From the University of Colorado at Boulder comes this press release and accompanying photo. The photo, showing hazy pollution laden air in the Bernese Alps, makes me wonder why they don’t attribute current glacier ice loss issues to soot. Asia in particular, is a leader in soot production, right next to those Himalayan glaciers that the IPCC erroneously told us would be gone by 2035.
![black_carbon_map[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/black_carbon_map1.jpg?quality=83)
Source: UNEP/WMO Integrated Assessment of Black Carbon and Tropospheric Ozone, Summary for Decision Makers
Soot suspect in mid-1800s Alps glacier retreat
Scientists have uncovered strong evidence that soot, or black carbon, sent into the air by a rapidly industrializing Europe, likely caused the abrupt retreat of mountain glaciers in the European Alps.
The research, published Sept. 2 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may help resolve a longstanding scientific debate about why the Alps glaciers retreated beginning in the 1860s, decades before global temperatures started rising again.
Thomas Painter, a snow and ice scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., is lead author of the study, and co-authors include Waleed Abdalati, Director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Glacier records in the central European Alps dating back to the 1500s show that between 1860 and 1930, loosely defined as the end of the Little Ice Age in Europe, large valley glaciers in the Alps abruptly retreated by an average of nearly 0.6 mile (1 kilometer). Yet weather in Europe cooled by nearly 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) during that time. Glaciologists and climatologists have struggled to understand the mismatch between the climate and glacier records.
“Something was missing from the equation,” Painter said.
To investigate, he and his colleagues turned to history. In the decades following the 1850s, Europe was undergoing a powerful economic and atmospheric transformation spurred by industrialization. Residents, transportation, and perhaps most importantly, industry in Western Europe began burning coal in earnest, spewing huge quantities of black carbon and other dark particles into the atmosphere.
When black carbon particles settle on snow, they darken the surface. This melts the snow and exposes the underlying glacier ice to sunlight and relatively warm air earlier in the year, allowing more and faster melt.
To determine how much black carbon was in the atmosphere and the snow when the Alps glaciers began to retreat, the researchers studied ice cores drilled from high up on several European mountain glaciers. By measuring the levels of carbon particles trapped in the ice core layers and taking into consideration modern observations of the distribution of pollutants in the Alps, they could estimate how much black carbon was deposited on glacial surfaces at lower elevations, where levels of black carbon tend to be highest.
The team then ran computer models of glacier behavior, starting with recorded weather conditions and adding the impact of lower-elevation black carbon. By including this impact, the simulated glacier mass loss and timing finally were consistent with the historic record of glacial retreat, despite the cool temperatures of the time.
“This study uncovers some likely human fingerprints on our changing environment,” Abdalati said. “It’s a reminder that the actions we take have far-reaching impacts on the environment in which we live.”
“We must now look closer at other regions on Earth, such as the Himalaya, to study the present-day impacts of black carbon on glaciers,” said Georg Kaser, a study co-author from the University of Innsbruck and lead author of the Working Group I Cryosphere chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s upcoming Fifth Assessment Report.
Other institutions participating in the study include the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and the University of California, Davis.
CIRES is a joint institute of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and CU-Boulder.
And the credit for tipping you off about this paper goes to…?
Sounds feasible, how do they explain the shrinkage of the New Zealand glaciers over the same period?
The black soot is probably partly responsible for the islands in the deltas of the Bay of Bengal to be eroded away during flooding as well as by cyclone activity, however Huffington Post scarily reports it’s rising sea levels. http://pindanpost.com/2013/09/05/waving-not-drowning-fact-checked/
The effect of soot on Arctic glaciers was noted by Scoresby on his first Arctic expedition in the 1820’s. Ahlman listed the causes of the declining glaciers of Europe, Alaska and New Zealand from the 1850’s in various comprehensive scientific reports from the 1930’s as did Gordon Manley-who constructed CET.. From this we know that temperatures have been generally rising since the coldest decade of the LIA in 1690
Every generation we seem to need to rediscover things about the climate that observations had already taught us.
tonyb
I detest the term “black carbon.” To me, it is simply old-fashioned soot. The “black carbon” label was invented to contrast with the current mania demonizing invisible carbon dioxide. It serves the purpose of propaganda and environmental correctness – not clarity of expression or clear thinking.
The abstract closes with a reference to the Himalayas, as being the next subject of study.
Ummm… doesn’t the soot come from burning fossil fuels?
Mike Mellor says:
September 5, 2013 at 3:01 am
Ummm… doesn’t the soot come from burning fossil fuels?
Ummmm, no. Soot is caused by an incomplete burning process of any fuel. Forest fires, for example emit huge amounts of soot. Those in poorer countries, without access to grid-supplied electricity will burn dung and whatever else is available, often in open fires, emmitting lots of soot.
Modern power plants are highly efficient, and do not emit soot. The same with modern vehicles.
This whole soot thing is a red herring in any case. It’s an back-door attempt to tie CO2 and soot together, since we know soot is bad, but for completely different reasons. Soot is unhealthy to breathe, and especially affects those forced to rely on inefficient, dirty methods of supplying energy.
Anthony, the source for the color graphic of BC on the Himalayas is not the link you provided:
UNEP/WMO Integrated Assessment of Black Carbon and Tropospheric Ozone, Summary for Decision Makers
Since the graphic is good, could you please provide the right link?
Thanks!
I thought the period up to and beyond 1930 was a warming period ? with a global cool down from1940ish to mid 70’s?
It’s obvious that the target is China and India?
My god how stupid this is?
“Glacier records in the central European Alps dating back to the 1500s show that between 1860 and 1930, loosely defined as the end of the Little Ice Age in Europe, large valley glaciers in the Alps abruptly retreated by an average of nearly 0.6 mile (1 kilometer). Yet weather in Europe cooled by nearly 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) during that time.”
I noted how such is untrue in my prior post since Europe, the Northern Hemisphere, and the world warmed rather than cooled over the 1860 to 1930 period.
However, as I wrote it quickly, I skipped adding in an illustration specifically for the Alps subpart of Europe.
If anyone wondered if they had the opposite temperature trend of their surroundings, the opposite of Europe in general: They didn’t, and here is a further illustration:
Figure 6 (among others) in http://www.slf.ch/info/mitarbeitende/frank/Buentgen_etal_JClim_2006.pdf
As the above notes, in fact, with further continuing temperature rise after 1930, there was “the warmest (1940s)” years.
The paper I linked above looks like data not fudged for CAGW convenience, so it shows the truth of 1940s temperatures being warmer than more recently up through its endpoint of 2003. It also mentions the prime influence of solar forcing, remarking and showing how “warm summers seem to coincide with periods of high solar activity, and cold summers vice versa.” (That is a subpart of the general picture in my http://s24.postimg.org/rbbws9o85/overview.gif ).
I’m not saying soot has no effect (though there is not huge room for such in context), but the soot article is just another example of how those trying to argue manmade influences dominated for yet another part of climate tend to be activists, in turn often having the same level of honesty (dishonesty) prevalent among other CAGW activists.
A non-activist would observe the correlation with solar/GCR activity, like that in the prior links, and, if looking into manmade soot, see if any little bits of the prior big picture could be further refined by such, while being honest enough to not mind substantially mentioning the former too, rather than not even mentioning solar variation in the 2-page press release.
(My guess for why Anthony Watts’s default first reaction was relatively liking the soot paper is perhaps because of thinking soot should be more looked at now rather than the emphasis primarily just on CO2 for modern arctic ice variation; while there is some merit to that, really there isn’t much, if practically any, arctic ice variation even in recent years beyond what natural causes can explain, as http://s24.postimg.org/rbbws9o85/overview.gif indirectly suggests, once sidestepping cherry-picked moments and rather looking at trends in the annual average).
Henry Clark:
In your post at September 6, 2013 at 12:48 pm you wrote.
I write to seek clarification, please.
As I read that, I understand you to be suggesting that CO2 is “primarily” responsible for “modern arctic ice variation”.
Have I misunderstood you and, if so, what did you intend to say?
Or
Have I understood you and, if so, were you joking?
Richard
Richardscourtney:
Regarding when I wrote:
“the emphasis primarily just on CO2 for modern arctic ice variation”
… I meant the emphasis in much of the media, most certainly not my own.
The http://s24.postimg.org/rbbws9o85/overview.gif link I keep giving is very much NOT about supporting CAGW-movement claims of CO2 dominance, to say the least 😉
For example, roughly around 5/6ths of the way down in it, you can see what I think of CO2 compared to arctic climate history: the Soon 2005 plots, showing what has terrible lack of correlation (CO2) versus what fits.
Just thinking if it could have something with the precipitation to do, like the Kilimanjaro glacier?