Here’s a bit of research that you don’t normally see in the MSM stories about glacier melt. It is backed up by a second and very interesting article (below) from 1947 in Geographical Review which says “Most of the worlds glaciers have been shrinking in recent decades.” Yet, news reports of the last decade would have you believe that glacier recession is an unprecedented phenomenon.
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From ETH Zurich: The most recent studies by researchers at ETH Zurich show that in the 1940s Swiss glaciers were melting at an even-faster pace than at present. This is despite the fact that the temperatures in the 20th century were lower than in this century. Researchers see the main reason for this as the lower level of aerosol pollution in the atmosphere.
In Switzerland, the increase in snow in wintertime and the glacier melt in summertime have been measured at measurement points at around 3,000 metres above sea level – on the Clariden Firn, the Great Aletsch glacier and the Silvretta glacier – without interruption for almost 100 years. As part of his doctoral work, Matthias Huss used this unique range of measurements to examine how climate change in the last century affected the glaciers. The work was carried out under the supervision of Martin Funk, professor and head of the Department for Glaciology at the Laboratory for Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (‘VAW’) at ETH Zurich, who is also co-author of the study.
Solar radiation as the decisive factor
In its work, the research team took into account the solar radiation measured on the Earth’s surface in Davos since 1934. Studies over the past two decades have shown that solar radiation varies substantially due to aerosols and clouds, and this is assumed to influence climate fluctuations. Recent years have seen the emergence of the terms ‘global dimming’ and ‘global brightening’ to describe these phenomena of reduced and increased solar radiation respectively. These two effects are currently the subject of more and more scientific research, in particular by ETH Zurich, as experts feel that they should be taken into account in the climate models (see ETH Life dated July 9, 2009)
The new study, published in the journal ‘Geophysical Research Letters’, confirms this requirement. This is because, taking into account the data recorded for the level of solar radiation, the scientists made a surprising discovery: in the 1940s and in the summer of 1947 especially, the glaciers lost the most ice since measurements commenced in 1914. This is in spite of the fact that temperatures were lower than in the past two decades. “The surprising thing is that this paradox can be explained relatively easily with radiation”, says Huss, who was recently appointed to the post of senior lecturer at the Department of Geosciences at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.
On the basis of their calculations, the researchers have concluded that the high level of short-wave radiation in the summer months is responsible for the fast pace of glacier melt. In the 1940s, the level was 8% higher than the long-term average and 18 Watts per square metres above the levels of the past ten years. Calculated over the entire decade of the 1940s, this resulted in 4% more snow and ice melt compared with the past ten years.
Furthermore, the below-average melt rates at the measurement points during periods in which the glacier snouts were even advancing correlate with a phase of global dimming, between the 1950s and the 1980s.
Less snow fall and longer melt periods
The researchers arrived at their findings by calculating the daily melt rates with the aid of climate data and a temperature index model, based on the half-yearly measurements on the glaciers since 1914. These results were then compared with the long-term measurements of solar radiation in Davos.
Huss points out that the strong glacier melt in the 1940s puts into question the assumption that the rate of glacier decline in recent years “has never been seen before”. “Nevertheless”, says the glaciologist, “this should not lead people to conclude that the current period of global warming is not really as big of a problem for the glaciers as previously assumed”. This is because it is not only the pace at which the Alpine glaciers are currently melting that is unusual, but the fact that this sharp decline has been unabated for 25 years now. Another aspect to consider – and this is evidenced by the researchers’ findings – is that temperature-based opposing mechanisms came into play around 30 years ago. These have led to a 12% decrease in the amount of precipitation that falls as snow as a percentage of total precipitation, accompanied by an increase of around one month in the length of the melt period ever since this time. Scientists warn that these effects could soon be matched by the lower level of solar radiation we have today compared with the 1940s.
Reference
Huss M, Funk M & Ohmura A: Strong Alpine glacier melt in the 1940s due to enhanced solar radiation. Geophysical Research Letters (2009), 36, L23501, doi:10.1029/2009GL040789
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Here’s the supporting article in Geographical Review, available here:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/211127
h/t to WUWT reader “Jimbo”
In this review of the long-term drought variability of Glacier National Park and other areas in the Rockies, the extent of Sperry Glacier is shown from 1850 to 2003. Most of the shrinkage had happened by 1945.
http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/cirmount/wkgrps/ecosys_resp/postings/pdf/pederson_etal2006.pdf
Robin Kool says: ‘In my opinion, a discussion of the causes of shrinking or growing glaciers without considering albedo is incomplete.’
Agreed. See here for more:
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Black_Carbon_Driving_Himalayan_Melt_999.html
And it all gets mistakenly attributed to CO2 or changing TSI.
BUT – why did it stop in the 1950s? Why did the climate cool? It wasn’t sulphate aerosols (as the consensus would have it), so what really happened?
The paper which accompanies The Oregon Petition has a graph showing glacier shrinkage began in the early 1800s.
http://www.petitionproject.org/gw_article/GWReview_OISM150.pdf
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This is unprecedented, again. :o)
On the 15th of this month a thread was started at ATS about climate called Global Warming – Lay it all out – Real…or Fake
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread620099/pg#pid9795437
Up until today the 24th there were 6 posts … I put a link up to the piece
The stupefying pace of glacier melt in the 1940s
Since posting it, there have been 7 posts burying mine .most are of the AGW persuasion.
Swiss!! What do they know about ice and snow and stuff like that? Its as dumb as teh Russians claiming to know about the Arctic!
Proper studies of all these things can only be done in ‘labs’ in warm places in the US and in Norwich, UK. All other sources of information are corrupted by exposure to unadjusted ‘data, which misleads those who are not fully authorised ‘Climate Scientists’.
It is also worth noting that the Swiss did not even invent the cuckoo clock. According to an ex-girlfriend from Zurich, they are Austrian. But then she was Swiss and probably thought that her brother who owns a skiing hotel knows something about snow and ice as well……tosh!
So, global dimming leads to global warming which melts the glaciers???
The article jumps a lot, and is hard to follow the logic.
Nevertheless, CRU99 (Jones) has this to say about the progression of temperature in Sitka, Alaska:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/Sitka.GIF
Everything look copacetic until one gets to the mid 1970’s and the NCDC/NOAA data takes a big jump.
The extra warm weather in the NCDC/NOAA data set should have delivered more snow to the glaciers, but then they say no, so somebody has something ‘adjusted’ and salted to taste.
Richard Sharpe
“I am confused. I thought that TSI was about 1366watts/m^2, but that figure is the average across the whole surface of the Earth. In which case, the instantaneous figure should be much higher than that at noon in summer at a location New Mexico.
What have I misunderstood?”
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Yes your reference points the right direction. Clearly satellites can measure the TOA but probably not an integrated surface solar insolation value – yet anyway!
You are talking about TOA (Top of the Atmosphere) levels. I am talking about a much more variable solar level at the surface in NM.
Bernie
I wonder whether particulates from the 1939/45 event could have made much difference to alpine glaciers? A significant amount of combustion from that time would have been “dirty” burning producing lots of soot, with explosive events propelling at least some of it skywards. Aeroplanes of that time were flying in massive formations at low altitudes (relative to jets today) and would have produced rather more particulates in their exhaust than similar engines of today.
I recall a study indicating the Himalayan glaciers of modern times being impacted by soot in modern times.
We are probably at the very end of the present Interglacial Warmup Period. Any glaciologist, not feeding at the public trough of free grant money, will tell you that glacier melting during IWPs is to be expected. What should be of serious concern is that many glaciers are growing.
Jimbo @ur momisugly 11:43 links to a pdf with a map – Figure 1
Location map of Alaska and Glacier Bay National Park showing
terminus positions and dates during retreat of glacier. . . .
This map shows that most of the glacier melt occurred between 1780 and 1900. Perhaps a few more of you could save a copy of this document before it is “disappeared.” Just saying . . .
Is the map with the Geog. Review available someplace?
I love the catch phrases these people use
“Never been seen before” Not in my lifetime.
“Since records began” i.e. Satellite observations.
“Unprecedented” I am too lazy to look at records.
Generally speaking, glaciers have been melting for 22,000+ years.
Way too many laypersons seem to think that glaciers were unchanged throughout history until the 20th century. They see glacier melting as PROOF of climate change. The same with rising sea levels.
A glaciologist on the way to work on the Silvretta glacier (Image: Matthias Huss / ETH Zurich)
Don’t know much about glaciers, but I know that ETHZ has the best geomagnetic data base anywhere in the world.
Here is an example calculated from their numbers:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC.htm
Pehaps related to the glacier melts discussed above is the increase in sea level rate-of-rise around 1930.
Although there have been some articles printed that curve fit a parabolic to the GMSL history to show that there is an accelerating trend, the best fit is really just two straight lines, with the breakpoint between the lines being about 1930.
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“Degrees of heat unrecorded since the beginning of regular meteorological statistics were observed in Central Europe during last summer.”
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2256653
Enneagram says:
October 24, 2010 at 8:34 am
From its beginning, in the 1960¨s, this has been a sub-culture born out from pot smoking and LSD “flights”. Its supreme hymn: Beatles´”Imagine”:
1) “Imagine” was neither written nor sung by the Beatles.
2) It wasn’t written in the 60’s. Nor was it ever a hippie anthem (In fact its incredible sales show that it was very firmly not just a sub-culture anthem.
3) If you think the pot and LSD sub-culture of the 60’s still exists in some sort of linear progression, then you are sadly out of tune.
Grow up! The current green movement is rather more solidly based than the rabid imaginings of hippies 50 years ago. Take it at its merits, and fight it at its merits. Don’t sink to the level of slagging modern people based on some commonalities with what their grandparents did.
Heres how Oerlemans in 2005 could produce glacier based graphs “showing” that todays temperatures are especially high.
What a Farce:
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/the-warm-glacier-temperature-reconstruction-of-oerlemans-2005-160.php
K.R. Frank
Warrick says:
October 24, 2010 at 12:55 pm (Edit)
I wonder whether particulates from the 1939/45 event could have made much difference to alpine glaciers?
I believe it the LACK of particulates that they are talking about.
In that time period you had more direct sunlight ( short wave in summer month) on the ice, which of course works very fast to melt the ice. So if you look at all the factors that contribute to the galciers melting ( direct sunlight, soot on the ice, air temps ) you see that in that period the melt was driven by the direct light. Less aerosals, more direct sunlight. less C02 in the air, cooler temps, but not cool enough to mitigate the effect of the summer month short wave sunlight
When you come into the prsent period the melt is no longer driven as hard by the direct sunlight factor, why? more aerosals. Instead, the process is driven by increased soot, and increased air temps ( from C02). These factors ( as well as others) all work together, at sometime in the past the driver was direct sunlight, a fast acting processing. Now, today there may be less direct summer month shortwavet, but slightly higher air temps. The Causes stay the same, but there relative contribution changes.
the finding here are utterly consistent with AGW theory. The theory doesnt state that glaciers melt ONLY because of increased air temps ( or downwelling IR) many factors drive the process. But in the presence of ever increasing air temps the ice is fighting a losing battle. For example, if you clean out soot from the air the ice will be happier, but on the other hand to the extent that this leads to more direct sunlight hitting the ice, the ice will be less happy. So you have fast acting processes intermingled with slower acting processes, but there is nothing remarkable about one aspect ( summer short wave) dominating during a past period, while the current period is driven by another process.
Nothing here, excpet perhaps a admonition to climate scientists to speak more clearly when they discuss “unprecidented” events.
Many German cities were on fire for length periods from 1943-45. Industrial sites were regularly bombed. The Balkan oil fields were attacked and incinerated. These events must have provided extensive black soot that altered the albedo of the Alpine glaciers and snow fields.
Is there any indication in the research papers of this factor and its impact and melting?
The Bernese Oberland glaciers have clearly been melting for a long time. Mountain huts were originally built just above glacier level, so that they could collect snow to make water. When I trecked there in the 1980s they were all well above glacier level. ConcordiaPlatzHutte was a good 100m above the Aletsch glacier, the longest in Europe, probably more now.
Around 1769 St François de Sales answered a request from Chamonix and went to pray for the retreat of the two major glaciers, which were threatening to block the valley, destroy Argentière and form an unstable dam on the Arve. His prayers were answered and the Argentière and Géant glaciers have been retreating ever since.
Scientific proof of global warming and the efficacy of prayer in one post!
Wow each study chooses their own temperature regime for the period in question.
1) The 1930s and early 40s were known to be a warmer period than today; it was just viciously adjusted down to make the present the hottest ever.
2) Are they saying there were no aerosols and particulates to cool things down in the early 40s with the most destructive war in history all around Switzerland. The pulverisation and burning of Dresden alone must have been on par with at least a small volcano and there were untold billions of tons of dust, smoke, cordite, there were hundreds of thousands of air sortees and these old babies didn’t have good fuel and catalytic exhaust systems. The artillery, small arms, tank battles, etc went on for 6 years. Did those wily Swiss stop all this stuff at the border, too?
Was watching a doom and gloom marathon on History Channel yesterday. Most of the programs were about volcanoes, earthquakes, etc. But of course they had one on climate catastrophe. There were some names I wasn’t familiar with as far as scientists go, and the program took a long time to start spouting greenhouse gases. Of course they were preaching catastrophe for glaciers, failing to state that most glacier melt since the LIA had occurred before 1950.
But they categorically said that the oceans are warming because the atmosphere is warming.
Is that even possible? I’m not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination, but it seems that the thermal capacity of the oceans far exceeds that of the atmosphere, probably by several orders of magnitude. It doesn’t seem to add up.
Frank Lansner says:
October 24, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Heres how Oerlemans in 2005 could produce glacier based graphs “showing” that todays temperatures are especially high.
What a Farce:
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/the-warm-glacier-temperature-reconstruction-of-oerlemans-2005-160.php
K.R. Frank
A little cautious here Frank, Oerlemans is a moderate skeptic here in The Netherlands. He doesn’t believe that the climate models are able to “project” the future, simply because climate is chaotic and unpredictable. He used models for the glacier retreat, but checks them with reality: He finds that measurements are the necessary base and has done and still does a lot in the field. And should be extended in the future.
His glacier “thermometer” is based on a lot of measurements on different glaciers, but is of course quite rough in time resolution (10-20 years), and only goes back to about 1600. All it shows is that the LIA was a lot colder than the CWP, much colder than MBH’98/’99 and similar reconstrcutions shows (the “shaft” of the HS). In that way it is a good indication of much higher natural variability in the past.
Precipitation needs to be weighted as highly as temperature. If patterns changed so that even the annual precipitation was the same but more fell in the summer as rain and less in winter as snow, that would cause a glacier to retreat quite rapidly.
What were the monthly precipitation patterns in that period compared to an earlier period and compared to today?
In recent years I believe the Alps have been getting considerable winter snow. We should see those glaciers stabilizing or advancing soon.