[UPDATE: and it’s not just Climategate email, see the analysis by McIntyre added below – Anthony ]
From Dartmouth College and the irascible Lonnie Thompson of OSU, who still ‘publicly’ thinks in PR that Kilmanjaro and Peru’s Quelccaya glaciers are affected by temperature, not sublimation due to lack of precipitation. See below for the Climategate email that makes nonsense of the temperature claim made in the press release below. Also of note is Thompson’s claim that “PERUVIAN GLACIER MAY VANISH IN FIVE YEARS” made on February 15, 2007, and it was still there in 2012 by this photography.
===========================================================
Temperature, not snowfall, has been driving the fluctuating size of Peru’s Quelccaya Ice Cap, whose dramatic shrinkage in recent decades has made it a symbol for global climate change, a Dartmouth-led study shows.
The findings support many scientists’ suspicions that tropical glaciers are rapidly shrinking because of a warming climate, and will help scientists to better understand the natural variability of past and modern climate and to refine models that predict tropical glaciers’ response to future climate change.
The study appears in the journal Geology.
Dartmouth glacial geomorphologist Meredith Kelly and her lab team used field mapping combined with the beryllium-10 surface exposure dating method and ice cores obtained by Ohio State University paleoclimatologist Lonnie Thompson to examine how the Quelccaya Ice Cap has expanded and retreated over the past millennium. It is the first time that a record of past glacial extents has been compared directly with an annually dated ice core record from the same ice mass.
During the last millennium, a significant cooling event known as the Little Ice Age occurred, but scientists don’t know what caused the cooling or its geographic extent. The Dartmouth-led team determined beryllium-10 ages of moraines – or glacier sediments — that mark the past positions of Qori Kalis, an outlet glacier that has been monitored by Thompson since he first visited Quelccaya in the early 1960s. The Quelccaya Ice Cap, the largest ice mass in the tropics, sits 18,000 feet above sea level in the Peruvian Andes.
The results show that Qori Kalis advanced to its late Holocene maximum position prior to 520 years ago and subsequently retreated with only minor re-advances since that time. The comparison of the moraine record with the ice core record suggests that temperature was the driving force of glacial expansion and retreat, says Justin Stroup, lead author and a PhD candidate in Dartmouth’s Department of Earth Sciences.
“This is an important result since there has been debate about the causes of recent tropical glacial recession – for example, whether it is due to temperature, precipitation, humidity, solar irradiance or other factors,” says Kelly, a co-author of the study. “This result agrees with Professor Thompson’s earlier suggestions that these tropical glaciers are shrinking very rapidly today because of a warming climate.”
Furthermore, the ebbs and flows of other glaciers in tropical South America are similar to the Qori Kalis extents, indicating a regionally consistent pattern of past climate conditions. On a global scale, the results suggest that glaciers were larger than present and depositing moraines in both northern and southern hemispheres at about the same time, indicating that the climate mechanisms which caused the late Holocene cooling likely influenced a globally synchronous pattern of cooling.
The research, which was funded by National Science Foundation, includes Dartmouth College, the University of Cincinnati and Penn State University.
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OK now read this Climategate email from Phil Jones, who in polite terms, says the claim is B.S. Note the reference to Peru’s Quelccaya glacier which I have bolded – Anthony
5315.txt
date: Sat Sep 18 08:48:09 2004
from: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.xx.xx>
subject: Re: kilimanjaro
to: “Jenkins, Geoff” <geoff.jenkins@metoffice.xx.xx>
Geoff,
The data that are used for the grid box should be within the grid box. They will be low
elevation sites though, and this may be part of the reason. It might be worth seeing if
there is anything in the U/A data – but I reckon there won’t be much in that region.
I’ve heard Lonnie Thompson talk about the Kilimanjaro core and he got some local temperatures – that we don’t have access to, and there was little warming in them. The same situation applies for Quelccaya in Peru and also some of his Tibet sites. Lonnie thinks they are disappearing because of sublimation, but he can’t pin anything down. They are going though.
Lonnie’s email is “Lonnie G. Thompson” <thompson.3@osu.xxx.xxx>
You could try emailing Ellen as well both might be in the field.
Ellen Mosley-Thompson <thompson.4@osu.xxx.xxx>
I’m off much of the next 6 weeks at meetings.
I hear you’re retiring soon – hope all goes well ! I’m sure you’ll still be in the field somewhere.
Cheers
Phil
At 10:32 16/09/2004, you wrote:
phil
<<kilimanjaro.doc>>
we have been concerned that people often use the melting glacier on kilimanjaro as an
example of impacts of man-made warming. you may have seen some stories countering this on the sceptics websites.
I got philip brohan to look at temps there (see attached) and there isnt any convincing consistent recent warming in the station data. but your gridded CRUtem2V does show a recent warming. presumably that is because (as philip suggests) the gridded stuff has influences from quite a large radius, and hence may reflect warming at stations a long way from kilimanjaro?
would you agree that there is no convincing evidence for kilimanjaro glacier melt being due to recent warming (let alone man-made warming)?
be grateful for your help
cheers
geoff
Dr Geoff Jenkins
Head, Climate Prediction Programme
Hadley Centre
Met Office
FitzRoy Road, EXETER, EX1 3PB, UK
tel: +44 (0) 1392 xxxxxx
mobile: 0787 966 1136
[1]www.hadleycentre.xxxx.xx
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@uea.ac.uk
NR4 7TJ
UK
—————————————————————————-
================================================
UPDATE: Nick Stokes responded in comments, I responded, and I’ve decided to add it to the body of this post.
“email from Phil Jones, who in polite terms, says the claim is B.S”
That’s not my reading of it. Jones seems to be saying (contrary to this paper) that Thompson says it’s due to sublimation:
“Lonnie thinks they are disappearing because of sublimation, but he can’t pin anything down. They are going though.”
Sounds like Jones thinks its’ temperature. Maybe he misunderstood Thompson, or LT has changed his view. But it seems Jones then and LT now both think it is temperature.
REPLY: Well I’d expect that, as your confirmation bias for temperature is legendary. The point is that “Lonnie thinks they are disappearing because of sublimation, but he can’t pin anything down.”, now look at this photo of Thompson standing next to an ice spire on Kilimanjaro and tell me with a straight face that’s not sublimation going on ( I assume you understand how sublimation presents itself with ice):
Land Use Change Impacts On Regional Climate Over Kilimanjaro” By Fairman Jr. Et Al 2011 pretty much put an end to that debate. More here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/23/34609/
On Quelccaya, McIntyre did a thorough dissection independent of me, and concluded:
“It seems to me that, among specialists, Thompson is probably standing fairly alone in claiming that d18O at tropical glaciers is a proxy for temperature rather than amount effect. (Because of Thompson’s eminence, the contradiction of his results is mostly implied, rather than directly stated.)
…
Because the 1998 El Nino was so big, it provides a good test case for temperature vs amount. It seems to me that the negative downspike for the big 1998 El Nino is decisive against Thompson.
The PNAS version of the data left off showing a sort of uptick. The extension to 2009 does not seem to me to be going off the charts.”
Of course, you lost that debate too, Nick, since your mindset can’t seem to grasp that temperature is not the cause. Land use change is, and Thompson is sampling in the wrong place to detect it. (note that all the Amazon deforestation is going on in the east)
Via a comment from Espen on the CA thread:
ScienceDaily report says: ” Most of the moisture in the area comes from the east, in snowstorms fueled by moist air rising from the Amazon Basin. But the ice core-derived climate records from the Andes are also impacted from the west — specifically by El Niño, a temporary change in climate, which is driven by sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific.” (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130404142417.htm).
And, as we see, no correlation in 1998 during that super El Nino to bolster Thompson’s claim, in fact, it looks refuted by the data. – Anthony
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So what is Mother Nature telling us?
April 2012 Nature Geoscience | Letter Slight mass gain of Karakoram glaciers in the early twenty-first century
Peruvian Andes
Feb 17, 2011,
Record snowfall in HP revives 2,000 glaciers
timesofindia(DOT)indiatimes.com/home/environment/global-warming/Record-snowfall-in-HP-revives-2000-glaciers/articleshow/7512964.cms?referral=PM
June – July 2012:
In the region of Puno, province of San Roman, Peru, due to low temperatures there are 56.312 cases reported for Acute Respirotary Infections (ARI) and 886 for pneumonia, death toll has risen to 31, amongst them dozens of children.
This winter:
1 Sep 13 – Snowfall in parts of the southern highlands of Peru has killed more than 25,000 animals and destroyed 137 homes, according to the National Institute of Civil Defense (Indeci).
(wwwDOT)boliviatv.bo/noticias/internacional/01-09-2013/mueren_mas_de_25_mil_animales_por_nevada_en_la_sierra_sur_de_peru_8f5c90e45ceeba56845861a65217c9bc.htm
This winter was a major problem in South America – too many to list.
June 17, 2013
About 6000 livestock’s and 25 shepherds have been struck in the heavy snowfall which occurred on Narkanda mountain ranges along Chitkul, the last bordering area along Indo-Sino border, as they had gone to graze their flocks and got captured in the sudden snowfall.
(wwwDOT)himvani.com/news/2013/06/17/6000-livestocks-25-shepherds-struck-heavy-snowfall-narkanda/22280
Jun 30, 2013
. It was for the first time in the history of Kinnaur district that the area experienced snowfall in June. The entire area experienced heavy snowfall and rainfall continuously for 72 hours from June 15 to 17.
timesofindia(DOT)indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/Flood-losses-in-Kinnaur-may-be-much-higher-than-estimated/articleshow/20838622.cms
20 Nov 2013,
The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has stopped restoration work of Kedarnath Temple, … after the doors of the sanctum sanctorum was closed due to snowfall and severe winter.
post(DOT)jagran.com/ASI-stops-restoration-work-of-Kedarnath-temple-due-to-snowfall-1384931620
January 18, 2014
Cold weather claims 15 lives in UP; Heavy snowfall hits Uttarakhand
At least 15 persons succumbed under cold weather conditions in Uttar Pradesh as the winter chill gained in intensity in northern India today with dipping temperatures in Jammu and Kashmir and heavy snowfall in Uttarakhand.
m.indiatoday(DOT)in//story/cold-weather-claims-15-lives-in-up-heavy-snowfall-hits-uttarakhand/1/338553.html
(Note People were dying in India because of the cold:
Jan 03 2014 – 3 dead as cold wave intensifies in Uttar Pradesh
January 3, 2014 – Biting cold wave sweeps Rajasthan -Another beggar was found dead outside Masjid,….
December 30, 2013 – Cold snap claims 4 lives in Bagerhat
31 Dec 2013 Dhaka (AsiaNews) – With the arrival of the first cold snap, at least 15 children have died in the northern districts of Bangladesh. Another 50 children were admitted to the Kurigram Sadar Hospital….temperature of -11 degrees Celsius was registered….
four elderly people died in Morrelgonj upazila unable to bear the biting cold…..
February 16, 2014
Shimla: (South of the Himalayas) Heavy snowfall in many parts of Himachal Pradesh on Sunday has bring down temperatures and affected the normal life. The state capital Shimla which experienced the coldest night at minus 2.4 degrees Celsius and key tourist resort of Manali were cut off from rest of the state due to heavy snowfall. People remained without milk, bread, vegetables….
zeenews(DOT)india.com/news/himachal-pradesh/heavy-snowfall-hit-normal-life-in-himachal_911934.html
February 26, 2014 Heavy snowfall hits eastern Turkey
Heavy snowfall and cold weather caused havoc and many roads which connect the villages to the city centers were totally closed across the eastern part of Turkey…. According to the Turkish meteorology; snowfall and cold weather will continue to affect the Eastern Anatolia region at least two more days. Besides of Erzurum, also other cities such as Ağrı, Kars also have gotten heavy snowfall.
en(DOT)dunyatimes.com/article/heavy-snowfall-hits-eastern-turkey-43302.html..
I do not think we really have to worry about Glaciers (Unless they start growing outside our doors.)
The Nevado del Ruiz volcano, its ice cap and volcanism
Source: http://w3.ualg.pt/~jdias/GEOLAMB/GAn_Casos/NevadodelRuiz/NRuiz_1.html
Imagine: icebergs flowing down a large river in the tropics just a few degrees north of the equator!
I don’t know about Quelccaya, but volcanism in the tropics can also be a mechanism for loss of ice that, because the events happen in just a (geologically) short period of time, may not show up using isotope analysis. It would seem that correlating isotope analysis to glacier growth and recession would have to be adjusted for step effects caused by volcanism, but that data may not exist.
The study says:
The study says eruptions happen on a frequency of 160 to 400 years and that there have been about a dozen major eruptions in the last 10,000 years. Two of the most significant earthquakes happened on June 16, 1826 and November 16, 1827, which were followed by lahars with a strong smell of sulfur (which suggest a volcanic eruption), which were observed in both the Cauca and Magdalena rivers. There was also a very large eruption on March 12, 1595. The last major eruption was on November 13, 1985, which killed about 27,000.
In conclusion, the Nevado del Ruiz ice cap, which it is estimated has diminished 64% since the 19th Century, has suffered two major eruptions in that time period. How much of the loss of the ice cap is due to the eruptions and how much is attributable to climate change? I think it is a good question and I wonder how isotope analysis can answer such a question. Should one presume that all ice cap loss is attributed to climate change? How can one measure the ice cap loss attributable to volcanism without some historical record that probably does not exist?
Nick writes “The DLR stuff is irrelevant. As in the ocean, the surface is a net LW emitter.”
Its absolutely true that the surface is a net emitter but you need to consider the microscopic processes to understand the macroscopic one… Individual molecules at the surface that are close to evaporating are more likely to receive the energy they need when there is more DLR. And they receive that energy directly. The same applies to ice.