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/
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Ah yes, the memory hole alive and well, working as intended.
Maybe GNP should change the name to a squiggly symbol instead ?
Apologies to Prince Fans, may he RIP.
Cheers, KevinK.
“While the glaciers that carved GNP’s majestic peaks were part of a glaciation that ended about 12,000 years ago, current glaciers are considered geologically new, having formed about ~7,000 thousand years ago. These glaciers grew substantially during the Little Ice Age (LIA) that began around 1400 A.D and reached their maximum size at the end of the LIA around A.D.1850.” – ‘Retreat of Glaciers in Glacier National Park’, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, United States Geological Survey. 2010-04-13.
So, the original glaciers were gone before new glaciers “grew substantially” and “reached their maximum size at the end of the LIA around 1850.” If they “grew substantially” during the last cold period is it not reasonable to expect they would melt, even “substantially”, during the current warm period?
Perhaps they should send some women to go fly around the glaciers and ask the glaciers questions with a “feminine” perspective. *rolls eyes*
Something I notice when looking at comparison shots is that the perspective is usually not quite right. Sometimes it is better than others, but most pictures are clearly not taken from the exact same spot/angle/distance, and the new ones are not even manipulated to be the same scale (well, they probably are manipulated, just not this way). With all the photographic technology, mapping/positioning technology, and improved transportation, it should not be difficult to figure out where the pictures were taken, and how to get there.
But that would mean thinking. We cannot have that.
Do they still have “Men” and “Women” toilets at GNP? Scandalous.
So, let me get this right: The future of past predictions about glaciers melting is no longer in doubt. The destiny of past predictions of future melting is that they will evaporate like spittle on the podium of Climate Alarm.
The failed predictions will scroll up and vanish as sure as the alarming words that framed them rise into the ether that lies above the tilted glass mirror of the climate-speak teleprompter, reversing, as it does, the projections emanating from the real world where facts and science reign.
Once again the teleprompter of alarm has got it backwards. Next thing you know, we will be told that some of the alarming charts have been used upside down! I mean, anything is possible when dealing with mirrors, images and a whole lot of smoke.
http://www.nap.edu/openbook/12782/xhtml/images/p2001c3c5g273001.jpg
And your point is?
Yo!
Toneb….Ice melts. Tell me something I don’t know.
He doesn’t have a point. He just believes that if he repeats the propaganda enough, eventually it will start to stick.
The OP mentioned these photos are not calendared, you did the same thing as USGS.
The months are kind of important, no one disagrees they have retreated between 1940 and 2006, the only two dated ones there, but even if 2006 is lower than 1940 2006 can still be an increase on 2005, which is what the OP claims
Plus we need a complete calendared list to see the procession of years and what the ice is doing (All taken in the same month, or winter summer pictures) to actually measure progress.
Nope, you post meaningless image and never read the OP
After your Inversion arguments, am I surprised? No
One can certainly assume these glaciers started retreating in the 1800s as with so many glaciers around the world in the NH
http://www.glacierhikers.com/images/glaciers/grinnell-8-26-11-web.jpg
Some glaciers melted.
They do that sometimes.
So what?
Tell you what, Toneb. I’ll make you the same $$ wager as the OP. If that Jonesian Kool-Aid you’ve drunk has fortified you enough, you’ll put your money where your mouse is and get some $kin in the game. How can you lose? Because … the 97%!
Toneb? Louder, please, can’t hear you. [Crickets]
Toneb
Still missing the point, are you: does this constitute scientifically valid proof of any kind for CAGW?
See my post above: GNP glaciers lost over 75% over their ice mass during the 1800s when man-made CO2 emissions were in their infancy. Care to offer a reasoned explanation for that?
Are you aware of the decades long time lag between what happens at the upper reaches of a glacier and what you see at the “tongue”? Anyone with a 101 understanding of glaciers would grasp the implications of that.
Are you aware that glaciers elsewhere [e.g. French Alps and parts of the Himalayas] are showing renewed growth? Care to explain that?
And BTW, are you aware that it snowed in London and southern England last Sunday, May 1? Imagine if that had been a “heat wave”.. Your crowd would have been screaming bloody climate disruption. Grow up.
by Dr. Roger Roots, founder of Lysander Spooner University. Yeah. I just founded a “university”. Aholes United. 10 grand will get you a piece off TP signed by Roots. When are we going to start calling these idjits out as the nerds they are? Oh wait. They run these unis,so they must be smart. NOT.
Justthinkin,
So bravely spoken, I’m sure you’ve already accepted Dr Roots challenge, and put $5k on the table. Gosh, I admire you!
Justthinkin? Louder please, can’t hear you now. Must be those deafening crickets.
Does it matter where the information comes from as long as it is accurate and verifiable? Or do you prefer NOAA/GISS/HadCru/USGS where the information is demonstrably inaccurate and the raw data no longer verifiable?
Or are you just a stuck-up Ivy League / OxBridge twit? Or someone who thinks like Trump that uneducated is good…
When did trump praise someone for their ignorance, friend?
The park website used to state that the glaciers are about 3000 years old. This has been replaced with a statement that the glaciers are leftovers from the last ice age but have receded and grown many times since then. Notice that both statements can be true but they are leaving out the fact that ‘receded’ means receded to nothing then reappeared again.
Progressive science precludes cyclicality due to recent human influence… I believe that’s it in a nutshell (or is it a bombshell?).
2 Weeks ago the USDA/DNRC Website showed MOST of Western Montana above 100% Normal water levels. Some even were exceeding 110%. The County were I live (Sanders) was also 90%. Then during our last 3 days of continued rain they suddenly during that rain dropped all areas to 80%.
While I will admit the snows on the Missions, Squaw PK, McCormick PK, Pat’s Knob have largely melted due to that rain it is clear that figures are being changed. This is also confirmed by the Amateur Radio Weather Stations that report (Different Figures) to either the Weather Underground or other locations.
I would also add that in keeping with the “agenda” of the SKC Tribal Water issues, closed meetings, reporters being vacated from public meetings as well as they going into “Closed Sessions” that while in Most States it is becoming ILLEGAL to collect Rain Water… BUT Corporate America who is strip mining the United States, that they will gladly SELL you a bottle from $1.19 or more. Making Water cost more then a gallon of gas now.
P.S. The Law definition of the United States lists the US as a Corporation. This is why through odious debts that Corporate America and it’s corporate PRIVATIZED Banking pogrom gets bail-out’s and bail-in’s and charged to YOU and your Children’s Children to repay that which YOU didn’t authorize. i.e. FASCISM.
Keith,
Careful, that “normal” baseline USDA references only averages back to (drum roll) … 1981. So, for discussing climate change, they have little value (except to AGW zombies.) There are manual snowpack records for may locales dating back to the 1800s, but even those don’t encompass glacial cycles.
All the glaciers will disappear by 2030? Where is the reference? Don’t tell me – it has been quietly removed.
I think this is probably more accurate about what was predicted:
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/retreat-glaciers-glacier-national-park
A common method of deception is to show picture of a glacier circa 1900-1910, then show a picture of the same glacier in the 1990’s/early 2000, with the implication that the glacier has just recently began melting.
Omitting pictures from the 1920’s and 1930’s showing the significant melting during that period.
It as if they want to hide something.
USGS tweets regarding the missing links on their webpage
https://twitter.com/USGS/status/728222406704144384
Bureaucrat$ and $cience-crats are funny.
If only they weren’t soooooo damn expensive!
(and lethal)
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/retreat-glaciers-glacier-national-park
Formed about 7,000 years ago, began their retreat in the 1800s. Period of fastest retreat was apparently 1917-1941. Not much humans can do to prolong their existence, so let’s all burn petrol to go see them before they’re gone.
You have to burn a LOT of petrol to get to and around GNP. It is in the middle of nowhere. You either drive or you fly, then you have to drive around the park (not a hardship, it is lovely). You can do some hiking, but unless you are a super Appalachian Trail type hiker, you probably do not want to only travel by foot. I can tell you right now, the winter caretakers would probably appreciate some “warming”. When I visited, Many Glacier Lodge staff talked about how it was not uncommon for bighorn sheep to fall through skylights during the winter, because part of the lodge would be almost completely buried under the snow. The sheep would step on the skylight and…well, the caretakers would find it the next time they checked the room. The current caretakers run a blog with pictures of their exploits. Has not been updated since last spring, but gorgeous photos. Plenty of snow. http://www.mghwinterkeeper.com
Sounds like the Overlook Hotel in “The Shining”. (Actually the Timberline Lodge near Mt Hood, OR.)
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
So which is retreating, the glaciers or USGS?
http://glacierhub.org/2015/05/05/glacier-retreat-threatens-insect-extinction/
Sometime during the last 7,000 years, this stonefly subspecies evolved to thrive in a particular environment that is rapidly shrinking. To save the Zapada glacier stonefly, the Center for Biological Diversity has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, demanding the fly be relocated to less-threated glacial streams.
Please contact the USFWS and demand that stonefly subspecies resident in other supposedly-suitable streams be polled to determine their willingness to accept the refugees.
The loss of even a single stonefly is a tragedy. I weep for the future. Oh the horror! The horror!
We should add to the pot. It’s at 5000 now, maybe it we can get commitments for 50,000 someone or some greenie group would take the bait. Thoughts?
They’ll never take the bet. I’ve tried with a friends. They’re content to invoke the Appeal To Authority Fallacy, smugly. They really don’t care if AGW is true, from their perspective it’s up to skeptics to disprove the theory, presumably by waiting 50 or 100 years, and meanwhile they reap the benefits of “settled science” and the redistribution of wealth or whichever fallout they’re interested – “sticking it to Big Oil” or the Koch Brothers, for the more sophomoric, or “Saving the Planet” for the quixotic..
I’m still glad to see the search here at WUWT is still for the truth. What seemed to be missing turned out to be moved (and modified), and that was quickly admitted and links provided so we could check. That is not what would happen at most alarmist sites.
But I bet this topic will be used as an anti-WUWT attack.
Ken Conn beat me to it. The Glacier Park glaciers are only 3,000 years old!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Who says? The park literature! http://www.nature.nps.gov/geology/parks/glac/
Kind of an “own goal” not seeking comment from the USGS before posting original. Plus you’ve given Sou ammo with which to smear and twist.
Sou needs no ammunition. What she lacks she fabricates.
Totally agree but why unnecessarily feed her something to use?
Asking USGS for comment would have been not only prudent but something I would deem basic journalism fact-finding if you’re going to accuse someone of sweeping something under the rug.
Not enough mea culpa in the update if you ask me. This should be used as a good example of how not to base accusations.
Since the glaciers in our mountains are newbies, history-wise, maybe the hype could be switched to panic over the climate change that CAUSED the glaciers. 2000 BC – “OMG OMG OMG WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE ‘CAUSE GLACIERS ARE FORMING!!!!”