From Brigham Young University and the “IPCC, take your 2035 and shove it” department comes this study:
Himalayan glaciers will shrink even if temperatures hold steady
Come rain or shine, or even snow, some glaciers of the Himalayas will continue shrinking for many years to come.
The forecast by Brigham Young University geology professor Summer Rupper comes after her research on Bhutan, a region in the bull’s-eye of the monsoonal Himalayas. Published in Geophysical Research Letters,Rupper’s most conservative findings indicate that even if climate remained steady, almost 10 percent of Bhutan’s glaciers would vanish within the next few decades.
What’s more, the amount of melt water coming off these glaciers could drop by 30 percent.
Rupper says increasing temperatures are just one culprit behind glacier retreat. A number of climate factors such as wind, humidity, precipitation and evaporation can affect how glaciers behave. With some Bhutanese glaciers as long as 13 miles, an imbalance in any of these areas can take them decades to completely respond.
“These particular glaciers have seen so much warming in the past few decades that they’re currently playing lots of catch up,” Rupper explains.
In fact, snowfall rates in Bhutan would need to almost double to avoid glacier retreat, but it’s not a likely scenario because warmer temperatures lead to rainfall instead of snow. If glaciers continue to lose more water than they gain, the combination of more rain and more glacial melt will increase the probability of flooding — which can be devastating to neighboring villages.
“Much of the world’s population is just downstream of the Himalayas,” Rupper points out. “A lot of culture and history could be lost, not just for Bhutan but for neighboring nations facing the same risks.”
To illustrate the likelihood of such an outcome, Rupper took her research one moderate step further. Her results show if temperatures were to rise just 1 degree Celsius, the Bhutanese glaciers would shrink by 25 percent and the annual melt water would drop by as much as 65 percent. With climate continuing to warm, such a prediction is not altogether unlikely, especially given the years it can take for glaciers to react to change.
To make more precise predictions for Bhutan, Rupper and BYU graduate students Landon Burgener and Josh Maurer joined researchers from Columbia University, the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, NASA and Bhutan’s Department of Hydro-Meteorological Services. Together, they trekked through rainforests and barren cliffs to reach some of the world’s most remote blocks of ice. There they placed a weather station and glacier monitoring equipment that can be used to gather real-time data in the months and years to follow.
“It took seven days just to get to the target glacier,” Rupper recounts, having returned in October. “For our pack animals, horsemen and guides, that terrain and elevation are a way of life, but I’ll admit the westerners in the group were a bit slower-moving.”
Rupper’s forecasts and fieldwork are among the first to look at glaciers in Bhutan, and the government hopes to use her research to make long-term decisions about the nation’s water resources and flooding hazards.
“They could potentially have a better idea of where best to fortify homes or build new power plants,” Rupper says. “Hopefully, good science can lead to good engineering solutions for the changes we’re likely to witness in the coming decades.”
News just in – all the glaciers in Scotland have disappeared. There appears to be enough run-off for continued habitation in the Scottish mountains.
Summer Rupper obviously has cruel parents; maybe Blackadder was her father.
… A lot of culture and history could be lost …
It would appear that a lot of graduates these days are confused as to whether they are scientists, searching for knowledge which other people can apply, or activists seeking to become involved in saving the planet, its cultures and species frozen in some kind of 21st century time warp.
jgmccabe says:
November 16, 2012 at 7:58 am
“Summer Rupper”? This is a joke isn’t it? If not, at least her parents had a sense of humour!
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No! It’s no joke.
Haven’t you read of her brother Fixer?
cn
It was only a few weeks ago that we were told warmer seas would cause the fish to become smaller.
Yesterday BBC radio 4. “Saving Species” did a report from Florida about the endangered Goliath Grouper, whose problem is that recent cold winter water temperatures have been killing them off. They described the Goliath Grouper as a large wardrobe with fins
So not only do we have cooler waters in the Gulf we have Goliath sized fish that need warmer waters.
The reporter did not persue this apparent contradiction to the recent report. Funny that.
geronimo says: @ur momisugly November 16, 2012 at 8:01 am
This is what Indian scientists say
Other studies:
Influence of solar activity on the rainfall over India (NASA)
“Among all the seasons of the Indian rainfall activity, the Indian Monsoon rainfall, with a high significance, is positively correlated with the sunspot and irradiance…”
It seems like you’d have to get more meltwater at first, as the glaciers were shrinking. After a while, if they stabilized at a new, smaller size, then the area catching sunlight in the spring and summer would be smaller, which ought to give less meltwater. Precipitation changes could adjust this up or down.
Clicking through to the article, we can pick up a page for free with abstract and key points along with title and authors. From the abstract:
“However, the most conservative results indicate that, even if climate were to remain at the present-day mean values, almost 10% of Bhutan’s glacierized area would vanish and the meltwater flux would drop by as much as 30%. Under the conservative scenario of an additional 1°C regional warming, glacier retreat is going to continue until about 25% of Bhutan’s glacierized area will have disappeared and the annual meltwater flux, after an initial spike, would drop by as much as 65%.”
So, this makes sense, at least.
From the key points:
“Glacier changes are unlikely to be compensated for by precipitation changes”
Okay, so their predictions include this…
Also from the abstract, their results were
“Based on a suite of gridded climate data and a robust glacier melt model…”
Without passing through the paywall, there’s no telling what model they used, how it worked, or how it was validated.
So, this makes sense, at least.
Not really.
The only way to get a reduction in meltwater ‘flux’, precipitation being constant, is by less melting (over a year).
Essentially what they are saying is, as glaciers retreat (melt), the amount of ice available to melt decreases and so does the amount of meltwater.
To me, this looks like a lame attempt to shore up the false ‘melting Himalayan Glaciers will cause water shortages’ meme.
Interesting that once the glaciers are gone, the rainfall is just run-off and is no longer stored for a springtime meltwater flood. And this is a bad thing that will cause floods? Huh? By spacing out the rainfall over a year instead of a spring melt? This makes no sense.
Remember Monbiot’s claim on BBC that if the glaciers melt, there will be no more riverflow (at all) and the Mekong will dry up because the headwaters start from melting glaciers and that if they are gone there will be nothing to melt. Etc. Some people are as dumb as a bag of hammers.
Let’s see…global warming causes glaciers to retreat, yet the meltwater run off will decrease, yet there will be an increased probability of flooding. Global warming is the new boogeyman and is responsible for everything bad. What next…the European (economic) meltdown, the Fiscal Cliff (need to hide that decline), earthquakes and hemorroids?
A picture of Mount Baker, WA taken Oct. 7, 2012 after the driest September in recorded history, and before the seasonal snow started again:
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=4b6b9fffe2e23537&id=4B6B9FFFE2E23537%211185
Interesting that once the glaciers are gone, the rainfall is just run-off and is no longer stored for a springtime meltwater flood. And this is a bad thing that will cause floods? Huh? By spacing out the rainfall over a year instead of a spring melt? This makes no sense.
Most rainfall is in mid to late summer, the monsoon. Spring is actually the driest time of the year and when rivers are their lowest levels.
Peak glacier melt co-incides with the monsoon. So, you are right. Decreased glacier melt will decrease flood severity.
Build a dam up near the glaciers so that if they do ‘disappear’ ( in a Mannian sense ? ) the melt water and rainfall can be arrested and released in a controlled manner. Problem solved … next !
Actually, the abstract and “key points” don’t say anything about yearly totals of water flow. Generally, this doesn’t seem to be an issue at lower elevations, although there’s some concern about the dry season, and drought years, since glacial melt is more steady than precipitation.
At higher elevations, such as parts of Bhutan, reduced meltwater would result in changes that they’d like to plan for, if they can, for, e.g., agriculture and hydroelectric plants. In the near term, they’re concerned with flooding not only just from increased meltwater as the glaciers retreat, but also from new lakes formed by retreating glaciers, in which the water is stopped up by a dam that is basically a random pile of rocks. If that pile lets go, the whole lake can drain at once in an “Outburst Flood.” This is said to be impressive at locations downstream, especially nearby ones.
Most glacial melt water is from base melting due to geothermal heat because this is a year round process. Water from surface melt during the summer will add to this total melt via moulins. But most summer water is not from glaciers but snowmelt especially on lower slopes that get seasonal snows. Spring/summer flooding is from snowmelt because this supplies a sudden, over a few weeks, great volume of water.
Glaciers need constant snowfall at altitude for the supply of ice and the mass to drive the glacier downhill. Even during summer high mountains get snow given enough moisture in the atmosphere to provide precipitation.
Thank you for all the enlightening comments made about factors that influence glaciers in Bhutan.
It seems that so many different factors are involved: cyclical, seasonal factors, natural variations, oscillations, long term influences and glaciers taking decades to respond.
Why climate scientists are always looking for balance and stability? Maybe in climate there is only change and a constant flow of dynamics.
In that part of the world the snow/ice level is about 18,000 feet. Valley floors where the people live is generally about 10,000 feet and devoid of snow most of the year due to being nearer to the equator I would guess.
Streetcred says:
November 17, 2012 at 1:27 am
Build a dam up near the glaciers so that if they do ‘disappear’ ( in a Mannian sense ? ) the melt water and rainfall can be arrested and released in a controlled manner. Problem solved … next !
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Next? Why, add hydro-electric generators of course.
Maybe the glaciers know something the scientists don’t. Anyone checked the ground temp of that big volcano they are sitting on? But more likely, they have been melting since the ice age, adapt or die.
Sorry I should have said tectonic collision instead of volcano just to be clearer.
Gail Combs:
Bhutan has dams, and generators, already. They are planning to build more. But actually deciding what to build involves knowing about river flows and their seasonal variations, not just now, but in the future. That will depend, in part, on what the glaciers do. So, to plan for dams, agricultural water supplies, and whatever. they have to try and figure out what the waters feeding the rivers will be doing, including the glaciers. And that, in a nutshell, is what the paper is about.
Ditto. In the reverse scenario, if these alarmists were grabbing at grant money via claims of man made global cooling, they’d be screaming about the reduction of yearly net water available downstream for civilization. It all comes from the sky, some of it gets held up for a while as ice. If more ice is accumulating than melting it can only mean less water downstream and that really is a ‘bad thing’.
JazzyT says:
November 18, 2012 at 2:16 am
Gail Combs:
Bhutan has dams, and generators, already…. they have to try and figure out what the waters feeding the rivers will be doing, including the glaciers. And that, in a nutshell, is what the paper is about.
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Then they really need to look at the actual science instead of the Science Fiction that passes for peer-reviewed science these days.
Your comment illustrates another reason why CAGW alarmism is so very very dangerous. It diverts time, money, raw materials and energy that could be used to make life better for all humans into the pockets of a few.
Agriculture and Energy are the two things that give us civilization. Everything else flows from them especially the leisure needed to invent new stuff and build a better world. The explosive growth in science and technology in recent history proves this.
The alarmists want to shove us back to the 1700 to 1800’s where it is much easier to control people since they have to work hard just to stay alive. Greed for power and money have driven CAGW from the start.