will lead to around 0.75°C of global warming. Hence the current anthropogenic forcing should result in around 1.6 * 0.75 = 1.2°C of short-term warming.</i.
I'm not sure what you're driving at here. When co2 increases in the atmosphere the additional energy flux downward from it causes negative feedback from H2O resulting in cooling in the earth.

and by ground-based detection of increased downward longwave radiation (Wang 2009). Hence the Earth is warming up, as expected.
The earth is not warming. Please do not make things up. The earth has been cooling since 1998 while manmade co2 continues to rise.

“Our reconstruction point toward an unprecedented warming
trend in the 20th century but does not depict the usual trends
associated with “Medieval Warm Period” (MWP), or “Little
Ice Age” (LIA).”
Summer temperature trend over the past two millennia using air
content in Himalayan ice
Clim. Past, 3, 89–95, 2007
Hou, et al.
http://www.clim-past.net/3/89/2007/cp-3-89-2007.pdf

I’m surprised nobody has commented on the IPCC claim that temperatures in Sri Lanka are increasing by 2.0 deg PER YEAR.
See “0.016°C increase per year between 1961 to 90 over entire country, 2°C increase per year in central highlands”

Sorry. I seem to be having trouble with
The earlier post should read,
I’m pretty sure it’s just one more IPCC error that slipped through. The 2.0 deg statement is not in the First Order Draft (FOD), and is first mentioned by Basnayake in FOD Expert Review Comments, and is accepted by the lead authors. During the second and final round of review, the error is noted by Xiuqi Fang, of Beijing Normal University. He states, “table 10.2. Check the temperature increasing rate in Sri Lanka. 2C increase per year is too high”, to which the lead authors respond, “Table entries corrected”.
Yet not correction is actually made.
REPLY: Just put url’s in like this and give up on the embedding:
http://www.google.com will autolink on its own in this blog

J.Hansford says:
August 7, 2010 at 5:30 am
stephan says:
August 7, 2010 at 3:45 am
The ABC is funded by the Australian taxpayer, but only represents one side of Politics. The Labor Party’s side. The ABC needs to be disbanded. It is an obscenity in a modern democracy.
***
Absolute rubbish.

John from CA says:
August 7, 2010 at 10:40 am
I wouldn’t hold my breath for ABC News, this piece is as biased as it gets.
ABC News Video
Friday, August 6, 2010
Is Extreme Heat Evidence of Global Warming?
IS IT Global Warming?
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/extreme-heat-evidence-global-warming-climate-change-hottest-summer-year-ever-11346254
Q: Has Global Warming finally arrived?
Richard Somerville (climate scientist) says “It has arrived…we’ve been predicting them [extreme weather patterns] for years and they are here”.
Deke Arndt from National Climate Data Center discusses the temperature trends (1880 to the present).
***
Bias? Since when is reporting what is happening bias? Okay, I get it, we’re getting more heatwaves and higher temperatures, but we musn’t link it to global warming. The world is cooling? Now isn’t that biassed?

Fuzzylogic19,
Gerrard Henderson’s Media Watch Dog has been covering this theme since ABC Chairman Maurice Newman’s now infamous group-think speech earlier this year.
Balanced? No.

Ed Caryl says:
August 7, 2010 at 11:06 am
“Grey literature”
IPCC would use comic books if they found some that fit their agenda!
***
Is this supposed to be intelligent? Sorry, it’s humour of course, but I’m not laughing. I wonder why?

Fuzzylogic19 says:
August 7, 2010 at 8:03 pm
Enneagram says:
August 7, 2010 at 9:49 am
Seriously, the question is: What is the average temperature 5,000 meters above sea level?
Then, how do you explain supposed “melting down”?
***
Seriously, have you ever seen a glacier? They don’t precariously balance on top of mountains, send me a picture of one that does. Glaciers form in mountain valleys at differen altitudes. With global warming the frost line retreats and the lowest altitude glaciers will melt first. Over the longer term, glaciers need to have a balance between melt and growth. In the short term that may mean moving between retreat and gain. The difference today is that 90% or more are retreating and continue to retreat. That puts it on a global scale. Glaciers are the single most important source of fresh water for humanity, we can’t fool around with it. How fast are they melting? That’s a consideration for future generations; that they are melting is beyond dispute.
Is that like “The debate is over”?

Oops, clarification to my post at 9:32 — those annual rates are for the period of 1961-1990.
And additional information about the Sri Lankan rates, from “Impacts of climate change on water resources and agriculture in Sri Lanka: a review and preliminary vulnerability mapping” by Nishadi Eriyagama, Vladimir Smakhtin, Lalith Chandrapala, and Karin Fernando. ( http://books.google.com/books?id=zzHuyEW2nDQC ) “The rate of increase in temperature from 1961 to 1990 is 0.016 C per year…Sri Lanka’s 100-year warming tread from 1896 to 1996 is 0.003 C per year…while it is 0.025 C per year for the 10-year period 1987-1996.”

HaroldW,
I really stuffed up the links in my earlier post on chapter 10, so it’s a bit hard to follow the logic.
Timeline:
Fist Order Draft, 10.2.2 Observed climate trends and variability, Table 10.2 does not have a “change in temperature” entry for Sri Lanka, but does have entries for “Change in Precipitation”, and “References”. Which contain, “Increase trend in February and decrease trend in June” and “Chandrapala and Fernando, 1995; Chandrapala, 1996” respectfully. Clearly, the two references relate to changes in precipitation, not temperature.
The missing entry is noted by Dr. Basnayake in FOD Expert Review Comments. He states:

“”Table 10.2” under Sri Lanka -change in temperature “minimum and maximum temperatures have been increasing during tthe last centurary. 0.016 C increase per year during 1961-90 period over the entire country. 2.0 C increase per century over the central highlands.” under the references “Basnayake, B.R.S.B. et al 2002″”

. Note he said 2.0 C per century.
Dr. Basnayake’s comments are accepted by the lead authors and is then included in the Second Order Draft (SOD) as

“0.016°C increase per year between 1961-90over entire country, 2°C increase per year in central highlands”

Note they changed century to year, and left out the reference as well.
The error is picked up by Xiuqi Fang during the SOD expert review comments ,

“table 10.2. Check the temperature increasing rate in Sri Lanka. 2C increase per year is too high
(Xiuqi Fang, Beijing Normal University)”

, to which the LA responds “Table entries corrected”. Clearly they are not.
Sadly, Dr. Basnayake does not seem to be involved with the SOD as no reviewer comments for him exist.
Clearly, the IPCC statement “2.0 C increase per year” is an error that was pointed out and ultimately ignored. Additionally, the claim is without a citation.

Bill Tuttle says:
August 7, 2010 at 11:59 am
toby: August 7, 2010 at 11:08 am
It is hard to argue with the video evidence
REPLY: Yes but video is not science. Would prefer a video report from an NGO (the Asia society) then? -A
I’ll see your video evidence and raise with video evidence:
***
And then it came to be that I saw both videos and enlightenment came.
Videos themselves may not be science but what it shows may be, alas, apologies for this basic primary school educational line.
One video shows dramatic glacier retreat as actually observed. The other comes from Doug H Hoffman “The Resilient Earth”, sceptics site, which talks about two glaciers, The Sishian in Kashmere and the Gagotri glacier feeding the Ganges. Behold, it even says that the Gagotri glacier retreated between 1934 and 2003 by 22m per year. Slowed to 12m per year 2004/5 and is now at “standstill” (not my inverted commas)
Another report says that the Gagotri retreated @ 21m/yr between 1931-175 and since doubled the speed of retreat.
The himalayas has 7000 glaciers and most cannot be reached, accessible ones are monitored. It doesn’t make sense to claim that because few (15) glaciers are physically monitored out of 7000, to make an assumption that the others are behaving different or opposite. The sites monitored are not “cherrie picked”, they are reacheable and observeable, and isn’t that the best scientific evidence? But don’t video it, because then it is not science. There are some 160,000 glaciers in polar regions globally; must they all be monitored on-site to prove what’s happening? The water running off doesn’t count because it is not ice anymore? Lets stay real please.
This thread is about glaciers melting (or not). Many of the comments have strayed well away from it into “data” grandstanding. Obfuscation at its best.

John M: It was a simple question, why evade it? Would it have been right for me to say, in 1999, “Look John M, the world is warming at 0.43°C per decade!”? –
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1989/to:1999/plot/rss/from:1989/to:1999/trend
Why, or why not?

richard telford says:
August 7, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Doug in Seattle says:
August 7, 2010 at 7:47 am

I don’t have access to the rules for AR1 or AR2, but since both reports cite non-peer reviewed literature, it is implausible that their use was forbidden.
The allegation that there is, or has been, a ban on IPCC using grey literature is a [SNIP]

Therefore, it is ok to cite non-peer reviewed literature.

Mike McMillan says:
August 7, 2010 at 10:59 am
[Thanx, typo fixed. ~dbs, mod.]
Reply: Fixed. ~ ctm
Okay, my turn :
The absence of data in the Western Himalaya invalidates the Kriging Analysis (you can’t interpolate into a data void),
No, but you can extrapolate into a data void.
Mike
humble grammar n*zi 🙂
Extrapolate ‘zero,’ i.e., how many times may one ‘extrapolate zero’ and arrive at another number without actually knowing the number?
Certainly, one might surmise, but extrapolate?

Icarus says:
August 7, 2010 at 2:36 pm
Human activity has increased atmospheric CO2 by ~100ppm since pre-industrial times. We know this from straightforward calculations of historic fossil fuel use (how much coal, oil etc. we’ve burned) and from isotopic analysis of the atmospheric CO2 (fossil fuels have been in the ground for millions of years and therefore have a characteristic and detectable isotopic signature).
Questions for you:
[1] CO2 levels have been far higher in the past, but the temperature didn’t rise. What’s your reason for that?
[2] The temperature has been higher in the past, but the CO2 levels were low. What’s your reason for that?
[3] In the Vostok Ice Cores, temperature –in every case– PRECEDED any rise or fall in CO2. By the evidence then, CO2 is NOT a causative agent, but rather an indicator gas. How do you explain the lagging effect?
[4] Precisely what is a ‘fossil fuel,’ according to yourself?
[5] Since you are wont to declare that the carbon atoms of mineral crude happen to be of a different isotope, are you able to present information which incontrovertibly proves that assertion?
[6] What happens when those different isotopes are absorbed by whatever other natural process? Do they change, or do they remain the same?

Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
August 7, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Human activity has increased atmospheric CO2 by ~100ppm since pre-industrial times.
This is not proof. It is conflation. The price of chocolate has also gone up in that time. Chocolate causes global warming.
Oooooh, I dunno.
More it is –I think– the larger consumption of hard-boiled eggs, with a generous serving of chile, and several tankards of fine ale!
😉

Icarus says:
August 7, 2010 at 4:39 pm
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
August 7, 2010 at 4:01 pm
and by ground-based detection of increased downward longwave radiation (Wang 2009). Hence the Earth is warming up, as expected.
The earth is not warming. Please do not make things up. The earth has been cooling since 1998 while manmade co2 continues to rise.
Why do you repeat things which you know are false? The Earth’s climate system is warming at about 0.18°C per decade, with no sign of that even slowing down, let alone stopping. The proof is undeniable.
No sign of slowing? Interesting remark.
People are quite literally FREEZING to death in South America –near the equator– and you’re talking about warming?
Unbelievable!

Fuzzylogic19: August 7, 2010 at 7:28 pm
The cliff is, in thjis case, is 2 billion people relying on summer glacier melt to feed the rivers. Weather that happens in 10-30-50 or 100 years is a moot point. Even half melted, the problems will be obvious. Call me alarmist if you feel the need.
Wrong. They depend, first, on spring and summer meltwater from the *snowfall* on the mountain slopes, second, on the seasonal monsoons, and only finally on glacier melt. And the problem isn’t that the glaciers are melting, it’s that annual snowfall has been reduced — the glaciers are ablating, even in the wintertime. The snowfall has been reduced because the forested area at the base of the mountains has been reduced by logging, fuel gathering, and land-clearing for agriculture.
Trees exhale water vapor, among other things, and if they’re around the base of a mountain range, the vapor is carried upslope until it condenses and falls as snow (it’s *cold* up there). Wet snow falls in the lower elevations, but the lighter powder is carried higher — if there’s less overall evaporation, there’s less overall snowfall, and the decrease is most-noticeable at higher elevations. The high glaciers in the Himalayas can only keep their mass by receiving regular snowfall — which at that altitude, is light powder — and it takes a lot of powder to compact into just an inch of ice.

The IPCC is about politics NOT science. One more time.. The IPCC is about politics NOT science.
In other words… The IPCC uses the guise of science to achieve political ends.
PS: It matters VERY much who we listen to, and read, and believe, and vote for. It matters more than most of us can, or will, ever imagine.

Bill Tuttle says:
August 8, 2010 at 6:47 am
Fuzzylogic19: August 7, 2010 at 7:28 pm
“Wrong. They depend, first, on spring and summer meltwater from the *snowfall* on the mountain slopes, second, on the seasonal monsoons, and only finally on glacier melt. And the problem isn’t that the glaciers are melting, it’s that annual snowfall has been reduced — the glaciers are ablating, even in the wintertime. The snowfall has been reduced because the forested area at the base of the mountains has been reduced by logging, fuel gathering, and land-clearing for agriculture.
Trees exhale water vapor, among other things, and if they’re around the base of a mountain range, the vapor is carried upslope until it condenses and falls as snow (it’s *cold* up there). Wet snow falls in the lower elevations, but the lighter powder is carried higher — if there’s less overall evaporation, there’s less overall snowfall, and the decrease is most-noticeable at higher elevations. The high glaciers in the Himalayas can only keep their mass by receiving regular snowfall — which at that altitude, is light powder — and it takes a lot of powder to compact into just an inch of ice.”
***
When a glacier retreats @ 22m/year since 1931 it amounts to about 1.8 Km. That’s a very large store of fresh water gone, melted. In a warming world (sorry, no upset intended) the frost line moves up and the glacier matches by retreating. Mountains are not rectangular colums reaching for the shy, with elevation the area of land upon which the snow falls and glacier habitat decreases. In a stable atmosphere the temperature drops 7C per 1000m elevation. There are two causes for ice/snow melt, temperature above freezing point and direct solar exposure. The winter snow does not really add to the ice thickness by compacting, but by melting from direct sun exposure at the higher altitudes and re-freezing in shady areas. As you said it takes a lot of powder snow to add to glacial mass. Most snow falls near the freezing line and much less at the higher peaks because the colder air is also drier.
Therefore, any glacier gain at high altitude requires an awfull lot of snow, not over decades but thousands of years. The ice on Antarctica did not fall in convenient 1 cubic metre blocks from the sky. It accumulated from snow over hundreds of millions of years. The compacting of ice takes place withing the ice itself from sheer massive weight. Even on Antarctica, a lot of winter snow will melt in summer and refreeze as ice, except for what runs of the ice shelf into the ocean. Given that Antarctica is essentially a dessert in terms of precipitation, the amount fallen on it must amount to hundreds of kilometers cumulative snow depth over hundreds of millions of years. Any ice loss must be seen in the context of how much snowfall was needed to create it in the first place. Ice loss is a worry because there is an enormous time lag between snow fall and ice accumulation.
If monitored glaciers on the Himalayan/Tibettan area are speeding up retreat, it does not make sense to say “Yes but there are 7000 known glaciers, so all the others may not be melting, blimey, they may be increasing, so let’s ignore it until they are all monitored”. Any volunteers? I don’t mind argueing a point, but let’s remain sensible.
No matter how much it is spun into discussions about temperature data being right, wrong or in between. The glaciers don’t care; the proof is in the melting.

Fuzzylogic19,

I thought CO2 emissions began in earnest about 200 years ago. What’s 1950 based on?

You thought wrong.
It is generally accepted that co2 concentrations prior to 1950 (about 280 ppm) were too low to have any impact whatsoever. The IPCC claims that their models can accurately reproduce the earths temperature prior to 1970 without including co2, and the inclusion of co2 post 1970 is needed for models to match reality. These statements are vital to the IPCC position.
Just to be clear. The ICC claim their climate models accurately reproduce past climate up until 1970 without taking co2 into account. This must mean that co2 concentrations up until 1970 (approx 310 ppm) were having no effect on the climate, and therefore that climate changes prior to 1970 were natural. The IPCC further claim that the climate models accurately reproduce climate since 1970 only by increasing co2 concentrations.
Now ask yourself some tough questions. If climate changes prior to 1970 were natural, what cause the temperature to rise since 1890. What caused glaciers to retreat since 1890. What caused sea-level to rise since 1890. etc. etc. etc.
Let me help with an answer. Not co2.

Fuzzylogic19,
Your ignorance of the basic facts is outstanding. You are way out of your depth here and it clearly show. Might I suggest you do some reading on the topic first.

There are two causes for ice/snow melt, temperature above freezing point and direct solar exposure.

Just 2 causes? Really?

PS: It matters VERY much who we listen to, and read, and believe, and vote for. It matters more than most of us can, or will, ever imagine.

I sure hope you are either too young, or too lazy to vote. Last thing we need is another ill informed global gladiator like you voting green.

The winter snow does not really add to the ice thickness by compacting, but by melting from direct sun exposure at the higher altitudes and re-freezing in shady areas.

The winter snow, and the year round snow, does add to ice thickness by compacting. Can you please point out where the “shaddy” bits are at the poles?
Just realised you have also contradicted yourself only a few sentences later.

It accumulated from snow over hundreds of millions of years. The compacting of ice takes place withing the ice itself from sheer massive weight.

If the snow has been there for hundreds of millions of years, why didn’t it melt during past interglacial periods when average temperature were much much higher than they are now and much higher than even the worst IPCC forecasts for 2100.
In 2007, Antarctic sea ice had reached its greatest ever recorded extent. Antarctica is normally below zero all year. Winter: -40 to -94°F (-40 to -70°C)
Summer: -5 to -31°F (-15 to -35°C)
Bit hard to melt ice when the temperature is below zero.

No matter how much it is spun into discussions about temperature data being right, wrong or in between. The glaciers don’t care; the proof is in the melting.

Then why have they been melting since 1890? Like you said. The glaciers don’t care.

Fuzzylogic19,
I don’t want you to think you are not welcome here. You have as much right to comment as the rest of us, although you might do some reading first.
You can search for information in many locations. If you have already decided the earth is doomed, then the IPCC, Real Climate, Deltoid and Deep Climate will help with your alarmist arguments. Don’t waste your time with wikipedia – it’s just plain crap. I won’t point you to any so called skeptical sites because you can find them on your own.
You are entitled to have an opinion – informed or otherwise. Try, if you can, not to look at this as an alarmists v skeptics battle. It’s far more nuanced than that.
Cheerio.

*psssst* — Fuzzylogic: I hid a *beautiful* logical fallacy for you at 12:53am if you want to jump on it…

justcherrypicked says:
August 8, 2010 at 9:26 pm
Fuzzylogic19,
“I don’t want you to think you are not welcome here. You have as much right to comment as the rest of us, although you might do some reading first.”
***
Thank you, but for reading, I have about 300 books covering both sides of the argument and now a choked hard drive as well. Patronising based on assumption is risky.
***
“You can search for information in many locations. If you have already decided the earth is doomed, then the IPCC, Real Climate, Deltoid and Deep Climate will help with your alarmist arguments. Don’t waste your time with wikipedia – it’s just plain crap. I won’t point you to any so called skeptical sites because you can find them on your own.”
***
I don’t find the language used very helpful. If I believe that global warming is real, why am I immediately called an ‘alarmist’, ‘thermo-maniac’ etc while respectfully referring to the other side as sceptics. Not that I get the impression that every one commenting here is a genuine sceptic by definition. Too many attack science irrationally or refer to conspiracies. Why do you call Wikipedia crap, is that fair? Surely there’s a lot of good stuff there. If it is just a personal gripe, isn’t it better kept to yourself?

Smokey: How much warming would it take to melt the planet’s glaciers?

Fuzzy,

We are at the end of the present Holocene

So does that mean we are heading into anther ice age?
I’m curious. What evidence do you have for this statement? Because if it’s true, global warming hardly seems important.
BTW. The Holocene is the name for the current geological epoch which began 10-12,000 years ago. Holocene is not a term meaning interglacial as you imply by calling it the “present Holocene”. You must’ve been sleepy when you reading about that.
I’m curious about your claim of owning 300 climate books. I didn’t know so many had been written. I would be most interested if you would kindly list them.

justcherrypicked says:
August 8, 2010 at 7:50 pm
Fuzzylogic19,
“I thought CO2 emissions began in earnest about 200 years ago. What’s 1950 based on?”
You thought wrong.
It is generally accepted that co2 concentrations prior to 1950 (about 280 ppm) were too low to have any impact whatsoever. The IPCC claims that their models can accurately reproduce the earths temperature prior to 1970 without including co2, and the inclusion of co2 post 1970 is needed for models to match reality. These statements are vital to the IPCC position.
***
We began to measure CO2 emissions in 1958 at Mauna Loa at 280ppm. From 1000 to 1770 AD the CO2 level was stable at 278ppm, slightlt dropping to 271ppm by about 1800. Between 1800 and 1900 it rose to 290ppm and then to 394ppm today. There is no identfyable impact figure. The initial slow rise would have had a proportional slow response but already acellerated from 1800 onward to 315ppm in 1958.(http://www.co2now.org/) From the moment CO2 levels rise there will be a proportional impact, subject to lag times. The no impact whatsoever statement doesn’t make sense, unless it is qualified with ‘observable’ on a time line.

Fuzzylogic19: August 9, 2010 at 6:49 am
From 1000 to 1770 AD the CO2 level was stable at 278ppm, slightlt dropping to 271ppm by about 1800.
Nope. CO2 was never “stable at 278ppm” for that long. From the Law Dome ice core report:
“Preindustrial CO2 mixing ratios [measured from 1006AD] were in the range 275-284 ppm, with the lower levels during 1550-1800 A.D., probably as a result of colder global climate (Etheridge et al. 1996). The Law Dome ice core CO2 records show major growth in atmospheric CO2 levels over the industrial period, except during 1935-1945 A.D. when levels stabilized or decreased slightly.”
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/lawdome.html
The data points here:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/lawdome.gif
and with 75-year smoothing:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/lawdome.smooth75.gif

Turboblocke – please note that

also says that ‘Calculating the averge annual temperature of the 119 temperature guages in Nepal located at elevations on between 72 m and 4100 m avove sea level, reveals an upward trend in values from 1961 to 1996 at a rate of almost 7C per 100 years’ !!!