Updated: USGS appears to be removing its websites claiming all glaciers will be melted from Glacier National Park by 2030

Update: Glacier Park’s ‘Gone by 2030’ Web Pages are Still Up; They Are Sticking to Their Guns

 by Roger I. Roots

Yesterday, May 5, 2016, I posted and promoted a story indicating that the USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) appears to be removing webpages claiming that all glaciers will have melted away from Glacier National Park by the year 2030–just 14 years from now.

I have since been informed that the USGS has recently relocated their climate-change-oriented sites, and that this relocation occurred recently enough that search engines were not finding them. 

My brother Alex Roots notified me that the USGS site contains a blurb indicating the Agency is updating its websites. The government’s repeat photography project (which shows old photos of glaciers–taken at undisclosed calendar dates in past decades–juxtaposed against more recent photos of the glaciers taken in the first or second weeks of September) is still available and is linked to a page indicating the project has become a ‘museum’ type site. See here. 

My post from yesterday circulated widely (as I sent it to Anthony Watts of the world’s highest-traffic climate website https://wattsupwiththat.com/. The story ultimately found its way to USGS inboxes.

This morning I received a friendly email from Suzanna C. Soileau, Physical Scientist at USGS-NOROCK in Bozeman, Montana. She assures me that the USGS is not hiding its previous climate change web pages. Soileau alerted me to the following USGS sites which focus on climate change. 

Climate Change in Mountain Ecosystem (CCME) program: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/climate-change-mountain-ecosystems-ccme

Retreat of Glacier in Glacier NP: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/retreat-glaciers-glacier-national-park

Repeat Photography Project: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/repeat-photography-project

It appears that catastrophic climate change will continue to be a major focus of GNP’s visitor promotion.

Stay tuned!

(I’m still waiting for someone to take me up on my $5,000 bet that glaciers will still exist at GNP in 2030.) See here.

URL of story (if applicable): http://lysanderspooneruniversity.com/2016/05/update-glacier-parks-gone-by-2030-web-pages-are-still-up-they-are-sticking-to-their-guns/

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ORIGINAL STORY

Government is apparently removing its websites claiming Glacier National Park will be glacier free by 2030

by Dr. Roger Roots, founder of Lysander Spooner University.

In the fall of 2015 I offered a bet of $5,000 if the glaciers at Glacier National Park disappear by 2030 (as predicted in all GNP signage, pamphlets, films and publications). See here. As of yet, no one has taken me up on my bet.

The Park’s glaciers were melting rapidly throughout the 1990s, as the catastrophic-manmade-global-warming-by-CO2 movement was riding high. Bills were introduced in Congress for “cap and trade” programs, carbon taxes and other reforms.

The National Park Service, and the U.S. Geological Survey published websites showing photos of the Park’s glaciers taken in prior decades next to more recent photos of the same glaciers. This ‘repeat photography’ showed massive decreases in the size of the GNP glaciers.

(I have often pointed out that the government’s photos from prior decades tended to not specify calendar dates. Because glaciers tend to build up in winter and then melt all summer long, the specificity of calendar dates is quite important.)

On January 8 of this year, I posted a prediction that the government would soon alter its GNP-glaciers-gone-by-2030 claims. See here. I asked, “What is the government going to do as 2030 approaches and it becomes clear that their preposterous claims are untrue?”

“I have no doubt,” I wrote then, “that the government will begin modifying these claims by 2025, if not sooner.” I began saving screenshots of government websites which make the claim that manmade-global-warming will melt the GNP glaciers by 2030.

It turns out I didn’t need to wait very long at all. Today, on May 4, 2016, I started looking for the government’s ‘repeat photography’ sites.

IT APPEARS THEY HAVE DISAPPEARED.

Today when you google “repeat photography” and “Glacier National Park,” you are redirected to general-info USGS sites with pictures of hikers in the mountains.

Fortunately, I have screenshots of the prior government projections.

Perhaps the webmasters at USGS are in the process of updating the ‘repeat photography’ sites.

Or perhaps Lysander Spooner University is already having an impact.

SIDE NOTE:

One can still find remnants of the government’s claims on some of its sites. For example, the USGS published a detailed numerical chart (see here) with data columns showing extensive melting between 1966 and 2005. The chart contains an astounding claim: “This table reflects area measurements analyzed from aerial photographs taken in 1966 and 2005. More recent suitable aerial photography on a parkwide scale has not been acquired to update this table due to seasonal conditions and financial constraints for contracted flights.”

This claim is astounding because research money intended to produce evidence for global warming has been pouring out over the past decade.

“Financial constraints”? Why do I suspect the USGS has chosen not to seek funds for new aerial photography because such photography will show that GNP’s glaciers have GROWN SINCE 2005.

More: http://lysanderspooneruniversity.com/2016/05/we-are-having-an-impact-the-government-has-already-begun-removing-links-to-its-glacier-park-glaciers-disappearing-sites/