This is an OSU press release, timed to appear in Eurekalert for Cancun’s COP16 on December 8th, and reposted here verbatim, including the all caps headline. Even though the “melting on Kilimanjaro due to global warming” has been fully debunked by a recent peer reviewed paper (see Kilimanjaro’s snow – it’s about land use change, tree cutting) Dr. Thompson continues to push this false information.
For example, this is a photo (at left) of Dr. Thompson standing next to an ice spire on Kilimanjaro. Notice any meltwater pools nearby? You won’t, because they aren’t there. Read this quote from this entry to understand why:
The ice cap on Kilimanjaro consists of ice on the 5,700-meter-high flat summit, some with vertical edges, and several slope glaciers, mostly at altitudes where temperatures stay well below freezing and the major source of energy is solar radiation. Considerable infrared radiation is emitted from the glacier surface into the surrounding air, and the glaciers lose the most mass through sublimation-the direct conversion of ice to water vapor. Observers have seen only a trickle of meltwater.
Dr. Thompson seems not to want to understand the process of sublimation on Kilimanjaro – Anthony
RyanM chimes in: Tennis great(est) Martina Navratilova, who recently battled breast cancer, participated in a charity climb/hike up Kilimanjaro this week, but sadly had to turn back due to health concerns. However, an “unexpected blizzard” and really ugly “tropical winter” weather made her climb quite miserable. “We have sent a message down to our base camp to bring up thicker gloves, hand warmers and more heavy clothing. I was expecting it to be cold and snowy, but not so soon.”
CLIMATE SCIENTIST WARNS WORLD OF WIDESPREAD SUFFERING IF FURTHER CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOT FORESTALLED.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – One of the world’s foremost experts on climate change is warning that if humans don’t moderate their use of fossil fuels, there is a real possibility that we will face the environmental, societal and economic consequences of climate change faster than we can adapt to them.
Lonnie Thompson, distinguished university professor in the School of Earth Sciences at Ohio State University, posed that possibility in a just-released special climate-change edition of the journal The Behavior Analyst.
He also discussed how the rapid and accelerating retreat of the world’s glaciers and ice sheets dramatically illustrates the nature of the changing climate.
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| Lonnie Thompson |
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Photo by Thomas Nash
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It is the first time in a published paper that he has recommended specific action to forestall the growing effects of climate change. During the last three decades, Thompson has led 57 expeditions to some of the world’s most remote high altitude regions to retrieve cores from glaciers and ice caps that preserve a record of ancient climate.
In the past Thompson has let his research data and conclusions speak for him but in this paper, intended for social scientists and behavior experts, he voiced his concern regarding the risks that ignoring the evidence of climate change may bring.
“Unless large numbers of people take appropriate steps, including supporting governmental regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, our only options will be adaptation and suffering,” he wrote in the concluding paragraph.
“And the longer we delay, the more unpleasant the adaptations and the greater the suffering will be.”
In the paper (available here), Thompson said that virtually all climate researchers “are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization.”
His opinion isn’t hyperbole, he said, but instead is based on a “very clear pattern in the scientific evidence documenting that the Earth is warming, that the warming is due largely to human activity, that warming is causing important changes to many of the Earth’s support systems, and that rapid and potentially catastrophic changes in the near future are possible.
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“Unless large numbers of people take appropriate steps, including supporting governmental regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, our only options will be adaptation and suffering.” |
“Such future scenarios,” he says, “emerge not, as is often suggested, simply from computer simulations, but from the weight and balance of the empirical evidence as well.”
Thompson listed three options humanity has for dealing with global warming which, he says, “is here and is already affecting our climate, so prevention is no longer an option.”
“Clearly mitigation is our best option, but so far most societies around the world, including the United States and the other largest emitters of greenhouse gases, have done little more than talk about the importance of mitigation,” he says.
He says that there are currently no technological quick fixes for global warming.
“Our best hope,” he says, “is to change our behavior in ways that significantly slow the rate of global warming, thereby giving engineers and scientists time to devise, develop, and deploy technological solutions where possible.”
Thompson prefaced his advice with examples of the Earth’s diminishing ice cover, examples that constitute some of the strongest supporting evidence of the current threat of global climate change:
— The ice fields atop Mount Kilimanjaro have lost 85 percent of their coverage since 1912;
— The Quelccaya ice cap in southern Peru – the largest tropical ice field on Earth, has retreated 25 percent since 1978;
— Ice fields in the Himalayas that have long shown traces of the radioactive bomb tests in the 1950s and 1960s have since lost that signal as surface melting has removed the upper layers and thereby reduced the thickness of these glaciers;
— All of the glaciers in Alaska’s vast Brooks Range are retreating, as are 98 percent of those in southeastern Alaska. And 99 percent of glaciers in the Alps, 100 percent of those in Peru and 92 percent in the Andes of Chile are likewise retreating;
— Sea levels are rising and the loss of ice coverage in the North Polar region continues to increase annually.
“Everyone will be affected by global warming,” Thompson wrote. “But those with the fewest resources for adapting will suffer the most.”
A research scientist with Ohio State’s Byrd Polar Research Center, Thompson is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2007, he received the National Medal of Science, the highest honor the United States gives to American scientists.
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Contact: Lonnie Thompson, (614) 292-6652: Thompson.3@osu.edu
Written by Earle Holland, (614) 292-8384; Holland.8@osu.edu.
“– Ice fields in the Himalayas that have long shown traces of the radioactive bomb tests in the 1950s and 1960s have since lost that signal as surface melting has removed the upper layers and thereby reduced the thickness of these glaciers;”
This is also suspicious claim. What about half-life of isotopes.
And what is “radioactive bomb” A-Bomb, H-Bomb or so called dirty bomb.
Might I suggest a special archive bin for such ‘reports’ or ‘science’?
Rather than archiving it with proper stuff perhaps we should have an ‘EPIC FAIL’ Bin? At least then, it will have had some ‘peer review’ and who knows may even be reported as such by other media!
This kind of research (heck!, even using that term is downright blasphemous!) is likely produced by scientific trolls, but without much science part! It bugs me that this should get any media coverage at all! – clearly biased – it’s not even fit to be used for toilet training paper for my puppy!
One of the key scientists on the CAGW side and (unless I missed it) he offers absolutely nothing new in this paper. He packages up a lot of old, unproven or even debunked news and has had it published as if it was science. This rounds up a lot of grey references that may now be used in the next IPPC report because, having been repeated in a (presumably) peer reviewed paper, they constitute a legitimate reference.
Thompson has refused to admit the loss of Kilimanjaro’s ice cap is due to the deforestation of the adjacent rain forests. It is the declining precipitation which has caused the famous mountain to lose its snow cap.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
December 10, 2010 at 9:54 pm
Imagine my embarrassment over Andy Dessler’s (a Texas A&M climate researcher) idiocity in re clouds being a positive feedback.
Oh, the ignominy,
gary
That news about Martina Navratilov’s cancer is sad. I hope she gets better and lives long. I hope we can find technology that allows everyone to live to at least 80, even stupid scientists and misled tennis players.
Kilimanjaro, land use, transpiration, and sublimation aside … Virtually all the world’s glaciers have been retreating for at least 400 year. Our CO2 cannot have been the cause of most of that melting. (Google “Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data.”)
Thompson of all people must know that. I wonder how much “green” stock he owns.
My company, and all it wonderful employees, make green products. People mostly buy them because energy is expensive so saving it saves money, and money is nice.
GREEN … THE COLOR OF MONEY.
dT
That ice spire is very cool (no pun). How do they form? I don’t get how sublimation would create that sharp point. Just wondering …
dT
Google:
Kilimanjaro,fumaroles
http://www.google.fr/search?hl=fr&client=firefox-a&hs=UFh&rls=org.mozilla%3Afr%3Aofficial&q=Kilimanjaro%2Cfumaroles
>>“– Sea levels are rising and the loss of ice coverage in the North
>>Polar region continues to increase annually.”
And as I have said before, most of the Roman and Greek sites I visit are at or above the sea-level they were built for (the Romans did have a warm period). Indicating that sea levels have not changed or are possibly lower.
Does anyone really know what sea levels are doing? Are there any sections of coastline that can be reliable said to have been stationary (not rising or falling) for two millennia, and can be used to accurately define this sea level rise? (Roman Herculanium near Naples, which is geologically seismic, seems to have gone up and down by four meters several times.)
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Without “unprecedented” glacier melting Mr Thompson has no career. He’s nailed his colours to the mast in that respect.
Since directly contrary evidence is not going to make the slightest bit of difference, the chance that contradictory evidence (such as we see with glaciers) will be treated fairly is zero.
Could not some investigative journalists research these so called scientists and their ideological backgrounds? Wasn’t Phil Jones a former Greenpeace activist? (Or was that a false rumour?) What else but doom and gloom can you expect from ideological warriors? There are not many books that I have read that have been as scary as Mike Hulme’s. He lays it out open how AGW is a comprehensive and total world view to the members of the climate science community. And he has absolutely no problems with it, to him it’s completely normal, or rather positive, that ideological and political leanings affect scientific research. He paints a picture that this is a widespread trait in the community. I would really like to know if this is true and to what extent. Investigative journalism has failed us here.
Well it worked. The nutters in cancun did a deal. So the UK, which is massively in debt
Now has to pay for places like tuvalu to carry on exploding their population and then allowing them to jump over to NZ when they get bored…
Without supporting data, this can only be described as “Sandwich Board” science.
So essentially this guy has a lot of trips on his shoulders to show for and are using those happy tripping times as being correct in a show of appeal to authority as evidence?
Why is it that it seem to be only climate researchers and climate scientist that believe with religious fervor that can get away with not including all available know variables and take into account the known unknown variables and then out of a known population of over 100 000 glaciers compile statistics out only of “57” and call everything that evidence of God, err, AGW?
But of course they also took to mean that the 52 IPCC scientists, for the 2007 doctrine release, on the board to mean every scientist in the whole wide universe of U(N)topia. They’re really good like that in the statistic department.
“Does anyone really know what sea levels are doing?”
Evidence that Sea level has stayed steady since around 3000 BC
http://www.john-daly.com/
The 1841 sea level benchmark (centre) on the `Isle of the Dead’, Tasmania. According to Antarctic explorer, Capt. Sir James Clark Ross, it marked mean sea level in 1841. Photo taken at low tide 20 Jan 2004.
Mark is 50 cm across; tidal range is less than a metre. © John L. Daly.
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Rex and Heather Gilroy can be contacted at the “Australian-Pacific Archaeological Research Centre”.
http://www.mysteriousaustralia.com/egyptians_australia_mainpage.html
What’s left of a stone Wharf still above high tide which dates from around 3000 BC,
The earliest Phoenician script, Canaanite, which dates from around 3000 BC,
As a fellow West Virginian (i.e., still living in Mr. Thompson’s home state), yet only a common man of limited academic experience (a masters degree in history, with lots of field work and employment in various academic projects for over a decade), I’d like to point out the odd USHCN temperature gauges here. Sorry about those missed ones as of yet, but so far, the ones found in West Virginia seem to always be beside/on/in little heat islands, while otherwise being officially listed as near-perfect rural sites (no big lights to see from orbit, no city around, guaranteed low population, etc., so they must be perfectly rural and correct, far from any asphalt, buildings, air conditioners, vehicles, right?). Gotta’ get those readings right, you know, when dealing in tenth’s of a degree.
I’ll be the first to say I am not an expert in climate science, but this basic temperature data collection thing keeps bugging me. Best reason: I keep thinking of when the long-time USHCN temperature gauge curator at Mannington, WV personally told me an interesting bit of information. While he was pointing to a spot just about 100 feet away from the MMTS temperature gauge mounted above the black asphalt driveway, outside the garages and house but close enough for an electric hookup, he told me: “On warm days, it’s usually about 3 or 4 degrees cooler over there by the fence.”
I am not kidding. And, as I believe was noted before in an article on WUWT, Mannington, West Virginia’s gauge is one of the top ten used to fill-in missing data for other gauges in the United States. Really wondering here…what would Professor Thompson have to say about such things? No scientists have shown up to solve this possible temperature reading issue, so maybe he could come back across the Ohio River to his home state for some work. No pesky coal companies, petroleum companies, logging companies, etc., could alter his finding I’d think, so that could give all sides some peace of mind and, better yet, temperature gauge accuracy.
In the meantime, I better go out back and milk the glacier that’s appeared on my hillside in the last week. Or, I better cut some trees so the sunlight gets in there for a bit. I think that might get rid of it.
Better pics here:
http://www.rexgilroy.com/uru_chapter16.html
The massive Sarina “Phoenician Wharf” constructed from discarded ores
from Bronze Age open-cut mines, found by the Gilroys at
nearby shoreline sites.
The Gympie Pyramid
Note the causeway that extends from left of picture.
A stone wharf once stood at the southern base [in from the road],
the pyramid being on the edge of the former harbour.
Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2004.
Tasmania is in an area where there haven’t been ice-age glaciers weighing down the surface, or active plate tectonics shifts. A sea level mark chiseled into a cliff in the 19th century indicates a falling sea level, according to an article on Daly’s site. Here’s a quote from someone here about it:
Is Thompson qualified to make sweeping pronouncements on the effects of radiative forcings on global climate? Does he even contribute to Working Group 1 of the IPCC reports? As a glacier expert, surely his research comes under one of the other working groups, that look at the effects of current warming, not their causes. His pronouncements sound more like opinion than fact.
Give the guy a break. His parents gave him a girl’s name…
Can we please stop funding this crap research? I love statements like ..”rapid and potentially catastrophic changes in the near future are possible”….potentially and possible? Everything is possible. In science the game isn’t about what’s possible but what’s probable. They sound like bad weather forcasters: “there’s a chance of rain tomorrow”. There’s always a chance of rain. Tell me for a fact if it will rain. It would be like me telling my boss “there’s a chance I’ll get my project done”.
Dr Lonnie Thompson drills an ice core sample and declares we are to blame for all the melting, think about it, no ice = studying puddles …oh, And that’s our fault as well.
Only looking out for his own butt/funding and Can’con is like a Nazi propaganda rally, you stand and give your Sieg Heil to keep your position and a sustainable retirement.
Con/cop/bail are all an example of AGW tent evangelism. Sacrifice is needed to save your souls from your evil ways, pay penance to the world of the EU/UN/WB for the sins of being human and living. The end is nigh, so repent, repent I say!!
We will be passing around the collection plate, pay for your sins and you will have redemption, those not contributing shall be shunned and burn in hell fire.
Of course, Thompson is totally ignoring or ignorant of the Indian Environmental Ministry report that basically said the entire Himalayan glacier melt was within normal parameters and the melting etc., was being badly overblown…. I think that paper was discussed here on WUWT in the past, but in not working back thru them all I’m not certain of that… what I did find was this one:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/11/pachauri-claims-indian-scientific-position-arrogant/
And then there is the soot affect:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/15/soot-having-a-big-impact-on-himalyan-temperature-as-much-or-more-than-ghgs/
Which is also backed up by an LBNL paper:
LBNL on Himalayas: “greenhouse gases alone are not nearly enough to be responsible for the snow melt”
Posted on February 3, 2010 by Anthony Watts
re post by: RK says: December 11, 2010 at 12:37 am
Hi RK,
I’m quite certain that they are referring to the above ground nuclear weapons testing that went on in those decades. The problem they’ve got in using this info, however, is that all this means is there was a significant gain in cover during/after the 50’s and 60’s – and that now we’ve just gotten down to somewhere less that where it was in those decades after having had INCREASED ice/snow cover inbetween. This is hardly indicative of anything new or unusual, unless one wants to try to claim that the only ‘normal’ behavior is in continual gain – which of course makes no sense.
So…. my suspicion is that if the ice loss was significantly below the level’s there in the 50’s, they would be trumpeting that everywhere. Since they aren’t, my bet is that its barely below the levels from the 50’s – which is pretty meaningless/insignificant.
It just blows my mind that they’d try to use the “gee, the levels were higher, but have now decreased to levels seen back in the 50’s, and this is catastrophic or highly meaningful.” Its an utter joke its such a gross failure in logic. But that’s what they’re referring to, the global fallout from all the above ground nuclear weapons testing back then.
The behavior analysis that needs to be made is that of “scientists” like Thompson.
If science, and particularly climate science is to ever recover its credibility it is important to understand why they so sincerely and steadfastly promulgate what are clearly just their own misguided opinions, backed only by the much-vaunted “consensus”, dressed up in the clothing of Science. Further analysis needs to be made of those who take the thoughts and feelings (or “warnings”, as they call them) as the gospel truth.
The question is, why do people so readily believe in catastrophe that they are willing to sacrifice their own freedom, and the freedom of others? The folks at ABAI really need to start working on this, for the betterment of mankind.