Energy
Some Of The World’s Largest Non-Polar Glaciers Are Expanding, Despite Global Warming
Michael Bastasch
12:36 PM 08/11/2017
Some of the largest non-polar glaciers in the world are either stable or growing due to a “vortex” of cold air over a 1,200-mile section of the greater Himalayan mountain range in central Asia, according to a new study.
Climate models haven’t been able to reproduce the phenomenon, which is keeping Karakoram mountain range glaciers from melting like most of the world’s other glaciers, the study found.
“While most glaciers are retreating as a result of global warming, the glaciers of the Karakoram range in South Asia are stable or even growing,” Hayley Fowler, the study’s co-author and professor at Newcastle University, said in a statement.
Karakoram is one of the most heavily-glaciated areas of the world outside the poles, and boasts the world’s second- and third-largest non-polar glaciers. It’s also home to the world’s second-largest peak, K2 — Vertical Limit, anyone?
The study found that ‘anomalous cooling’ over Karakoram could have an impact on river flows, which are heavily dependent on ice melt. The call it the “Karakoram vortex.”
“Most climate models suggest warming over the whole region in summer as well as in winter,” Fowler said. “However, our study has shown that large-scale circulation is controlling regional variability in atmospheric temperatures, with recent cooling of summer temperatures.”
“This suggests that climate models do not reproduce this feature well,” Fowler said.
Fowler isn’t the first to wonder why Karakoram glaciers aren’t melting like the models predicted. Several studies have been published over the years asking the same question — what’s happening?
A 2014 study found climate models tended to over-predict warming over Karakoram, meaning they under-predicted snowfall in the region. The region gets colder westerly winds from Afghanistan, which is increasing winter snow. Other mountains are getting more rain.
Most other major glaciers are receding, according to Fowler, which only makes the case of Karakoram more interesting. It also shows the pitfalls of model predictions.
“But the circulation system is currently providing a dampening effect on global warming, reducing glacial melt in the Karakoram region and any change will have a significant effect on ice melt rates, which would ultimately affect river flows in the region,” Fowler said.
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Crackers~ Question for you. If clouds are not composed of water vapour…. then what are they?
Clouds are liquid water drops or ice crystals, not vapour.
Right. Where did the water come from?
You can find out here:
http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/weather/thewatercycle.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerosol
which includes water vapour as a primary component. Thank you. Now show that to Crackers.
They are composed of water vapour … but significantly – condensed from gas into liquid form such that they are able to reflect SW.
You didn’t figure that?
Why are you asking me? Crackers up above is the one who contends that clouds have a different chemical makeup than H20 – which enters the atmosphere in the form of water vapour.
Err…. “Crackers~ Question for you. If clouds are not composed of water vapour…. then what are they?”
I answered the q for him is all.
It is globally cooling. It is not much. By my results abt. -0.01K per annum.
From 2001
“The vortex ate my global warming.”
The Baltoro glacier is increasing, so is the Greenland glacier and the East Antarctic glacier and many more glaciers, and the extent of the sea ice on the polar sea in the north is increasing and most important of all there is no global warming any more, the hiatus (pause) started some twenty years ago after only twenty years of warming. The future dekades will most probably be colder than today…
Has it not struck anyone here that glacier health is a product of the balance between snowfall at the top and melt at the bottom.
Taking this further it then depends on the height of the glacier and on the absolute water content of a given airmass, and as such dependent on temperature.
That some glaciers are receiving more snowfall under AGW is hardly a surprise.
That glaciers have received more snowfall under MWP, RWP, Minoan WP, Holocene Climate Optimum and many thousands of other warming periods in the history of climate change, is not a surprise either.
You state the obvious …. but those periods did not have ~ 400ppm CO2 did they? And the HCO optimum had the Milankovitch cycle driver.
Tone,
Please show evidence for your apparent belief that 400 v 300 ppm of CO2 has a measurable effect on glaciers. Thanks.
“Some of the largest non-polar glaciers in the world are either stable or growing due to a “vortex” of cold air over a 1,200-mile section of the greater Himalayan mountain range in central Asia, according to a new study.”
Maybe you read a different article from the one above. Or maybe, you just pulled that one out of your nether region.
Actually, clouds are composed of tiny droplets of liquid water (unless they are very high altitude, in which they may be ice crystals). Water vapour, i.e. water in the gaseous phase, is transparent to visible light and has much the same refractive index as dry air, so there is no scattering involved. Although pure water in the liquid phase is also transparent to visible light, its refractive index is different from that of air, so light is scattered by it (generally Mie scattering if you want to get technical). When you perceive clods as being white, what you are actually seeing is sunlight scattered from a very large collection of individual water droplets.
BTW, sugar and salt appear white for the same reason – a single crystal of either is transparent, but a collection of crystals will scatter light. The basis for most paints is rutile, or titanium dioxide, which is transparent but with a high refractive index. When rutile is ground very fine it makes an excellent scatterer of white light.
Or another way of putting it:
“Some Of The World’s Largest Non-Polar Glaciers Are Expanding, Despite the Price of Rice in China”
(Maybe it’s the hiatus wot done it?)
The models suck. They do not take into account any factors that are producing 100,000 year glaciation cycles. Yet they purport to predict the future. They can’t model anything. All the models do is reflect the ideology of their makers.
I went up the Baltoro glacier in 1998, and it looked nothing like the pic in this article. This is me, on the very center of the Baltoro, just a few km from the top. (This was September.). The dust and rocks heat up in the strong midday sun, and melt any surface ice. The insolation on the Baltoro is stronger than in the tropics, due to its altitude.
My sirdir guide said the Baltoro had receded a kilometer or two in his lifetime (back in 1998), but that many of the side tributaries had extended right up to the main glacier. I think many of these glaciers are controlled more by local variations in precipitation, rather than a global temp increase of half a degree.
Also deforestation.
This is all very interesting, but it’s nothing more than that. It doesn’t change the big picture, which is, world wide most glaciers continue to decline as does global ice coverage. Anyone who thinks this is significant in any way is deluding themselves, which less face it, is why this article is written…. to confuse those who want to be.
Who’s confused Simon?
Globe is slightly warming because LIA is all but over.
Subject here is ‘climate models’ inability to ‘model’ such phenomena.
Like most alarmists you’re being deceptive and attempting to change the subject to suit your alarmist view.
You believe CO2 is responsible for the long-term miniscule warming, expansion of oceans, loss of ice etc.
You believe CO2 is TODAY’S cause and the global natural cycle is irrelevant.
Atmospheric CO2 has been higher in the past for eons while temperatures have been lower than current.
Study is a good antidote to dogma.
“Globe is slightly warming because LIA is all but over.”
That statement is worthless. The LIA recovery finished a while ago. We should be cooling. Tell me why we are not?
The ice is melting. I can tell you why it is.
“Study is a good antidote to dogma.”
And ignorance is no excuse for misrepresenting the truth…..
Some homework for you Simon . . .
National Academy of Sciences 2010 published a study of the earth’s climate 460-445 million years ago which found an intense period of glaciation (not warming) occurred when CO2 levels were 5 times higher than today.
Your comment Simon?
2003 study by Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics found many records reveal the 20th century is not the warmest or a uniquely extreme climatic period of the last millennium. A 2005 study published in Nature found that high temperatures similar to those observed in the twentieth century before 1990 occurred around AD 1000 to 1100 in the Northern Hemisphere. A 2013 study published in Boreas found that summer temperatures during the Roman Empire and Medieval periods were consistently higher than temperatures during the 20th century.
Your comment Simon?
The IPCC predicted Himalayan glaciers would likely melt away by 2035 which is a prediction they disavowed in 2010. In 2014 a study of 2,181 Himalayan glaciers from 2000-2011 showed that 86.6% of the glaciers were not receding. According to a 2013 study of ice cores published in Nature Geoscience the current melting of glaciers in Western Antarctica is due to atmospheric circulation changes that have caused rapid warming over the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and cannot be directly attributed to human caused climate change. According to one of the study authors – if we could look back at this region of Antarctica in the 1940s and 1830s, we would find that the regional climate would look a lot like it does today, and I think we also would find the glaciers retreating much as they are today. According to Christian Schlüchter (Professor of Geology at the University of Bern) 4,000 year old tree remains have been found beneath retreating glaciers in the Swiss Alps thus indicating they were previously glacier-free. Schlüchter further states the current retreat of glaciers in the Alps began in the mid-19th century.
Your comment Simon?
warren, study the sun. you’ll find it
delivered
significantly less sunlight to earth
460-445 Mya, about 4% lower
than today.
Crackers,
That’s true. The sun gains in power about one percent per 110 million years.
Earth suffered a fairly brief but severe ice age 440 million years ago, thanks to tectonics, when CO2 was at least ten times higher than now, and probably a lot more.
The four percent lower solar output can’t explain the glaciation, since it was warmer before and after the ice age.
Warren Blair
First point. Yes (snore) CO2 levels have been higher…. and yes, at a time when temps have been cooler. There have been other well documented reasons for that. Sun dimmer for one. Those factors are not in play now.
Second point. There have been times when “parts” of the world were warmer, but not on a global scale. And the warming was not as quick as we have seen in the last 100 years. But you knew all that… well you have been told, you just don’t want to listen.
Third point.(Yawn) Himalayan glaciers. Yes the IPCC got a fact wrong. Call the police. In a document that has literally thousand of points, they actually got some things wrong. Wow if getting the occasional fact wrong was testimony to the quality of the overall document… then WUWT has a problem then.
Yes parts of the antarctic are not warming like the rest of the planet. Did you think everywhere would react the same way? And it’s true the science is a little uncertain about why parts of the Antarctic are bucking the trend(although sea ice very low at the moment).
So my overall comment is you are cherry picking, to confuse, which was my exact point in the first place. So thank you for reinforcing it for me.
Simon,
Well said, though arguing from a platform of logic or science is pointless here.
See below . . .
A few more questions below . . .
yawn….
please have a look at paleoclimatology… Ecpecially the young dryas is something interesting…
the 8.2 Kyr event is as interesting
that’s real science….
Simon August 13, 2017 at 9:46 pm
You;re kidding, right?
You really don’t know that earth has warmed more rapidly than in the past 100 years innumerable times, to include for instance in the early 18th century, coming out of the Maunder Minimum? And for longer.
Not to mention all the glacial terminations, in which it warmed faster than now for much longer intervals.
gloat, we’re warming at about
.2 c degrees per decade. id like to see
the numbers for when it was faster.
Crackers,
No, we are not warming that fast. We haven’t warmed at all for two decades.
Earth cooled dramatically for 32 years after the end of WWII. Then it warmed slightly for about 20 years. Now GASTA has been flat for about 20 years.
Check out the CET for the early 18th century if you want to see rapid warming. The CET has also been shown to track global average temperatures well.
“The study found that ‘anomalous cooling’ over Karakoram could have an impact on river flows, which are heavily dependent on ice melt. The call it the “Karakoram vortex.”” — –How is it possible, even before the concept of global warming, the two major rivers were and are receiving heavy flows and how now they stop???
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
I see you missed the most important one; Schlüchter’s forest.
You comment Simon?
Could you help me with some more Simon . . .
What temperature should the globe be right now; your ‘safe’ temperature?
Here’s the current picture with CO2 at catastrophic levels:
Global temperatures:
Most areas – slightly warmer.
Some areas – unchanged.
A few areas – lower.
Global sea levels:
Most areas – slightly higher.
Some areas – unchanged.
A few areas – lower (notably Antarctica where lots of ice is melting).
Several areas – in a downward trend (notably the supposedly doomed islands of NAURU/KIRIBATI/VANUATU).
Global extreme weather:
Most areas – far less events.
Some areas – unchanged.
A few areas – more events.
Global greening:
I can’t say it any better than this . . .
“From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25 2016”.
Now Simon, if it gets to 2-degrees warmer than your ‘safe’ temperature, what will happen to:
Global sea levels?
Global greening?
Global extreme weather ?
4-degrees warmer than your ‘safe’ temperature, what will happen to:
Global sea levels?
Global greening?
Global extreme weather ?
6-degrees warmer than your ‘safe’ temperature, what will happen to:
Global sea levels?
Global greening?
Global extreme weather ?
I live in Australia where temperature variations are extreme but there’s no catastrophe here.
Are you having a catastrophe where you live Simon?
Sorry just two more Simon . . .
Highest Antarctic region temperature was 35 years ago when CO2 was 340ppm.
19.8°C was recorded on 30 January 1982 at Signy Research Station located at Borge Bay (near Esperanza Base) .
Highest Antarctic temperature for a Plateau station [>2500 meters] was 28 years ago.
-7.0°C was recorded on 28 December 1989 at an Automatic Weather Station (D-80) located inland from the Adélie Coast.
What Simon you’re not having a catastrophe where you live?
. . . oh there will be a catastrophe if we don’t put solar panels on our roof and pay for expensive green power.
Simon you need what . . . oh you need more money for research . . . now I see!
Simon says it’s too warm and CO2 is too high.
But nobody ever told what would be the ‘correct’ values. So let’s propose some ‘ideal’ values:
CO2 concentration: 800 ppm
Average global temperature 16° C instead of 14.8
others?
Regards, Lorenz
800. Where do you get that from?
In the tomatoe greenhouses they have 1500. To get bigger tomatoes…
Testing in vessels under water showed no ill effects at 4000. Remember CO2 is not a poison. Rabbit testing showed no ill effects at 60% provided it was well mixed with at least 20% oxygen. Roempps Chemie Lexicon 1972.
A coworker bought one of those house monitoring systems. When he demonstrated it, he said that some people get headaches from 1000 ppm. So I picked a lower value.
Hi lb
how did they test it?
you cannot add CO2 from one source as it is heavier and it takes some wind or something to diffuse it.
As far as I remember they measured much higher values then 800 in the streets of a city.
In the tomatoe houses they are working 8 hours a day and they went to 1500 but there motors blowing the air.around..
I recall there is no TLV value for CO2. so there really is no overdose…
Hi Henryp. No idea how they tested this.
Now we have one of those in a meeting room. After an hour or so with maybe eight people in, CO2 rises up to 1000ppm. But maybe it’s the meeting itself that causes headaches. 😉
henry, plants lose proteins at higher
co2. also, minerals decrease. plant
nutrition decreases in general.
Photosynthesis+ H2O + CO2 is what all plants are made of. Everything you eat and drink depends on CO2 forming CxHxOx. More is better. Hence the reason why they add CO2 in the greenhouses. You never studied any biology?
“henry, plants lose proteins at higher
co2. also, minerals decrease. plant
nutrition decreases in general.”
Bollocks.
crackers345 August 15, 2017 at 5:07 pm
You are misinformed.
Plants don’t lose protein at higher CO2 levels. They make the same amount of protein, but more carbohydrate, sot the share of protein can drop slightly in some C3 crops. If you increase the N, then they make more protein, too.
Nor do they “lose” minerals. Nutrition is greatly enhanced by CO2, since it greens the world, increasing yields of crops, trees and their fruits.
lb, there is no ‘correct’ value, only the
co2 level we and all other
species have adapted to.
UTTER RUBBISH.
You haven’t a clue what you’re wittering about.
crackers , you have the most apt username on the internet .
lb
ha. Most surely, other people must be the source of the headaches….
I suggest a true investigation on this by the EPA or what do you call this agency?
I am sure that they did test this in submarines. I think 4000 is the level where people may experience some discomfort.