By Roger Roots, J.D., Ph.D., Founder, Lysander Spooner University
www.lysanderspooneruniversity.com
Glacier National Park (GNP) straddles the continental divide along Montana’s border with Canada. Ever since Al Gore’s 2006 film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” the Park has been seen as ground zero in the international battle over manmade global warming. Almost every major figure promoting apocalyptic-manmade-global-warming-by-CO2 hysteria has made a publicized visit to the Park.
Today’s visitors to GNP are met with a steady stream of climate-change messaging. Official Park literature claims that all glaciers in GNP are predicted to melt away by the year 2030. (Some signs even tell visitors that the glaciers may be gone by 2020.)
A recurring trick by climate hysterics is to show an old photograph of one of GNP’s glaciers next to a more recent photo of the same glacier showing a massive decrease in size. Often the pictures do not precisely specify what calendar dates the photos were taken on. This is significant because the melting season is quite short and rapid, and an image from August can be starkly different from an image from just weeks earlier.
The average date of first freeze in East Glacier, Montana is September 13th. It is only then that one can assess whether the glaciers are getting bigger or smaller than in previous years.
In September 2015, Lysander Spooner University launched an annual research project aimed at visiting GNP’s glaciers every year at their lowest points. This year a small group of us opted to hike to the popular Grinnell Glacier and take a few snapshots on September 16. We hiked the 5.5 miles from the Many Glacier Hotel and arrived at glacier’s edge late in the afternoon.
The Grinnell is perhaps the most iconic of two dozen named glaciers in the Park. Untold thousands of people have hiked to it. Millions more have been exposed to government imagery of the Glacier melting away. The nearby Many Glacier Hotel features pictures on its walls showing the Grinnell’s decline from the 1880s to 2008. Numerous blog posts and magazine feature stories have also addressed this theme.
Upon our return to the Hotel after visiting the Glacier, we noticed that our brand-new photos appear to show that the Grinnell Glacier has grown slightly from the 2008 images that are displayed on the Hotel walls. There has been no reporting of this in any newspaper or broadcast that we know of. (In fact, all news coverage reports the precise opposite.) The smaller Gem Glacier—which is visible from the valley miles below—also appears to be slightly larger than it is shown in 2008 pictures on display.
We did not have enough people this year to trek to other glaciers. However we will return to GNP in September 2018 for more critical glacier research.
Contact Lysander Spooner University President Dr. Roger I. Roots with any questions or comments. [to obtain phone info use contact form] or rogerroots [at] msn.com.
Change must be terrifying to the Warmians. So what will they ever do if those and other glaciers start growing again?
There are LOTS of glaciers everywhere. What about those that aren’t popular tourist spots? Are they not worth loving, too?
I’m looking forward to next year’s survey.
I know what they’ll do: take credit for the decline in temperatures.
That’s the next step in the extremist playbook, and some of them have already started.
All the can take credit for is making promises on how we will behave in the future. It seems all that Mother Earth needed was some false contrition and promises to do better, and voila the climate is saved! Regardless of what we do the earth is going to behave as it will. All the false obeisance’s and snake oil applications will have no effect, but that doesn’t ever stop the soothsayers.
I can’t wait to challenge them over taking the credit for actually stopping the warming. Bunch of total Cnuts, every one of them!
You’re right. And what’s more if we move into ‘global cooling’ it won’t take more than a blink of the eye to attribute it to CO2. Utter shamelessness.
Ironically, if they DID start taking the credit, and started celebrating “our” curbing of emissions and improving (“improving”) climate, it would do more to boost the public’s inclination to support them than all their naysaying.
We humans respond much better to praise than blame (ask any animal trainer or Dale Carnegie graduate!) Celebrate our achievements, and we’ll try harder for still more celebration; scold us and we quickly start to think, Well, there’s no pleasing you so why bother?
There was a subtle change from “global warming” to “climate change.” That covers everything from warming to cooling. So, if the glaciers grow and the winters get colder and longer, they will take credit and blame it on man-made activities. When trillions of dollars are at stake, the Al Gore cult knows how to take their share.
Actually they’ve already done that! I saw a news broadcast claiming that some record low temperatures were due to the effects of global warming, but I can’t remember how they explained it scientifically…
I recall that the NY Times said in the seventies that global COOLING was the threat.
I recall that the NY Times said in the seventies that global COOLING was the threat.
OTOH, if we slip into some serious global cooling, we should scream to the high heavens and blame Gore for it. I would love to see him on the receiving end of some lawsuits for ‘climate damage’, claiming policies he convinced regulators to pursue needlessly caused temperatures to drop. The discovery process would prove priceless.
Yes, that’s garbage, but no more garbage than the lawsuits they have initiated.
Well, they could research satellite photos.
Sorry, but Cnut was the sensible one who knew he couldn’t fight nature, the courtiers were the ones like the CAGWarmers.
“Glaciers and the Greenland ice cap are getting bigger??
“NNOOOOOOOoooooooo…..”
—Algore and the ClimateChange Mafia
https://giphy.com/embed/ToMjGpx9F5ktZw8qPUQvia GIPHY
It would be an odd process in nature that was absolutely and without exception going in one direction. Spray is thrown off from a waterfall; generally speaking the water is going down, but a little bit of it is going up. In the same spirit, why would we expect that every year, every glacier in Glacier National Park would shrink?
The point is that most of the glaciers are a lot smaller than they were a century ago.
If some day they all disappear, and even all the snowbanks melt, can we warmists then say that this proves our point? Not by the logic of wattsupists. For even then, it might snow some blustering January 3, 2140, and then the articles would appear, breathlessly announcing that the snow pack had increased, contrary to warmist predictions.
“If some day they all disappear, and even all the snowbanks melt, can we warmists then say that this proves our point? Not by the logic of wattsupists.”
The problem is that skeptics are not arguing that the earth has not warmed since the Little Ice Age ended, or that climate change is not happening. We are making the claim that there is no compelling scientific evidence for this. Thus, skepticism is in order. Alarmists have the ability to debunk the skeptic claim if they want. But none of them ever provide any evidence to support for example their claims of very high amounts of positive feedback. High positive feedback is essential for alarmist claims to be correct. Yet, alarmists don’t support such claims with evidence. Only with vitriol, personal attacks and hate.
Likewise on other alarmist topics such as glaciers, skeptics are skeptical (with good cause) of alarmist claims. Certainly, if it continues to warm and the earth warms towards temperatures that existed in the Medieval Warm Period, we may get to a point where people can farm in Greenland at the same places the Viking settlers once farmed in the 10th century AD before global cooling wiped out the Greenland Viking settlements. If we do get that warm, then it seems likely that overall glaciers will get smaller. Of course, the Medieval Warm Period was a good time for people and animals. It was the cold after that was so damaging.
There would still be no evidence that CO2 had anything to do with your hypothetical melting.
Glaciers started melting after the depths of the LIA, and more so after its end. The null hypothesis that nothing out of the ordinary is happening can’t be rejected.
“that most of the glaciers are smaller than a hundred years ago.”
And they are non-existant compared to 10,000 years ago.
Your turn genius.
There is another Little Ice Age coming, this is just the beginning. The sun is already calming down. Read about Maunder minimum. Humans and all our activities are insignificant, get over it (and yourself).
Climate change isn’t destroying the planet: pollution is. But are plastics manufacturers reducing the amount of plastic in products and for packaging? No. It’s not profitable. Are the chemical manufacturers reducing the amount of toxic crap we use to kill everything that moves that isn’t human? No. It’s not profitable. For a hundred years and more, we’ve set out to destroy life for money. Now the deed it done and life on Earth is dying. Instead of addressing the problem: Profit over Well-being, we quibble over whether it’s ‘climate change’ or ‘global warming’. Climate change or global warming, both are the direct result of pollution overload, not the culprit. We can’t do anything about the former, but we can choose to STOP SHOPPING for stuff we don’t even need, but just want, like a crow with a shiny object. While life in our ocean is dying, we’re throwing plastic away as fast as we can buy it and poisoning any living thing that has no “economic value” – god forbid a sugar ant be tolerated in a house or a mouse in a garage. Warmist or Wattsupist is irrelevant: the PROBLEM is pollution and we are all guilty to greater or lesser degree.
Glaciers may be smaller now than a century ago in 1917, but they have been getting smaller virtually each year since 1917 (actually, they have been growing smaller for a lot longer period), long before AGW. Secondly, if temps warmed up enough, say in 1918, to start the melt, and stayed flat ever since, the glaciers would still be melting. Finally, the growth or shrinkage of glaciers is as dependent on winter snowfall as it is summer temperatures. Without detailed precipation records, you don’t know if any changes are due to temperature variations or changes in snowfall.
So you fail on all counts regardless of what happens.
They are hooked on being ‘Terrified’, and will readily Convert to being ‘Terrified’ of a new Ice Age, just as they did in the 70’s
They probably should be terrified of a new ice age and all the crop yield destruction it will bring.
I think I’m going to retire to Hawaii or Costa Rica. That way I won’t be caught in the collateral damage crossfire, hopefully.
No one talks about Washington’s galciers either… I say many of them have been growing for years. Look at Mt. St. Helens, and what happened on it’s slopes since the glaciers were blown off!!!
It took me a moment to figure out who “Warmarians” were! Haven’t heard that yet. Love it.
“t took me a moment to figure out who “Warmarians” were!”
The alarmists are trying words that rhyme with ‘barbarian’ in order to find a new way to denigrate climate realists.
https://petapixel.com/2015/10/25/these-before-and-after-photos-show-how-glaciers-in-the-us-are-melting/
Actual science
https://petapixel.com/2015/10/25/these-before-and-after-photos-show-how-glaciers-in-the-us-are-melting
Hard to deny actual photo comparisson of history and now….where is the comparrison photo the OP claims growth has occurred from?
Mega, who is saying there is no melting?
Really are you warmists so unaware of what people HERE think about Glaciers melting?
What is missing is are the photos being left out,that shows most of the melting happened BEFORE 1950.
Where’s your proof sun? Saying it doesn’t make it true
Mega,
Um, because most melting happened before 1950, when CO2 took off. Thus, we can be sure that CO2 isn’t the reason for the melting.
However, the sun did increase in power from 1850 to 1950, so it’s at least a plausible culprit, unlike CO2, which can’t be considered.
Mega – you’re pulling the same stunt all the warmist pull
Try showing pics of the same glacier over a several years beginning circa 1850 – you will notice that significant percentage of the melt occurred before C02 became a factor – but you already knew that and thats why your pulled the same trick b y only showing one comparison instead of a decade by decade comparison
Mega, where’s your evidence that it’s CO2? Remember, the melting started long before CO2 started rising.
I couldn’t find an actual date on any of those photos. Is the comparison of Mar 1880 vs Sep 2008 (or whatever year it offered)? The point of the original post was, recently the glaciers may be growing. Show a day-by-day, or at least a carefully dated comparison, of the last 10-20 years to prove the post wrong.
Sara,
FYI: The Indian federal government published a report earlier this month that documents and clearly states that of all the glaciers in the Himalayas a large majority is stable, a small minority is declining and a large minority is in fact increasing.
Won’t hear about that in the MSM though.
Your statement makes no sense, it adds up to more than 100%. Links?
Climate change is a scam created to make westerners use to living poor, to inflate the cost of energy as well, and also to make our economy’s weaker.
This is nothing more than a fear tactic employed by communist subversive individuals for the purpose of giving them control over western wealth.
[snip . . . pick one online persona and use it. Multiple personalities are a no-no . . . mod]
Because it’s warming, there is more moisture in the air, so there is more snow, and thus the glaciers grow. Unless the glaciers are retreating then that is because it’s warming, but not with moisture in the air. Or something like that…
IF true, just how inconvenient would that be for Gore & Co? However, far more verifiable historical and present data clearly necessary to avoid false conclusions (not that that has ever bothered the warmistas). So, give that man a grant!
One of the truths about Glacier National Park the warmist extremists conveniently leave out all the time is the real reason why the glacier receded significantly starting in the early 80’s. Anyone remember what happened in May 1980 – Mt. St. Helens blew. What direction did the ask plume go – directly over GNP. What happens when all that ash lands on snow and ice – it more readily absorbs heat causing the snow and ice to melt quicker. When I visited GNP 6 years ago the cute ranger guide was spouting the global warming nonsense and had no clue regarding the ash fallout impact on the glacier. I wonder how many hundreds of thousand visitors were duped by omitting this important fact.
+10
Ah, good point.
This article is extremely vague – no specific measurements given, very inexact comparison of photos, very unscientific approach etc. etc.
If you really want to find out the truth of what is happening with glaciers around the world, then I suggest you look at some more reputable, and thus reliable, research from the National Snow & Ice Data Center:
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/glaciers/questions/climate.html
You’re blaming the article for being vague, but failing to mention that the propaganda produced evidently by park authorities on which the article is focused is likewise extremely inexact and misleading. Scientific integrity would demand that data be presented demonstrating that it is known that there have been many periods of glacier expansion and contraction over many millennia long before the Industrial Revolution. This dishonesty is driving the doubt, I’m afraid. Also, it isn’t whether change is happening (which everyone with a brain has always known contrary to the propaganda by people railing at “deniers”), it is to what degree all factors are causing it, whether we should do something about it, and what should be done if we can.
Well said.
VERY GOOD.. This stuff is still left over from Barry Obama’s propaganda blitz to enslave Americans to a fake agenda and more government,plus higher taxes so the government can save us from imaginary science…
“Scientific integrity would demand that data be presented demonstrating that it is known that there have been many periods of glacier expansion and contraction over many millennia long before the Industrial Revolution.”
Scientific integrity would be to admit that 11,000 or so years ago, much of North America was under ice, and that we have been warming and glaciers melting for 11,000 years. This did not start yesterday, or 50 years ago, or 250 years ago. By all means, search wiki for “Laurentide Ice Sheet”. Canada was completely covered in ice, and the Great Lakes were formed. FURTHER, temperature records indicate that, even without humans, the Earth was EXPECTED to warm as much as it has, and get even warmer. LOOK AT THE TEMPERATURE RECORD. Nothing that has happened so far is out of the ordinary. We are continuing from the past 10,000 years of melting.
Outstanding reply. Better a Denier than a Liar!
Exactly, Doug Hood. Thanks for adding clarity to my point.
Here’s an article about another visit to that glacier – accompanying scientists who visit and take comparison photos every year
http://www.kulr8.com/story/36295580/investigating-glacier-national-parks-disappearing-ice
Griff, seriously, don’t link news articles. It was lazily written. It did provide some information but it is obvious the writer did not do any personal research before writing the article.
Agree with you,Andrew. The article leaves out a lot of information,they could have presented.
“Griff, seriously, don’t link news articles. It was lazily written. It did provide some information but it is obvious the writer did not do any personal research before writing the article.”
Oh, and this post is a scientific paper? Please, it’s a few photos. The scientists in the link that Griff posted go back to Grinnell (and the other 36 named glaciers) every few months and make measurements. https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/58af7022e4b01ccd54f9f542?community=Northern+Rocky+Mountain+Science+Center
Chris,whines again,while failing to notice that NOBODY has disputed the retreats since the 1960’s!
“Oh, and this post is a scientific paper? Please, it’s a few photos. The scientists in the link that Griff posted go back to Grinnell (and the other 36 named glaciers) every few months and make measurements.”
What YOU,Griff and Ivan continually fail to do is see the ENTIRE history of that region during the current Interglacial period. See what David posted: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/09/20/are-the-glaciers-in-glacier-national-park-growing/comment-page-1/#comment-2614822
“The “small glaciers” of Glacier National Park, Montana may have not existed during the Holocene Climatic Optimum (HCO). The geological evidence suggests that they formed about 7,000 years ago as the Earth’s climate began to cool after the HCO (Neoglaciation).”
They didn’t even exist just a few thousand years ago.
The Only thing one can take away from this “news article
is that the NewsBabe has nice legs. No data regarding the time of year of any of the photos. That, by itself is enough to toss it.
Sunsettommy,
Why do you post about small glaciers when the article is about one of the large, named glaciers? And you ignore the data points in the link that I provided, which shows the decline continuing since 1998 – with subsequent data points in 2005 and 2015.
Chris, both YOU and Griff went back to 1966 in your links. The melting was never disputed by me and others,so drop your Red Herring attempt.
What I did in MY reply was about the much longer HISTORY of the region,namely about the glacier in question. I wrote,
“Chris,whines again,while failing to notice that NOBODY has disputed the retreats since the 1960’s!
“Oh, and this post is a scientific paper? Please, it’s a few photos. The scientists in the link that Griff posted go back to Grinnell (and the other 36 named glaciers) every few months and make measurements.”
What YOU,Griff and Ivan continually fail to do is see the ENTIRE history of that region during the current Interglacial period. See what David posted: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/09/20/are-the-glaciers-in-glacier-national-park-growing/comment-page-1/#comment-2614822
“The “small glaciers” of Glacier National Park, Montana may have not existed during the Holocene Climatic Optimum (HCO). The geological evidence suggests that they formed about 7,000 years ago as the Earth’s climate began to cool after the HCO (Neoglaciation).”
They didn’t even exist just a few thousand years ago.”
NONE of the GNP glaciers existed a few thousand years ago,yet the world went on,humans thrived during that time INCLUDING the then well watered Sahara.
Sunsettommy,
So what about 1966? The data shows that the glaciers have shrunk substantially since 1998.
Chris the TROLL continues to ignore my repeated statement about melting:
He writes his latest feeble attempt at a Red Herring,since I NEVER disputed the melting of GNP at all.
“Sunsettommy,
So what about 1966? The data shows that the glaciers have shrunk substantially since 1998.”
=========================
Here are my already posted replies:
“Chris,whines again,while failing to notice that NOBODY has disputed the retreats since the 1960’s!”
“Mega, who is saying there is no melting?”
“Chris, both YOU and Griff went back to 1966 in your links. The melting was never disputed by me and others,so drop your Red Herring attempt.”
“Warmists keeps ignoring the obvious reason why they started retreating since the 1700’s,the LIA was waning to the current modern warming phase.”
“The retreats are undeniable, but no evidence presented to show that it is “abnormal” at all in the YOUR link. Just a lot “oh my god!” crap all over in it.”
“Griff, your link leaves some things out that is critical,such as the fact that it is declining because we have been warming since the END of the LIA.”
“Blair, show us HERE, who disputes the melting of the Glaciers at GNP in recent decades.”
Chris,stop being a stupid troll.
That is just your typical, garden-variety governmental pseudoscientific garbage. “Truth” to you, of course.
More ‘scientific’ than the dross by this WUWT author. Had me laughing out loud…
Ivan, thinks the writer of this GUEST post is a WUWT author.
“By Roger Roots, J.D., Ph.D., Founder, Lysander Spooner University”
Please Ivan, stop being dumb.
When frauds and scammers are unable to addres the science, data or observations, they insult and demean the authors.
Typical ad hominem fallacy, a fake argument without merit, value or fact.
Sunsettommy, Roots’ PhD is in Sociology. The “university” he founded is not accredited. It has a grand total of 2 instructors – Roots and a gentleman named Right on John. Right on John “is the alias of a Canadian-born super innovator, master mechanic and inventor who hails from the Canadian Rockies.” Now he may be a guest author, but nobody forced WUWT to run his post.
Chris, your comment about Roots background, has done NOTHING to address the main point of the article.
“In September 2015, Lysander Spooner University launched an annual research project aimed at visiting GNP’s glaciers every year at their lowest points. This year a small group of us opted to hike to the popular Grinnell Glacier and take a few snapshots on September 16. We hiked the 5.5 miles from the Many Glacier Hotel and arrived at glacier’s edge late in the afternoon.”
That is all they offer,nothing more. They made no science statement at all,just a simple complaint about misleading photos:
“A recurring trick by climate hysterics is to show an old photograph of one of GNP’s glaciers next to a more recent photo of the same glacier showing a massive decrease in size. Often the pictures do not precisely specify what calendar dates the photos were taken on. This is significant because the melting season is quite short and rapid, and an image from August can be starkly different from an image from just weeks earlier.”
Drop your dead in the water qualification fallacy angle,since it is worthless!
Sunsettommy
“Chris, your comment about Roots background, has done NOTHING to address the main point of the article.”
Ah but that’s the thing these guys like Griff and the other trolls do, they attack they person writing the post, more often than not with pure slander like Griff has done many times i.e. Dr Soon, Dr Crocket and so own. Chris is just another slandering Troll.
Bob Boder, if you bothered to read my comment above, you will see that I posted a link to proper research on the glaciers of GNP. Measurements taken every few months on all the named glaciers, and detailed summaries provided for review. You, on the other hand, are impressed by a couple of photos taken on a day hike to one glacier.
Next time you need to have work done on your teeth, why don’t you go to a car mechanic? Because clearly to you relevant experience doesn’t matter.I have no issue with someone who has background in one area, and then applies himself and becomes an expert in another. But in this case Roots does not have relevant education, nor has he done substantial work in the field. I guess to you glacier science is simply taking a hike and taking a few photos.
Chris
“Bob Boder, if you bothered to read my comment above, you will see that I posted a link to proper research on the glaciers of GNP. Measurements taken every few months on all the named glaciers, and detailed summaries provided for review. You, on the other hand, are impressed by a couple of photos taken on a day hike to one glacier.”
No where did I defend the post or state that you were correct or incorrect.
“Sunsettommy, Roots’ PhD is in Sociology. The “university” he founded is not accredited. It has a grand total of 2 instructors – Roots and a gentleman named Right on John. Right on John “is the alias of a Canadian-born super innovator, master mechanic and inventor who hails from the Canadian Rockies.” Now he may be a guest author, but nobody forced WUWT to run his post.”
What does any of this have to do with the post? The answer is nothing! The post is not portrayed as a scientific paper it is simple observation, you are attacking the credential of someone making an observation, hence my comment and your outing as a troll.
I know anyone who agrees with this will be seen as a biased critic, but here goes. I agree with your assessment. I scrolled the article looking for the comparative information and pictures and was disappointed to find them lacking. Before I go any further, I am a free-market loving, diesel- 4×4 driving, outboard powered boat loving, man-made climate change denier. Not to say I deny climate change or even global warming, it’s been happening for millions of years with or without man! I was just at Glacier NP in July and several locals had mentioned the amount of snow the last few years has been heavy. Still the article need measurements taken over a period of time to quantifiably justify the proposal.
ben, all good points. I feel like Wall-e, “Need input! Need input!” But really, I think the only point of the post was: the glaciers may be growing recently, but will the Parks Service even acknowledge that as a possibility?
Ivankinsman, I went and read that link. I especially liked the sentence where it claims that “Some scientists” believe that the glaciers have been retreating due to the industrial revolution which began in 1760.
It appears both the writer and the average reader is incapable of truly appreciating this sentence in all of its propaganda glory.
So, let’s use this as a teaching moment.
First, let’s look at the words “Some scientists”. This is exceptionally vague. Which scientists? How many scientists? Is there any proof or is it a theory? Why not name the scientists? Why not name the study? Historically, vague statements are made because they are an attempt to make suspicious ideas (read propaganda) sound mainstream.
Second, let’s look at the main portion of this statement. The assertion is made that the glaciers have been retreating since 1760 and this is attributed to the actions, and only the actions of man. Now, that isn’t said outright, but by pointing out the beginning of the industrial revolution, it is clear that the retreat is attributed to the actions of man kind. What make this really interesting is that the statement places all the blame on man, without even a minor attribution to other things, like natural temperature variation or precipitation variation.
All of this, even if people don’t realize it, is implying that if the industrial revolution had not happened, then these glaciers would not have retreated.
Think about the ridiculousness of that statement for a moment. It is almost as if the writer believes in a pristine earth which is unchanging, perfect and right without the corrupting influence of man.
Do you believe this without reservation?
Look, anyone who would make such an asinine statement is obviously writing propaganda. Even worse, the rest of the link really gives no information except for some great looking pictures. It is obvious that the page was written by someone whose degree is probably in marketing.
Don’t like that one. Then try this scientific study’s findings:
https://www.livescience.com/57210-climate-change-drives-glaciers-retreat.html
1 in a 100,000. They are really giving a .99999 probability for climate change?
Um….no.
Seriously. No.
Look, data analysis is what I do. No professional will ever give a 99.999 percent chance of ANYTHING!!!
I would love to see the design of experiments on that one. Curious about the H and H naught.
And here is another one of glacial retreat in the Alps. Don’t tell me this is a natural phenomenon – the rate of the decrease is abnormal:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3765074/Shocking-images-global-warming-causing-Europe-s-glaciers-retreat-hundreds-feet-year.html
Ivan, the POINT Andrew made flew right over your head.Here is the part you ignored:
“The assertion is made that the glaciers have been retreating since 1760 and this is attributed to the actions, and only the actions of man. Now, that isn’t said outright, but by pointing out the beginning of the industrial revolution, it is clear that the retreat is attributed to the actions of man kind. What make this really interesting is that the statement places all the blame on man, without even a minor attribution to other things, like natural temperature variation or precipitation variation.”
Warmists keeps ignoring the obvious reason why they started retreating since the 1700’s,the LIA was waning to the current modern warming phase.
Ivan, Griff and many warmists like them ignore the obvious because they are driven my the “mankind is at fault” mania.
Not only that,the Mountain glaciers are a dribble compared to Antarctica and Greenland,which make up about 99.25% of the glaciers of the world. That means LESS than 1% for the rest warmists are so irrationally worried about.
“Some scientists” is the same tactic reporters use when they say “some believe” when referring to other topics. It’s just a way for the reporter to put his own views in without saying explicitly so.
Another brainless crying statement made by a certified warmist loon, Ivankinsman:
” ivankinsman
September 20, 2017 at 8:08 am Edit
And here is another one of glacial retreat in the Alps. Don’t tell me this is a natural phenomenon – the rate of the decrease is abnormal:”
The article goes on to great length of large retreats as if that was abnormal,yet presents ZERO evidence of it since they make no mention of Climate Optimum,Minoan,Roman,Medeivel warm periods effects on the Mountain Glaciers.
The retreats are undeniable, but no evidence presented to show that it is “abnormal” at all in the YOUR link. Just a lot “oh my god!” crap all over in it.
How can you be this STUPID Ivan?
Ivan’s desperation over his absolute devotion to opinion, hearsay, models and falsehoods is showing. Now Ivan has progressed from hand waving to desperate flailing.
Ad hominems.
Baseless opinions.
Sham science that ignores reports regarding glaciers worldwide.
Thoroughly snake oil salesman false.
ivankinsman
“And here is another one of glacial retreat in the Alps. Don’t tell me this is a natural phenomenon – the rate of the decrease is abnormal:”
What’s normal, please?
Ivankinsman
“And here is another one of glacial retreat in the Alps. Don’t tell me this is a natural phenomenon – the rate of the decrease is abnormal:”
ITS NATURAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! there I told you, the only thing abnormal is your thought processes.
ivankinsman September 20, 2017 at 8:08 am
Nothing unusual is happening to glaciers anywhere.
In the depths of the LIA, Swiss villages were threatened by growing glaciers. In the Medieval Warm Period, they were farther up the valleys than they are now. They naturally wax and wane.
Some passes in the Alps are only open during warm periods, and are now opening again. Artifacts found in them are all from warm periods, ie the Holocene Climate Optimum, the Minoan, Roman and Medieval WPs.
But alpine glaciers have also started growing again:
http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/09/30/the-first-alpine-glaciers-are-growing-again/
The Current WP is unlikely to be as balmy as was the Medieval, which was cooler than the Roman, which was cooler than the Minoan. The Holocene is winding down to the next glacial phase.
Sunsettommy, it didn’t fly over his head. He ducked.
Those “retreating” glaciers in the Alps have been uncovering sites occupied by the Romans, proving that it was even warmer than it is now during the Roman warm period.
That’s what I was thinking. This is a UNIVERSITY field trip and the evidence presented is a crappy cell phone photo from—perhaps, it’s never validated—the same vantage point? No analysis of depth, glacial terminus location, or anything?
I’d expect far more from collegiate-level excursions. They publish things like this for cripes sake. Why do it half-assed?
Thanks for agreeing, and at least someone else is looking at a WUWT article objectively and not taking it as gospel.
The so called university (from its own web site ) the University is mostly a libertarian blog ” Root, with his sociology PhD (in my opinion there is nothing more to say, but I will) hopes to build the University into a major institution of higher learning.
This reminds me of a scene in a TV show I just saw where a character said he “hoped” something of the other. His buddy said Hope!!! Why don’t you put all your hopes in your right hand and all your [rude word for fecal matter] in your left and tell me which one gets full first.
Just like the MMGW Cult, this article is a load of nonsense.
What do you make of the fact that a large USCS map in Glacier Bay National Park, AK, there for all to see, documents that by far the largest retreat of the multiple glaciers there occurred between the 1790s and 1850s, completely undercutting the CAGW/CACC BS served up by the park rangers?
First of all put up a url link. Secondly, could be local variation in climatic conditions. Thirdly, take a look at the more recent and rapid global retreat of glaciers around the world.
For example, this is what is happening in the Alps:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-16025568
Ivan, you keep posting articles of mountain glacier melts as if you are being disputed on it. Who here in THIS thread are saying against your claim of melting glaciers?
Here it is Ivan,
Glaciers are supposed to wither shrink or grow. They can’t remain static by something other than a massive coincidence.
Yep. And advancing glaciers are a much bigger problem than retreating glaciers.
What are examples of advancing glaciers that are causing problems?
There haven’t been any since the end of Neoglaciation. However, back when glaciers were generally advancing, entire towns were bulldozed by glaciers.
http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/little_ice_age.html
OK, so no advancing glaciers. Those retreating affect water supplies for millions, as well as hydroelectric power, so I’d say that’s a bigger problem.
Chris: Retreating glaciers have very little effect on stream flow. The Himalayan glaciers supply less than 1% of the water in the rivers downstream. I have done a similar calculation on the Athabasca system in Alberta. Over 99% of stream flow happens AFTER the glacier. In other words, rain and snow melt.
http://www.environment.alberta.ca/apps/OSEM/ATHMCM.aspx
Yep. Glaciers that aren’t melting don’t provide much in the way of water to watersheds.
…and according to scientific studies, not the IPCC use of WWW articles, 86 percent of those glaciers are NOT shrinking!
Cris: “What are examples of advancing glaciers that are causing problems?”
Which supplies more water downstream Chris?
A) A glacier receding by melting
B) A glacier advancing by … not melting?
Chris
“What are examples of advancing glaciers that are causing problems?”
1 Mile thick ice over Manhattan!
God where do all these trolls come from, is there a degenerative brain hiring program for trolls or something.
“What was the name on the jar”
“Abby”
“Abby?, Abby what?”
“Abby Normal”
‘YOU GOT ME AN ABNORMAL BRAIN, YOU IDIOT!”
I am OK with advancing glaciers. After all, I live on the terminal morraine/outwash plain of a really large glacier that advanced and then retreated – Long Island. Come to think of it, isn’t that what glaciers do. Advance- retreat – repeat.
Chris and Ivan are so keen to mock an imaginary WUWT reader who supposedly “rely” on this unscientific “single snapshot”, they are both blind to the several WUWT regulars who have pointed out the obvious- Chris and Ivan rely on faux science that is based on the equivalent of a geologic GIF (I hope I have that term right, I’m trying to refer to a two-second video).
This image is priceless…
The Greenland and Antarctic ice caps have been relatively permanent features throughout the Quaternary (possibly since the Oligocene in the case of Antarctica). If these ice masses melted, it would be a big deal. On the other hand, small glaciers and year-round Arctic sea ice have not been permanent features. They are relatively recent and probably rare features of the Holocene. The geological evidence indicates that the presence these small ice masses is anomalous.
The “small glaciers” of Glacier National Park, Montana may have not existed during the Holocene Climatic Optimum (HCO). The geological evidence suggests that they formed about 7,000 years ago as the Earth’s climate began to cool after the HCO (Neoglaciation).
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/history-glaciers-glacier-national-park?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects
The glaciers at Glacier NP were generally advancing from about 7,000 years ago up until the mid-1800’s, when Earth began to recover from the Little Ice Age…
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/history-glaciers-glacier-national-park?qt-science_center_objects=1#qt-science_center_objects
Glaciers are either advancing (increasing mass balance) or retreating (decreasing mass balance). They rarely sit still… Even if they do move glacially slow.
7,000 years ago, Chaney Glacier began advancing, reaching the magenta perimeter in 1850…
Since 1850, it has retreated to its current position.
The coldest phase of the Little Ice Age (ca 1600 AD) was probably the coldest period of the Holocene. In Greenland, the Little Ice Age was about as cold as Pleistocene glacial interstadials.
The questions I would pose to the Warmunists are:
1. Would you prefer that Earth remained as cold as the Little Ice Age?
2. Would you prefer advancing or retreating glaciers?
There isn’t any other option regarding glaciers.
Wait – stop right there, David Middleton.
You have to understand the strange mind of the Warmian or Warmunist. They do not like change of any kind. They do not understand it. They don’t even like the change of seasons or solar eclipses. If you will recall, several people asked online if the recent total solar eclipse could be changed to another date. They are, indeed, that stupid.
So, if you want to ask those mindless morons whether they prefer 1 – stay as cold as the LIA, or 2 – advancing or retreating glaciers, they won’t understand what you are talking about.
They do not have a clue to the reality that exists outside their electronic world. An entire generation of them was recently described in a news story as having the minds of 15 year old children, which I thought was rather generous of the writer of that piece.
To reiterate what I said, they do not like change of any kind unless it’s a more expensive and cooler piece of electronic stuff, or a new coffee flavor for the latte. (I’m exaggerating this.)
Me, I’d just like normal fall, winter, spring and summer weather. Normal spring means enough rain for the bloodroot and trilliums to bloom in large masses so that I can get some spectacular photos of them in April.
David, is being rational here to point out the minor impact these little glaciers have,which amounts to LESS than 1% of the world glacial total.
Climate has little to do with the CAGW crowd. It’s just what ties them together at this time. If it wasn’t climate it would be the bomb (remember the ban the bomb and nuclear winter folks?) or any number of other things when white men, capitalism and technology come together in the same sentence.
There’s a certain mindset that cannot stand a prosperous western middle class.
As to your “Warmists Do Not Like Change” comment (Hip Hip Hooray for the truth) I offer this analysis – taken from my website.
Timing is Everything
To say that we must stabilize the temperature of the entire planet, letting it neither go up or go down, is to say about it that which was said by Goldilocks about the bowl of porridge. Just think about it. We are the luckiest people ever to live on this planet up until now, and probably until the end of time. We live here when the temperature is “just right.”
I do truly feel blessed, or rather I feel lucky because blessed has too many politically incorrect connotations to be used in an article about this topic, knowing this fact. And in a fit of exuberance, I sat down and gave it all some grateful reflection. And guess what. Up until the global warming cult told me this, I didn’t realize it. And more importantly, I realized that there was no way I could have ever realized it.
All my life the temperature has been changing. It changes from summer to winter. It changes from Month to month and day to day. It even, I realized with shock, changes from hour to hour.
I was reduced to a quivering mass of “just right porridge” when I realized that the temperature even changed when I went into the shade under my tree. Not only that, but it changed in ways that no sane person could put into a pattern, other than in the general Summer Fall Winter Spring way. By the way, wasn’t she a character on the Buffalo Bob TV show back in the fifties? Just another reason to be glad one is alive now.
The hard part thinking about this came when I realized that I had only been aware of the temperature for a bit over fifty years. Not being that egotistical, I knew that my own personal lifespan did not define the parameters. So I looked into it some more. And guess what I found out.
The temperature has been changing since there was a temperature. Sometimes up. Sometimes down. Sometimes slowly. Some times quickly. It has changed in all eras, epochs, and periods. It has changed in all places, both wet like the oceans, and dry like the Sahara. Which used to be wet.
I was absolutely stunned to realize just exactly how lucky I was to be living in the “just right times.” Give thanks to the Goracle and go buy a carbon credit.
I couldn’t make it through all the point/counterpoint before the last few hairs on my 70 year began to hurt. My takeaway from this is that whenever the glaciers began, before then it was TOO DAMNED WARM.
That would be my 70 year old head. Damn autocorrect.
David and others,
Several years ago, a USGS website indicated that all the Glacier NP glaciers were retreating EXCEPT two large ice fields on the north side of the park, which received little or no direct sunlight, and had been stable for over 100 years. I interpreted that as strongly suggesting that insolation was more important than ambient air temperature in determining the stability of the glaciers.
That particular website disappeared a few years ago. I don’t know exactly when it was replaced by the current one, which no longer makes the claim about the stable ice fields, but I think it was about the time Obama took office.
There is a third condition of glaciers to consider. Instead of ablating exclusively at the front of the glacier, and appearing to retreat, another possibility is for the zone of accumulation to receive less snow and to shrink through melting and sublimation. When it got thin enough, it would then no longer deform plastically and push ice ahead of it. The ice in place on low-gradient slopes, and less than about 200 feet thick, will simply stagnate and slowly melt. When I visited the Franz-Joseph glacier several decades ago, that appeared to be what I was observing, rather than the snout just moving up slope because the ablation rate exceeded the foreword motion rate.
Glaciers are complex dynamic systems that make poor ‘Coal Mine Canaries’ unless abundant, high-quality measurements (not just pictures) are taken along the length of the system over a period of decades, to assess what process(es) is/are dominating the changes. There is no doubt that most glaciers in the world are retreating, but it does not follow that the changes are due solely to increasing air temperatures. For alarmists to make such a claim either indicates they don’t understand the dynamics of glaciers, or that they are purposely being misleading.
“This image is priceless…”
Is this like the ‘expert’ who assured us all Arctic sea ice would be gone by 2012…..2013…..2014……………………
Referring to the ice man, if he was buried 5000 years ago than it must have been warmer prior to that time. Read John Kerr’s book (inconvenient skeptic) as I did and you will have a completely different perspective on climate
Thank you, I shall!
It is a good book, have it in my growing list of climate related books at my place.
John, show that many Mountain glaciers didn’t exist until around 2,500 years ago,when Insolation went negative in the North. Some even started even BEFORE Insolation went negative.
Warmist look at so little of the Interglacial time frame,which is why they make dumb claims so easily.
Brilliant
Thanks
Wow, global warming is real and affecting us right now. All you have to do to see it is to fly to Kalispell Montana, drive an hour and a half into the mountains, and then hike 5.5 miles. Once there it will be clear we are all doomed. DOOMED!!
Wow, really? Comparing a picture on a phone to one on a trash can?
Wow, propaganda put up on trash cans?
Hey Holly, have you ever been to Glacier National park? It’s pretty obvious the glaciers are retreating….. obviously not much we can do to prevent that from happening, but to call it propaganda just shows how ignorant you are…. seriously a guy comparing a photo to a trashcan???? that’s not proof
Frank Bolling, yes I have been to Glacier several times. Yes, I have seen the glaciers and photos of same. And I have heard first hand the unwavering, unquestioning, propaganda statements by the indoctrinated who permit NO serious questions. This is not science, sir. Science appreciates all questions, and on this subject there are and have been MANY. The real “deniers” are the people who have no questions! You clearly have missed the entire point of the article.
Glaciers on Mt baker, not far away, have been shown to be cyclic in nature
Just like Arctic temperatures are cyclic in nature. (this graph overlays Reykjavik temperatures on the AMO)
Just like the growth and decrease of Swiss glaciers
But all of this is small stuff once you realise that many of the glaciers just didn’t exist before “neoglaciation”
Harping on about decreasing glaciers, decreasing Arctic sea ice, Greenland melt etc…
….. is the most idiotic form of climate change denial.
Denial that the current global temperature has warmed only slightly from the coldest period in 10,000 years.
This most idiotic form of climate change denial relies totally and completely on remaining totally and wilfully ignorant about anything before 1979.
This denial is the only thing that allows the likes of griff and ivan to keep yapping their meaningless AGW agenda claptrap.
All of which comports perfectly with the well known post-WWI warming and post-WWII cooling, until the PDO flip of 1977, after which, natural warming again.
Hey, Frank Bolling, ever had your a** handed to you? I mean before Holly?
It’s very convenient that they explain natural processes….as a process they don’t understand
On a Glacier National Park hike to Ice Berg Lake in 2004, our ranger guide was telling us about the receding glaciers in the park. I asked, “Global Warming?” I got a very short curt answer “No! …” I was surprised and wondered how long that response would apply. I didn’t ask any more questions about that.
In 1960 on a hike to the Grinnell the rangers told us the glacier had been shrinking for decades. I don’t remember what we were told were the reasons.
This item, “Are the glaciers in Glacier National Park growing?” and it’s video aren’t exactly scientific. I won’t be posting a link anywhere else as evidence to say, “See! Glaciers are growing – Climate Change is bunk.”
Steve – I was at Glacier NP in 2005 or 2006. We stopped at the logan pass visitor center ( going to the sun road at the continental divide). The rangers prepared speeches/ presentations had a prominent AGW promotion.
As others have noted above and below – Glacier parks glaciers had significant melting in the 1920-1930’s (partly due to dry weather for a couple of decades).
It is refreshing to notice that some rangers take a broader few of the science.
Except for the forest fires, leading to particulates, leading to melting. Did you actually see the mountains from Kalispell?
…Upon our return to the Hotel after visiting the Glacier, we noticed that our brand-new photos appear to show that the Grinnell Glacier has grown slightly from the 2008 images that are displayed on the Hotel walls….
If you have noticed this you are a Climate Denier ™ and must immediately apply to Room 101 for re-education…
My complaint is the how the warmist always show an early photo of a glacier 1890 – 1910 era, then show a recent photo of the same glacier – giving the false impression that all the melting is during the recent decade.
Rarely do the warmist show several photos spanning all the decades – why – because the time lapse photos would show a significant percentage of the glacier melt occurred in the 1920’s & 1930’s.
It would blow the narrative
Exactly. The rhetorical question I use around here (live pretty close to Glacier Park) is: The glaciers shrunk from 1850 until the first pictures around 1890.. Was that man made global warming?
The recent propaganda pictures they use are all taken after dry winters. Never do you see a picture of glaciers after the winter of 2009, where they finished the next summer about 50% larger than usual.
The fact that those glaciers got “slightly” bigger after last winter’s early melt and low springtime snowfall is anecdotal evidence that the warming hysteria is just that.. hysteria.
I’m still bitter that Going-To-The-Sun road was closed due to snow when I visited one May/June some years ago. But the Montana police were some of the politest I ever met when the speedometer kept on not working in the rental car. It was also the first place I understood the term “big sky”.
re: “when the speedometer kept on not working in the rental car.” MH
During 1968 to 1970 I spent two years in the service in Montana. One did not need a functioning speedometer then as there was no speed limits during daylight hours. Driving at night in the long winter was foolish as one could perish if one’s car hit a snow drift and during the summer driving in the dark risked injury because of cattle; open range law prevailed. (Once driving at night, I nearly was severely injured or killed when the vehicle a few hundred yards ahead plowed into a herd of cattle so my car was able to stop in time in the dark. Had my car been in the lead I doubt if I would be typing now.) At that time it was the law or suggested that one never exceed 55 mph driving in the dark in Montana.
Dan Kurt
Speaking of instrument error… Wife was just watching the Weather Propaganda Channel. I happened to hear a piece of it. Apparently one flood gauge along the Rio de la Plata (Puerto Rico) is reading 80 feet above flood level. Previous record reading being something like 29 feet.
Now, I heard “we can’t verify this” twice – and EIGHTY FEET at least two dozen times.
Uh-huh. Want to bet anything that this gets walked back at about 3 AM sometime in October? Or if it does…
(Yes, I did check – apparently no dams anywhere that could have let go.)
Wups! Sigh, searching for “dams” turns up nothing. Happened to think after clicking the little button to try “lakes” – and there are actually two dams: one forming Carite Lake and the other La Plata Lake.
Just possible that one or both of those came down upstream of this gauge. Although I think that would have been on all the major news feeds (although I wouldn’t put it past TWC to conveniently miss it).
When I visited Glacier in 2008, a Park Ranger was making much of the shrinkage caused by climate change and the 125 glaciers that had disappeared since the mid-19th century. I asked when most of the shrinkage occurred and he gave a long answer which boiled down to about two-thirds of them (over 100) had already disappeared by 1950.
As the IPCC says detectable AGW began around 1958, it’s pretty clear that the Glacier Park’s problems have very little to do with SUVs.
yes, but the retreat has increased since 1966 and further accelerated from the 1990s
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/glacier-national-park-losing-its-glaciers-21436
Yes Griffy, but why the retreat prior to man’ alleged influence?
Griff, your link leaves some things out that is critical,such as the fact that it is declining because we have been warming since the END of the LIA.
“yes, but the retreat has increased since 1966”
So glaciers were retreating naturally by some unknown warming mechanism in the 1850s. The fact that the rate changed in no way implies that man is involved. That is working backwards from the assumption that man is affecting it. If we don’t know why it warmed in the 1850s then we ALSO have no idea whether the rate of natural warming is constant, variable or accelerating. There is a logical fallacy of placing the cart before the horse and argument from ignorance in your assertion.
“yes, but the retreat has increased since 1966 and further accelerated from the 1990s
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/glacier-national-park-losing-its-glaciers-21436”
Griff – an article with no supporting data
NO pictures, graphs, charts, documentation by decade showing the rate of retreat for any period prior to 1966
An article from Climate Central – an advocacy website.
Griff,
Your link has the statement, “The retreat has happened as temperatures in the region have risen by 1.5°F since 1895 as heat-trapping greenhouse gases have continued to accumulate in the atmosphere.” I’ll assume for the sake of argument that the statement is correct. Now, further assuming an average lapse rate of about 4 deg F per 1,000 feet of elevation change, one might reasonably expect the static position of the glacier snouts to retreat less than 400 feet upslope. Yet, there is a band of about 2,000 ft in elevation that is barren of vegetation, suggesting that it has not been re-vegetated since melting of the glaciers recently covering the slopes.
Perhaps you could explain to me and everyone else just how it is that an air temperature change of 1.5 deg F over the last one and a quarter centuries is responsible for a change in elevation of the glaciers by a factor of more than 5X what would be expected.
Griff you’re a down right git. If two thirds (greater than 50%) disappeared before 1950, how can further decline accelerate between 1966 and any point beyond that?
GRIFFY please take the bet! I can’t take much more of your BS i need you to go away like Tony has.
The National Park Service is another government agency that lies.
My first interaction with them was when I was in Acadia ME to run the 1/2 marathon.
This was just after they started restricting the number of people that could go into the park. They wanted to restrict the number of runners (the runners were not happy!).
Again during the “government shutdown” a few years ago, these NAZIs in straw hats closed down the WWII memorial in DC. The site is open air and requires no NPS folks, yet they were there to refuse entry to WWII vets. As a vet this was disgusting.
Then I was talking to someone I knew about his becoming a park ranger.
He had to get a masters degree to be a park ranger (!)
What disturbed me is that he had to toe the line about what caused the Civil War. He mentioned
he could only preset the Civil War as a fight against slavery. Anyone old enough to remember know it was about states rights and the legal right for states to secede from the union.
He mentioned something to me which I investigated, and it seems congress requires the NPS to present the Civil War as a fight against slavery. Checking into it I found a bill passed in congress, sponsored by Jesse Jackson Jr, that mandated the NPS to only mention slavery as the cause of the Civil War.
The NPS has become a conduit for leftist propaganda, such as glaciers disappearing.
Let the Leftists yawp their nonsense far and wide; when it turns up verifiably untrue, as in this instance, they just lose more credibility and sound borderline insane. Have to say that sign at the park blew me away as the most egregious instance of bald-faced propaganda I’ve ever seen. Whoa!
OK, I’m not very bright, so why does the NPS have an approved position statement on the Civil War, cause of? Students of actual history know slavery was not all that was going on back then. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/the-american-civil-war/causes-of-the-american-civil-war/
Being a bit lazy today (watching the wind speeds from Maria), so I couldn’t find the exact legislation but found this which provides insight to what was done.
https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/march-2000/changes-in-the-offing-for-civil-war-sites
They tell the rangers to suggest one topic specifically so that it doesn’t become a political battle ground for the rangers. If they told them to only talk about states rights, you’d have folks upset about slavery. If they talk about slavery, you all find exception and do the exact same. Put yourself into the shoes of the ranger who has to help thousands of people a day, not argue with you.
They should not be providing “sound bites” about the cause of any historic event – when causes actually require hours to even get an approximate handle on. They should be telling visitors about what happened at their particular posting.
As for Jackson… Not surprising. I am surprised that Senator Hayakawa didn’t push through a companion bill to require the employees at Pearl Harbor to tell visitors only about the extension of Western Imperialism to Japan that “caused” the Pacific part of the war.
Interesting how you justify telling only half the story in order to avoid being controversial.
I recall visiting a glacier on the Seward peninsula in Alaska in 2010. the wall that was part of the viewing area had been smashed apart. The reason was that the glacier had “unexpectedly” advanced by many metres in the winter and the viewing area was going to have to be moved
Also got a lovely view of a wolverine hunting across the ice that day. Happy memories!
It’s about bleeping time the glaciers started growing. The Russians have been predicting a mini ice age that should be starting about now. link I dream that it will be so obvious by 2030 that all the climate change is natural that it will permanently shut up the alarmists.
We were in Glacier Bay in Alaska in 2016. We had been to Glacier Bay in 2010. The glaciers had grown more than noticeably in that time frame, both in their expansion in to the bay and their height. It was quite a big difference. I commented to the government-provided guide about this. He said, “oh, that is real evidence of global warming. They are just sliding down the mountains faster.”
I asked him how that accounted for the great increase in thickness and height. He looked at me and said, “You are just a denier. Shame on you.” He walked off to another part of the expedition boat.
Happened to me three years ago on a Holland America Alaska cruise. A paid staff member who lectured on natural history topics on the ship and did some off ship excursions treated me in a similar manner. During one of her “lectures” I asked some disconcerting questions about her points on anthropogenic global warming which were laden in her narration in Glacier Bay and during her lectures. She brooked no patience with anything I posed. I tried talking to her alone and she just excused herself. She exhibited the Logic Tight Mind of the True Believer.
Dan Kurt
Dan,
You show up to the party 40 years late and start asking questions now? Why didn’t you ask questions along the way like most people.
To try to hold this woman responsible for educating you, when her job, as you describe it, is to be a “tour group leader”, seems pretty irresponsible at best. If you are so upset about the information and want to know, then instead of wasting time arguing about the education the cruise line gave the tour guide, go learn for yourself. Otherwise, you just seem patronizing.
Jim
Now that’s mighty tolerant of you.
Dan points out that the good lady is passing out propaganda, and you complain about how rude he is to refute said propaganda.
anyone that calls me a denier to my face will be sat on their arse with a bloody nose shortly afterwards. i have zero time or patience for brainwashed morons, particularly those being paid from the public purse.
I never realized how tiny this whole area is. Think about how much snow & ice Boston gets rid of every year. This “glacier” look to be smaller than that. If a snow pile lasts all summer, does it qualify as a glacier? What’s the size requirement for a glacier?
Sperry glacier is in GNP. It advanced in 2008 and 2011. Annual advances are not uncommon. It’s quite possible that some of the glaciers could have advanced recently. However, the only way to definitively characterize glaciers is through mass balance studies.
South Cascade is in Washington. Gulkana and Wolverine are in Alaska.
Most alpine glaciers have exhibited negative mass balance since the 1850’s.
Suggestion: contribute a picture to the Grinnell Glacier wikipedia page. They have a series from USGS.
Convenient date for the photos. Been snowing in Montana for a week now.
And the irony is lost on you.
You do understand that snow/snowfields and glaciers are not the same thing, right?
You do understand how early snowfall is this year?
Bob boder,
I’m not a troll, I’m pointing out an incredibly lame effort at research, which is what this trip was purported to be. This is supposed to be a scientific site, not a place where folks go to post photos of day trips.
“Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end..leading into the next glacial age.” – Science Magazine, 1971
Global Warming!!! We can save Earth from immolation and another Ice Age, devastating global drought and global flooding, freedom and affluence, by doubling the Carbon Tax on Everything, DO IT.
The basic astronomy of our Earth’s axis is the sole determinant of our climate (over time) and there is nothing at all the tiny human ants on the surface can do about it.
Earth’s axial tilt is currently 23.5° degrees and declining.
When Earth reaches between 22.2° & 23.5° there will be another Ice Age that will last 10,000 years and no amount of human activity will prevent it, not even a nuclear war
http://i1052.photobucket.com/albums/s446/Founders1791/Axis%20of%20Earth%20Sole%20Determinent%20of%20our%20Climate_zpsoz66ykpu.png
shhhh….you make too much sense
there will be another Ice Age that will last 10,000 years
Correction: 100,000 years 🙂
In 2014 the Great Falls Tribune reported a hiatus in glacier retreat at Glacier National Park.
“Healthy snowpack and cooler summers over the past four years have slowed melting of remaining glaciers in Glacier National Park in Montana, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
‘So the glaciers have paused in active retreat,’ said Dan Fagre, a research ecologist with the USGS’ Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center in Bozeman who is stationed at Glacier.”
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/local/2014/06/05/glaciers-glaciers-expected-resume-retreat-pause-melting/10045771/
Now that is a much better article. The same person is being quoted in this article as the one linked by Griff but this time the person gives more info.
For example, they indicated that there was a warm, dry period in the park from 1917 to 1941 that was a double whammy to the glaciers.
Hey Griff, does that fit your narrative?
So what? Point me to climate scientists that say that the only cause of glacier retreat are CO2 emissions.
A few years ago we worked to dispel the myth of the vanishing Cascade Mtn snowpack, now it looks like we need to work on dispelling the myth of the vanishing Glacier National Park snowpack, too. The Olympian reprinted an article from the New York Times which in many places lamented the decline of snowpack due to global warming at Glacier National Park. The article told us the snowpack is shrinking:
“Lately, the snows are not going well. Mountain snowpacks are shrinking. In recent decades, rising winter temperatures have increasingly changed snows to rain. Rising spring temperatures are melting the remaining snow faster.”
But my work shows an INCREASING TREND in spring snowpack in the vicinity of Glacier National Park. These should help to dispel this all too widely held myth. These charts show composited data from all 18 snotel sites near Glacier National Park which have complete data over the 34 years from 1981 to 2014.
April 1 snowpack:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/marka/swe.glaciernp.april.1981-2014.png
May 1 snowpack:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/marka/swe.glaciernp.may.1981-2014.png
June 1 snowpack:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/marka/swe.glaciernp.june.1981-2014.png
Here is what the park road through Glacier NP looked like on June 27, 2011 after the biggest June 1 snowpack in recent memory:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Going-to-the-Sun_Road,_June-27-2011_(5882126346).jpg
These are the 18 snotel sites with elevation in feet shown in the last field:
1,mt,BADGER PASS,307,48.12,-113.02,6900
2,mt,BANFIELD MOUNTAIN,311,48.57,-115.43,5600
3,mt,COPPER BOTTOM,413,47.05,-112.58,5200
4,mt,COPPER CAMP,414,47.07,-112.72,6950
5,mt,EMERY CREEK,469,48.43,-113.93,4350
6,mt,FLATTOP MTN.,482,48.80,-113.85,6300
7,mt,GARVER CREEK,918,48.97,-115.82,4250
8,mt,GRAVE CREEK,500,48.90,-114.75,4300
9,mt,HAND CREEK,510,48.30,-114.83,5035
10,mt,HAWKINS LAKE,516,48.97,-115.95,6450
11,mt,KRAFT CREEK,562,47.42,-113.77,4750
12,mt,MANY GLACIER,613,48.78,-113.67,4900
13,mt,MOUNT LOCKHART,649,47.92,-112.82,6400
14,mt,NOISY BASIN,664,48.15,-113.93,6040
15,mt,PIKE CREEK,693,48.30,-113.32,5930
16,mt,STAHL PEAK,787,48.90,-114.85,6030
17,mt,WALDRON,847,47.92,-112.78,5600
18,mt,WOOD CREEK,876,47.43,-112.80,5960
Good job, Mark. What we really need is data like this.
Mark, can you provide a link?
Here is what the park road through Glacier NP looked like on June 27, 2011 after the biggest June 1 snowpack in recent memory:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Going-to-the-Sun_Road,_June-27-2011_(5882126346).jpg
I’ll try one more time, here is a link to the picture from 27 June 2011:
if the glaciers melt doesnt that mean more fresh water to drink, grow crops, and support larger populations?
Yep. Glaciers that don’t melt don’t provide much “water to drink, grow crops, and support larger populations.”
I imagine that Al-Buffoon is really embarrassed by this information.
Glaciers growing!? What an ‘inconvenient’ truth.
So even the park officials admit — maybe accidently — that the glaciers were not there during the Holocene Climate Optimum, reached their peak at the end of the Little Ice Age, and have receded since then well before proclaimed human impacts on climate. And warmists wonder why skeptic arguments are far more persuasive?
When you look at the reports on Glacier National Park by the USGS (1966, 1998, 2005 and 2015) what you will find is that for almost all the major Glaciers they track, almost all the decrease in mass took place prior to 1950. Two thirds of Grinnell and Sperry glaciers were lost before the commonly accepted 1950 time period when manmade CO2 emissions were supposed to start impacting the climate. In fact, the reports indicate directly that the highest recession rates of up to 100 meters/yr took place in the 1920-1940 time frame. That would coincide with some of the warmest years in US history.
This idea that the climate is causing these declines avoids discussing the early part of the 20th century because that was the most impactful for this environment. But that goes against the meme doesn’t it?
Glaciers melt mostly because of ash and dirt on surfice, but not due to an air temperature. Sun warms a dirty or darkened glacier much faster than warmer air. Just remember, snow is basically some kind of mirror and is very sensitive for reflection ratio.
“Official Park literature claims that all glaciers in GNP are predicted to melt away by the year 2030. (Some signs even tell visitors that the glaciers may be gone by 2020.)”
These changes in the official story line occur when deadlines pass without the fanciful results they used to scare us.
I wasn’t paying attention to the weather in Montana in recent years but with certainty, this Summer was a very warm one vs average.
The southwest parts of MT saw one of its warmest Summers in history…….maybe a record at 5-6 degrees F above average(per day). The northwest part of MT, where the Grinnell Glacier is located was 2-3 degrees warmer than average.
You can use the product below to see what temperatures have been like in the US for periods going back to Jan 2016.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/tanal/temp_analyses.php
This was from the heat ridge that set up in the West for much of this past Summer.
Based only on 2017 weather(which was just weather-as it was cool to the east of the ridge into the Midwest/East), it’s hard to imagine that we did not have a near record melt season for this particular year.
The ridge West, trough East pattern that we’ve had for the last several months is one that we see most often during La Nina’s………occurring this Summer well before the Pacific Ocean temperature configuration meets the formal declaration of La Nina.
Whoa, now they’re all gone in 2020? I better book a trip there in 2019 so I can see them again…
Some illustrations I have put together
The Rhône glacier during the second half of the 18th century:
The Jakobshavn Isbræ in Greenland:
Most melting took place under very low CO2 forcing, but notice the huge melting from 2003 to 2007, a time when temperatures were not increasing.
Several points can be made:
– Glacier melting is a post-LIA feature.
– No clear link to CO2
– No linear immediate response to temperature increases. The response appears delayed.
– The decrease in global glaciers goes against Neoglacial trends and it has proceeded beyond what should be expected based on previous trends for this time in the Holocene.
Two non mutually exclusive possibilities:
– Temperatures as high or probably higher than during the MWP.
– CO2 has specifically a stronger effect on the cryosphere.
In both cases an effect of GHGs on global warming is the most likely explanation for the excessive glacier retreat. At this time in the Holocene our glaciers shouldn’t be this short. It is however a good thing that they are, because we have a better climate than we were entitled to.
“Most melting took place under very low CO2 forcing”
Except that GHG’s in no way shape or form ‘force’ the climate system. Only incident energy can force the system which means that the Sun is the ONLY forcing influence that acts on the climate system. If there was no solar forcing and the surface was 0K, would introducing GHS’s to the atmosphere make the surface warmer? The idea that CO2 is a forcing influence is a fantasy created to support the preconceptions behind climate alarmism. The actual effect of incremental CO2 is to change the response of the system, not the forcing arriving at system.
On a per Watt basis, natural warming (and cooling) consequential to actual forcing has its largest effect at the poles. The reason is simple and just the consequence of the T^4 relationship between temperature and emissions. At a temperature of -10C (263K), the resulting emissions are 271.27 W/m^2. In the steady state, the surface emissions are equal to the energy arriving at the surface, so if 1 more W/m^2 enters the surface, the resulting steady state emissions increase to 271.27 W/m^2 which arises consequential to a temperature increase of 0.24 C.
If the starting temperature was 40C (313C), the emissions are 544.2 W/m^2. If one more W/m^2 is arriving at the surface, the new steady state emissions become 545.2 W/m^2 consequential to a temperature increase of only 0.14C which is nearly half as much as when 1 W/m^2 is added to a surface at -10C. This corresponds directly to the immutable 1/T^3 dependence of the sensitivity on the temperature.
The temperature dependency of the sensitivity, which is an unambiguous consequence of the SB Law, is not acknowledged by ‘consensus’ climate science (i.e. the IPCC) and is one of many reasons they are so wrong about the sensitivity. The sensitivity per W/m^2 of incident surface energy is nearly twice as large at -10C than it is at 40C and this same ratio occurs for a 1 W/m^2 of solar forcing at TOA since the energy arriving at the surface is linearly proportional to the energy arriving from the Sun (all else being constant). Many estimates of the sensitivity are based on the behavior below 0C and extrapolated to the planet as a whole, which is unambiguously incorrect since the average temperature of the planet is much higher.
The ice machine was invented decades ago. We don’t need glaciers anymore. : )
Sorry, but this is a rerrible post; extremely short on useful data and science, on a pityful remnant of a glacier (??really, this is a glacier??). Finding one that grows kind of proves the others are not. It only illustrates warming OR lack of snow fall, or the opposite if you want. It takes many many years of data on many many glaciers to say something useful.
This is a poorly documented anecdotal vacation trip, probably used as a tax deduction..
B.Quartero, you didn’t read through the comments which adds a lot to the article and in reply to specious warmist crap that have been posted here.
You also failed to read much of anything because the Spooner group,NEVER made any major science claims at all,they wanted to see for themselves over what is being misleadingly claimed in warmist circles:
The noted:
“A recurring trick by climate hysterics is to show an old photograph of one of GNP’s glaciers next to a more recent photo of the same glacier showing a massive decrease in size. Often the pictures do not precisely specify what calendar dates the photos were taken on. This is significant because the melting season is quite short and rapid, and an image from August can be starkly different from an image from just weeks earlier.”
They stated they wanted to do their own on site observation at the proper time each year:
“In September 2015, Lysander Spooner University launched an annual research project aimed at visiting GNP’s glaciers every year at their lowest points. This year a small group of us opted to hike to the popular Grinnell Glacier and take a few snapshots on September 16. We hiked the 5.5 miles from the Many Glacier Hotel and arrived at glacier’s edge late in the afternoon.”
Your complaint is silly.
His complaint isn’t silly in the slightest.
“In September 2015, Lysander Spooner University launched an annual research project aimed at visiting GNP’s glaciers every year at their lowest points. ”
Taking a few pictures on a day hike is not a research project.
Chris, why do you try hard to be stupid?
You complain about what I write with this, “Taking a few pictures on a day hike is not a research project.”
This is what I wrote to Quartero,that you amazingly failed to see,
“You also failed to read much of anything because the Spooner group,NEVER made any major science claims at all,they wanted to see for themselves over what is being misleadingly claimed in warmist circles:”
The Lysander website stated:
“In September 2015, Lysander Spooner University launched an annual research project aimed at visiting GNP’s glaciers every year at their lowest points. This year a small group of us opted to hike to the popular Grinnell Glacier and take a few snapshots on September 16. We hiked the 5.5 miles from the Many Glacier Hotel and arrived at glacier’s edge late in the afternoon.”
They said it was a “annual research project” Nothing more. It will never be published in a science journal since it is a simple date based observation and photo shoot,that is all it is.
Never said it was a scientific outing at all, you made a Red Herring attempt. Stop with your B.S!
Why do I try to be stupid? So i can attempt to understand your points. But even then, sadly, it’s impossible. You say this is not a scientific outing at all – even though it is called research and that was the very point of the trip. You’re going around in ridiculous semantic circles to defend a completely lightweight and irrelevant day trip.
As opposed to writing a program which is way to simple to represent the climate and pretending that it does.
Chris gets ever stupider as time goes on,he writes as if the little warmist troll thinks that I have high regards for the tiny group that will never materially add to the science of the region,which I have stated already for this clod.
He writes,
“Why do I try to be stupid? So i can attempt to understand your points. But even then, sadly, it’s impossible. You say this is not a scientific outing at all – even though it is called research and that was the very point of the trip. You’re going around in ridiculous semantic circles to defend a completely lightweight and irrelevant day trip.”
I wrote this that he whines over,
“They said it was a “annual research project” Nothing more. It will never be published in a science journal since it is a simple date based observation and photo shoot,that is all it is.
Never said it was a scientific outing at all, you made a Red Herring attempt. Stop with your B.S!”
you are trolling here since never have I endorsed the trip at any time,stated that it will never add to the science of the region,never said it was a scientific trip either.
THEY claim it is a research project, I said it is not going to add to the science of the region.
You have no ability to separate what they said, to what I said about their trip.
This is my very first comment in reply to you,
” Sunsettommy
September 20, 2017 at 9:08 am Edit
Chris, your comment about Roots background, has done NOTHING to address the main point of the article.
“In September 2015, Lysander Spooner University launched an annual research project aimed at visiting GNP’s glaciers every year at their lowest points. This year a small group of us opted to hike to the popular Grinnell Glacier and take a few snapshots on September 16. We hiked the 5.5 miles from the Many Glacier Hotel and arrived at glacier’s edge late in the afternoon.”
That is all they offer,nothing more. They made no science statement at all,just a simple complaint about misleading photos:
“A recurring trick by climate hysterics is to show an old photograph of one of GNP’s glaciers next to a more recent photo of the same glacier showing a massive decrease in size. Often the pictures do not precisely specify what calendar dates the photos were taken on. This is significant because the melting season is quite short and rapid, and an image from August can be starkly different from an image from just weeks earlier.”
Drop your dead in the water qualification fallacy angle,since it is worthless!”
my words in that reply,
“That is all they offer,nothing more. They made no science statement at all,just a simple complaint about misleading photos:”
How old are you anyway,since you write like an idiot.
This post may be a bit weak, but consider the great information to be had when reading the comments. Many posts here at WUWT can be a bit skimpy, but the comments then flesh out much greater detail. It is the comment section that makes WUWT such an outstanding site for reading and learning.
Having been born and raised in Montana, I know for a fact every glacier in GNP is smaller than since I grew up and if you extrapolate over the decades actual scientists have been recording data, his information does not hold light. So…. All you can claim whatever you want to believe but actual data and facts don’t agree with his findings.
Blair, show us HERE, who disputes the melting of the Glaciers at GNP in recent decades.
Meanwhile at the Author made a legitimate complaint,that you seem to have missed:
“A recurring trick by climate hysterics is to show an old photograph of one of GNP’s glaciers next to a more recent photo of the same glacier showing a massive decrease in size. Often the pictures do not precisely specify what calendar dates the photos were taken on. This is significant because the melting season is quite short and rapid, and an image from August can be starkly different from an image from just weeks earlier.”
The Author wanted to see for himself at the MINIMUM date, to develop a more credible base to see how much change is really there.
Can someone please explain (concisely) how the earth has been in a temperature flux (ice ages to hot ages, back and forth) for millennia without human existence, but now it’s all our fault? I just don’t understand, assuming there is global temperature change, how it can be inextricably linked to human interference.
“… how it can be inextricably linked to human interference.”
It can’t when rigorous science is applied. This is why climate science alarmism relies exclusively on pseudo scientific results conforming to a political narrative, rather than actual science conforming to the scientific method and the laws of physics.
On an Alaska cruise park guides will board the ship at Glacier Bay, give the required mantra man melted the glaciers, then leave. Almost robotic.
I just listened to their tripe this last week!
Some things to keep in mind:
1. Glaciers respond to prolonged changes in summer temp and winter snowfall. Changes in these parameters didn’t begin with increased human CO2 emissions (after 1945), they have been going on for thousands of years.
2. You can’t determine anything meaningful by comparing the glacier extent at the end of a prolonged cold period with the extent at the end of a prolonged warm period (like most of the examples used by alarmists).
3. We’ve been emerging from the Little Ice Age for the past several hundred years so we should expect to see overall warming, not limited to post-1945 CO2 emissions. The warming is not linear–it has occurred in a series of oscillating warm and cool periods and glaciers have responded accordingly.
4. Glaciers retreated from 1850 to 1880, expanded from 1880 to 1915, retreated strongly from 1915 to 1945, expanded strongly from 1945 to 1980, and retreated from 1980 to early 2000s. Light global cooling has occurred from about 2000 to the present and glaciers are beginning to respond by expanding (there is a lag effect–it takes awhile for glaciers to respond to temp change).
DR. Easterbrook,
Agree that we need to see the big picture.
Here you show short term cycles from the 1800’s,that help us see why there are periodic retreats tied to a degree,with warming time frames.
Please provide some links for us who wants to delve deeper into this.
Thank you for these level-headed comments. All the name-calling in all directions just muddies the discussion which non-academics and non-scientists like myself (who are the effect of whatever the powers-that-be foist on us in terms of policy) need in order to be informed and think clearly. Yes, even we little people are very interested and are sick and tired of being told what to think. I often see the illogical statements but haven’t got first-hand scientific data to argue. It has never made sense to me that all the fault and burden of global warming should be placed on Man’s use of fossil fuels in the last couple hundred years when there are so many other gargantuan shifts and changes over Earth’s whole history and current routine events in Earth’s environment in the solar system that have nothing to do with our burning of coal and oil. I refuse to engage in the name calling because this whole subject has become such an emotionally charged one with the different factions’ vested interests in their positions. Climate and its changes and impacts happen regardless of political views and should not be dealt with based on cui bono, but on what science can demonstrate and what sane heads of high integrity can help us plan to do for all of our survival. I don’t need you to go listing your sources, as someone asked you to do, as I can do whatever research I wish to corroborate what you say. Again, thank you for your logical and useful comments.
Note: “all the name calling” didn’t start with the skeptics. Nope, they have been attacked for daring to even question the orthodoxy of CAGW. That includes several in the flock that suggested that the UN-IPCC models needed to be verified by at least hind-casting. While I agree that the name calling doesn’t help the debate, yet having been involved for decades in the politics of the environmental movement I can assure you the CAGW crowd will not stop the attacks but only get more strident. I know of no skeptic that has recommended federal prosecution of CAGW adherents for fraudulent statements and actions or as one prominent politico demanded several years ago that that any denier deserved hanging. I would love a good truthful, ethical, honest public debate on the issues but I know well that even though that is what many so called deniers have requested, the devout CAGW believers will never allow it if they can in anyway prevent it. All you have to do is read some of the Climategate exchanges.
Holly
It’s an unfortunate consequence of the politicisation of the climate issue that the name “science” and “scientific” has been drained of trust and authority.
Don,
Check the Rainer National Park web cams. Winter arrived yesterday.
A volunteer trail crew (WTA) has been working on the Mount Fremont Lookout Trail, at about 7,000 feet for the past few weekends. Cameras show new snow, forecast says more to come.
We’ll likely be looking for a place closer to 4,500 feet for this weekend. Glacier Basin Trail, maybe.
Pretty sure glaciers aren’t permanent no matter. They melt. They break off. They do all kinds of stuff and then disappear at some point. Global warming cultists seem to want to come at everything that somehow what they believe to be “baseline” is etched in stone fact and that the Earth is supposed to be what they say it’s supposed to be based on some static state they pull out their ass. Any variation from that “proves” they are right.
Glaciers are growing all over the US West, thanks to the bitterly cold and wet winter of 2016-17. The previous years had seen drought.
All I can say is thank God that the glaciers retreated, otherwise I’d be using SKIS to get into Des Moines and the copper roof of 801 Grand would barely show above the ice and snow.
I guess the end of the last little ice age was all my fault…………..
Is there climate change? Yes. Is it ALL man? Unlikely given the past history of this planet and the trends that had already started centuries ago. Can we do better? Yup, I believe we can. There is no consensus – that term is used to squelch the other side of the debate. Further, how do we know how many tons of carbon we put into the air? Do we pay someone with giant scales to go out and measure it? Do we know EXACTLY how many people burn stuff, exactly what mileage all vehicles get, exactly what comes out of the tail pipes (or headers in some cases) of our cars? How can we say “we reduced our carbon output by 25 tons last week” – that’s BS. No one knows, you can’t even guess who is doing what. there’s no way to show that China puts our xx amount and the US xx amount. Prove it – show me the measurements and be accurate.
Of course when the Chinese people have to go around with MASKS or risk getting sick – DUH – don’t need Al Gore to tell us about that, or when we see buildings and vehicles in LA or NYC damaged by the very air they are in, again, DUH. But when it became politicized, you lost a whole lot of people. Go into a room screaming and preaching and you ain’t gonna get many followers other than a few radicals. Go in not as a politician and not with threats or taxes – and you may get some more believers.
That’s my beef – how Al the Bore handled it all. Stop preaching and start showing proof that’s impossible to refute. Hey, I’m listening. I believe there’s change and I believe humans may be having some impact – but the scope and size I don’t believe at this time. In any case, we can do better – just as people who have to live here, we can do better.
I’ve been visiting (and skiing) Alpine glaciers in the Sierra Nevada about twice a month each summer for decades. Two years ago was the minimum I’d ever seen, but to be fair, it rained heavily that summer due to monsoon moisture coming up from Arizona, plus it was after several years of drought and low winter snow fall. Ordinarily, the Sierra’s are a desert for most of the summer and see only occasional thunder storms.
This September, there’s more snow on the ground than I’ve ever seen this late in the summer, including 2011 which was an even bigger snow year. When I went up last weekend, the ski tracks we put down a couple of weeks earlier were still visible which indicates a slower melt than usual, moreover; we we able to ski pitches that haven’t been skiable this late in the season for as long as I’ve been doing this. The apparent cooling trend at upper altitudes (10K feet and above) has been quite noticeable over the last few years.
In the image time-stamped 09/17/2017 1125 the text on the propaganda board asserts all glaciers in the park will be gone by 2030. Coincidence? I think NOT! Can anyone say UN Agenda 2030? The one-world-order movement is as transparent as al gore’s lies.
It makes no difference to the climate change gang as they have staked out all the territory to insure their success. If it gets warmer, it’s climate change, if it gets colder, it’s climate change, if it stays the same, it’s climate change, if we get hit with 12 hurricanes, it’s climate change, if we have no hurricanes for 12 years, it’s climate change.
So, what year is the perfect weather pattern? If the earth isn’t cooling then its warming. It rarely stays static. What caused the ice age? What caused the ice age to end? SUV’s?
The global warming brainwashing continues unabated!! If your a climate scientist and don’t believe in global warming you get NO MONEY!!! So you have to believe…..
I just want to clarify for all the people who read this thread and are of the Catastrophic Anthroprogenic Global Warming persuasion.
No one here debates that the glaciers have retreated.
The issue at hand is cause and attribution. There are so many variables, they I roundly mock and hold in great derision anyone who attributes 100% the hand of man, just as I would anyone who attributes 0%. The question is percentage.
Now how do we get a percentage attribution? To create the proper STATISTICAL equation, we would need to know how to do so.
Me, this is what I would do. I would create a histogram with categories based on temperature. I would go back 10,000 years with a temperature reading every 100 years. This gives 100 points of data. Use available data – yes I know some of it is surmising from ice cores but apparently we have created graphs. You get the minimum average and the maximum average. Then the difference. Divide by 10 or whatever number will provide a nice curve.
Then you do a design of experiment. H1 can be that current temperature rise is not normal (i.e., outside sigma). H0 can be that it is normal. Than you prove whether or not H1 is true or false. With statistics. Then provide a confidence level.
It is an oversimplification, but it is effective.
Shrinking steadily worldwide for 40,000 years. Must be all those campfires for roasting enormous Flintstones steaks.
If you’re a climate scientist and don’t believe in global warming you won’t get any money!!! It’s that simple
Follow the money
I am too busy to do it. Not in academia. Don’t want to spend time at night that I would have with my family. Would be interested to see what a professional statistician could come up with.
Maybe a different design of experiment.
If the author has pictures from ’08 that prove the glaciers are growing then why aren’t they included in the article?
do you also demand photographic evidence from the climate scare mongers? how about a photo of you from 2008?
oh please
not the lysander
university
scam
again.
(What is troubling you today?) MOD
oh please
not another ad hominem.
One problem: There are no glaciers in Glacier National Park. There are some permanent snowfields. Such snowfields in the Rockies have been steadily shrinking as long as observations have been kept, dating well back into the 19th Century. And considering that the Park shows evidence of heavy glaciation in the recent geological past (hence its name) it’s a pretty safe bet the ice and snow has been shrinking for 40,000 years.
That’s funny , the religion of the left says that the glaciers in Montana are shrinking , now they are definitely growing ? Wow, I am really surprised !!! Not !
Glaciers in Alaska have been receding since the 1600’s. Until the last 8 years. It appears that the Billions of dollars spent on a con making many democrats wealthy beyond avarice haven’t learned anything that might help us survive the coming Ice Age. When the masses find out, they’ll Never give another nickel to research what the truth really is..
As the famous Dr. Sidney Freedman once said, “Ladies and gentlemen take my advice. Pull down your pants and slide on the [growing] ice.” Truly a man ahead of his time.
After 4 billion years, imagine the coincidence that we live in a time that has the Perfect Earthly temperature..!
Wow are we Lucky..
Is it also a coincidence that Chicken Little isn’t taught to our children anymore?
We had the perfect temperatures.
Then it warmed up a tenth of a degree and we are all going to die.
Subject: CLIMATE CHANGE WARNING
The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some
places the seals are finding the water too hot according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consulate at Bergen Norway Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone.
Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.
Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the
report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.
Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.
Within a few years it is predicted that due to the ice melt the sea will
rise and make most coast cities uninhabitable.
I must apologize. I neglected to mention that this report was from November 2, 1922 , as reported by the AP and published in The Washington Post 94 years ago. This must have been caused by the Model T Ford’s emissions or possibly from horse and cattle farts.
1 glacier with
a “slight increase?”
what an
overreaction.
Far more than one glacier is growing. Worldwide, a great many are, and not by just a bit.
Some recent stories on growing glaciers:
New Zealand:
https://phys.org/news/2017-02-zealand-unusual-glaciers.html
Karakorum:
https://www.technocracy.news/index.php/2017/08/14/scientists-karakoram-glaciers-growing-spite-global-warming/
Greenland:
https://realclimatescience.com/2017/09/greenlands-petermann-glacier-growing-ten-feet-per-day/
Tahoe:
https://www.iceagenow.info/tahoe-glacier-making-comeback/
Glaciers are also growing in Alaska, Patagonia and the Alps, among other regions.
Is that all you got? hah!
Gold,
Lots more, but I limited my links to those from this year and a representative sample of the earth because more would have put me into moderation.
Please see below a recent link on Patagonian glaciers.
Average Cumulative
Mass Balance of “Reference” Glaciers
Worldwide, 1945–2015
Great! The sample has grown from zero to 25. Talk about cherry picking!
where’s your
data?
Crackers,
You’re a hoot!
It’s right there in your bottom graph.
Hilarious. Thanks for the laugh.
cherry picking?
like reporting just 1
glacier in this post?
like picking 4 newspaper
articles?
yes, cherry picking.
global glacier changes
fig 5.1
World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS)
http://www.grid.unep.ch/glaciers/pdfs/5.pdf
crackers345 September 20, 2017 at 12:28 pm
Four articles citing scientific papers from this year from widely separated parts of the world.
Far better than your cherry picked glaciers which ignore the parts of the world with the most ice.
Yet more unintentional humor from you.
Thanks again! The comedy gift that keeps on giving.
Here’s another one, with links to the glaciers growing in Chile and Argentina: