Story submitted by Eric Worrall
British Botanists conducting a Summer survey of Scotland’s tallest mountain, Ben Nevis, have been stunned to find evidence of recently formed multi-year ice fields, areas of compacted snow, some of which weigh hundreds of tons.
According to the BBC;
“Hazards common in arctic and alpine areas but described as “extremely unusual” in the UK during the summer have been found on Ben Nevis.
A team of climbers and scientists investigating the mountain’s North Face said snowfields remained in many gullies and upper scree slopes.
On these fields, they have come across compacted, dense, ice hard snow call neve.
Neve is the first stage in the formation of glaciers, the team said.”
The team has also encountered sheets of snow weighing hundreds of tonnes and tunnels and fissures known as bergschrunds.
Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-28885119
This is how ice ages start – a buildup of snow which does not melt in the Summer, which leads to a positive feedback loop, as the growing ice sheet reflects more and more sunlight back into space.
It must be the jet stream. Or maybe it’s the rotten Arctic ice causing a negative feedback. No wait! It’s definitely polar bears carrying ice cubes on their backs.
A bit off topic, but in the “you knew it was going to happen” department:
Riots in Ferguson caused by Climate Change!!!
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/08/23/You-thought-there-was-no-possible-link-between-Ferguson-and-climate-change-Think-again
(from 350 dot org, natch)
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Ms. Smith is correct in her article on 350, AGW and the riots ARE linked: the same paid trolls that protest for AGW are inciting riots. Only 7 of the dozens arrested for rioting in Ferguson were local.
CR Carlson says:
August 24, 2014 at 5:08 am
The other day while watching the usaprocyclingchallenge event stage where they were in Breckenridge Colorado,
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For a while in August, there was no need to look at the mountains for white stuff, it was on the highways …
http://www.9news.com/story/weather/2014/08/10/hail-forces-closure-of-highway-67/13877525/
I vaguely remember that the New Scientist had an article in , I think the 1960s, about the small but permanent summer snowfields in the Highlands and the alpine flora associated with them.
I am sure that they were on the Northern slopes of several mountains, not confined to Ben Nevis . There really is no need for the BBC to hide this story away as if it was some shameful family secret that the neighbours must not hear about.
Sorry, cut and paste error:
wws says:
August 24, 2014 at 6:47 am
A bit off topic….
in: Perennial snow in the Scottish mountains
That is, snow completely melted all over Scotland as early as in the summer of 1933 and it has not happened since 2006. There is nothing unusual about its current behavior and early 21st century melts were not unprecedented either.
Move along people nothing to see here.
I find it a tad strange hearing some leap onto the Farmer’s Almanac prediction like it was gospel. I rather think we don’t need the embarrassment if it turns out like a climate model, because you can count on the usual upper crust of misanthropes to jeer and scoff.
I think they need to adjust those temperatures very quickly now.
It’s been a cold August – weather not climate.
This is not inconsistent with Global Warming.
But it is inconsistent with the supposed evidence for global warming/a>.
Which is very inconvenient.
But they are rotten snowfields of very marginal quality and it’s all your fault, so pay me.
Pamela Gray says:
August 24, 2014 at 8:11 am
It’s my hallway shooter. (HS)
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LOL. Love the “term” I would hate to say how many of my friends have an HS out here where the nearest neighbour may be miles away. (Well, actually I don’t know any that don’t.) Not just in Canada, eh?
Back on topic, it’s gone from highs of 30 C last week to a projected high of 16 today, my horses are growing their winter coats. Time to go cut a few cords of wood for the coming snow. I fear not for the glaciers of the Rocky Mountains. They have expanded and receded many times in the past and I imagine that will continue long after man has left the scene.
http://www.oneonta.edu/faculty/baumanpr/geosat2/Big_Melt_Down/Big_Melt_Down.htm
Why didn’t they wait untill the volcano in Iceland blows its top then they could just blaim it on that. They are getting sloppy.
Kate Forney says:
August 24, 2014 at 5:54 am
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
August 24, 2014 at 5:21 am
The glaciers will grow, the weight will force Scotland down into the crust, causing the sea levels at the coasts to rise as detected by the sensitive satellites.
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It could even cause Scotland to tip over.
Hopefully the Scots will vote for “independence” is September and “go it alone.” Otherwise they may take England and Wales with them as they tip over!!
The highest tops in the Scottish mountains are just over 4000 ft. There is speculation that there may have been small glaciers in the Cairngorm Mountains during the LIA, hence Scotland is a highly marginal candidate for glaciation during this inter glacial.
As a boy about 35 years ago I recall seeing permanent snow fields on the N face of Ben Nevis. The locals said they had always been there and hence these were likely remnants from the LIA. Late 20th century warming saw these melt. I drove past late May this year and there was still a lot of snow on the N facing slopes.
Hell, that should have been 45 years ago 🙁
From Pamela Gray on August 24, 2014 at 8:11 am:
Wow. So that’s what it takes to make them stay in the bedroom and not run away.
On a hot July 12th, 1970, I was dropped off by helicopter with an assistant to map the geology around a copper showing in the foothills of the St. Elias Range in the Yukon. It started out as a fairly hot day and we were in short sleeves although we had rain slickers in our packs. The helicopter pilot advised that he had to fly the copter into Whitehorse for its X hundred hours mechanical check-up and that he might be late, so to take a bit more food with us.
We worked and sweated climbing up stream beds, sampling rock and stream silt all day and about 6pm we came down into the valley, built a fire for tea and dinner. We weren’t too concerned about the time since it was essentially daylight or near it, all night. Unannounced, however, was pick up of the wind and soon dark clouds appeared over a ridge to the east of us, which was between us and the main camp. Soon it started to rain, a cold rain and after trying to keep a decent fire going with dwarf birch roots and small sticks, we made a decision – its better to walk all night towards camp than sit exposed to weather.
Up the slope of the ridge we went and about half way up the 1000m or so slope, it began to snow, wet snow. Soon we were slipping and sliding, grasping dwarf birch shrubbery and finally we got over the ridge and slipped and slid down the other side. Then the long slog through the bush in the rain, not speaking, to where the welcome smell of the breakfast fire told us we were back. The pilot was back in camp but socked. That’s my snow in July story.
Oops should read “socked in”. We were camped on Aishihik Lake and working toward the Ruby Range.
The BBC is letting chinks form in the hitherto impervious armour: –
” In the early hours of Sunday morning, the temperature dropped to -1.9C at Katesbridge, in County Down – which set a new record for the coldest August night in Northern Ireland. The previous low of -1.1C was set in 1964″
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28916894 – “Last updated 1518 BST”.
Downloaded at about 1730 BST [1630 Z].
Auto
David Jones says: August 24, 2014 at 9:42 am
………..
While Scotland was rebounding from the last Ice age, the South East of England was sinking.
New Ice age would alter the balance, with the South East rising, the Doggerland would resurface, England would double its size and rejoin the Low Countries, and become again part of continental Europe.
http://nextnature.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/doggerland_530.jpg
Herman A (Alex) Pope says:
August 24, 2014 at 6:32 am
Just read your short version and will read the long version later, which I presume contains more data and detail. Makes lots of sense. Takes an engineer to see that the ‘greenhouse effect’ is equivalent to a planetary air-conditioner with evaporation and reflection the mechanism! That’s a great insight. Maybe you discuss it in the long version, but I’ll ask anyway. Do you think the closing of the Isthmus of Panama and the separation of Antarctica from South America, which seem to have initiated the Pleistocene glaciation, also had the collateral effect of narrowing the upper and lower temperature boundaries?
Same thing is observed in Eastern Iceland (Austurland): those who crossed the pass from Seydisfjordur to Egilsstadir (main tourist route from the busiest port there to the Ring Road) could observe that snow doesn’t melt any more at the 700-1000 m altitude.
Damn global warming! Lol.
Scotch on the rocks.
there was an article on the net the other day that the montana dakota area is going to have a very bad winter this comming year.
now this is a genuine Montana stove top tail.
in the late 40’s a young fellow bought one of the local newspapers in one of the small towns in the northeast corner of the state. he announced that he was from Philidelphia (which instantly anointed him as an idiot in 80% of the citizenry’s minds) and that he was going to bring culture to the heathens.
not having any sources of note he decided to use the weather as the opening topic for his first front page, the thing was a weekly. so he asked some of the locals who the local weather expert was.
and so they said. why Charlie ManyHorses of course, hangs out in front of the Traders State Bank when he’s in town. (Its not a facetious name as the town was the administrative center of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation and a lot of Indians had business there.) so the lad sought out Charlie and put the question to him. Charlie returned that it was going to be a terrible winter. so the kid published this great news in his paper and generated considerable interest. people started buying house heating coal (this was before natural gas hit that part of the state). they bought so much that the local drayman hired the entire high school football team to haul and shovel coal. after about a month he interviewed Charlie again, and again Charlie utters those famous words “Gonna be heap bad winter this year.” (this was definitely not the way most of the people in the town talked at the time but as it was the era of the lone ranger movies most people from “Back East” thought they did).
so summer rolled along. the Great Northern Railway went from one carload of coal for the town in the spring to one carload per week. and the local drayman sold it all.
so about the end of august the newspaperman figured out that he better do an “In Depth” piece on the coming winter. something on the order of Local Medicine Man Divuldges Secrets of Weather forcasting, or Local Shaman admits to using grouse bones rather than eagle feathers in weather forcasting ritual, you get the drift. well he did and Charlie said
“White Eyes put much coal in cellars”
a couple of the local barflys just happened to hear the interview and it went all over town in about an hour. the coal business went to zero by sundown. the “newspaperman” was out of town by the end of the week and the town returned to watching the world go by.
the moral of the story is that all winters in Montana are baaaaaad.
when they have a warm winter the snow gets so deep on the ground that the dogs learn how to walk on their hind legs only so they can see over the snow banks. but it only gets down to -30 degrees below zero (F for the out of towners among us).
cold winters, it doesn’t snow much, maybe a couple of feet on the level. but it gets cold. occasionally down to -60 or more.
remember this is a tail told by a short expatriot (70 some odd years ago) so take it for what its worth.
by the way I heard that the glacier park road crews couldn’t get the Going to the Sun highway open before July 1st this year.
THATS A BIG DEAL.
PK