Are the glaciers in Glacier National Park growing?

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.

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PMD
September 20, 2017 9:54 am

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?

Jeff Addiego
September 20, 2017 10:10 am

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…..

Andrew Cooke
September 20, 2017 10:12 am

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.

Reply to  Andrew Cooke
September 20, 2017 10:51 am

Shrinking steadily worldwide for 40,000 years. Must be all those campfires for roasting enormous Flintstones steaks.

Jeff Addiego
September 20, 2017 10:12 am

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

Andrew Cooke
September 20, 2017 10:14 am

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.

c p
September 20, 2017 10:21 am

If the author has pictures from ’08 that prove the glaciers are growing then why aren’t they included in the article?

Reply to  c p
September 20, 2017 10:32 am

do you also demand photographic evidence from the climate scare mongers? how about a photo of you from 2008?

September 20, 2017 10:35 am

oh please
not the lysander
university
scam
again.
(What is troubling you today?) MOD

MarkW
Reply to  Steven Mosher
September 21, 2017 9:09 am

oh please
not another ad hominem.

September 20, 2017 10:50 am

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.

September 20, 2017 10:51 am

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 !

Harry Nevers
September 20, 2017 10:53 am

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..

Snarling Dolphin
September 20, 2017 11:10 am

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.

Dang Tootin
September 20, 2017 11:15 am

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?

MarkW
Reply to  Dang Tootin
September 21, 2017 9:12 am

We had the perfect temperatures.
Then it warmed up a tenth of a degree and we are all going to die.

September 20, 2017 11:38 am

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.

crackers345
September 20, 2017 12:01 pm

1 glacier with
a “slight increase?”
what an
overreaction.

Sixto
Reply to  crackers345
September 20, 2017 12:03 pm

Far more than one glacier is growing. Worldwide, a great many are, and not by just a bit.

goldminor
Reply to  Sixto
September 20, 2017 1:37 pm

Is that all you got? hah!

Sixto
Reply to  Sixto
September 20, 2017 4:57 pm

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.

crackers345
September 20, 2017 12:06 pm

Average Cumulative
Mass Balance of “Reference” Glaciers
Worldwide, 1945–2015comment image

Sixto
Reply to  crackers345
September 20, 2017 12:13 pm

Great! The sample has grown from zero to 25. Talk about cherry picking!

crackers345
Reply to  Sixto
September 20, 2017 12:23 pm

where’s your
data?

Sixto
Reply to  Sixto
September 20, 2017 12:24 pm

Crackers,
You’re a hoot!
It’s right there in your bottom graph.
Hilarious. Thanks for the laugh.

crackers345
Reply to  Sixto
September 20, 2017 12:28 pm

cherry picking?
like reporting just 1
glacier in this post?
like picking 4 newspaper
articles?
yes, cherry picking.

crackers345
Reply to  Sixto
September 20, 2017 12:34 pm

global glacier changes
fig 5.1
World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS)
http://www.grid.unep.ch/glaciers/pdfs/5.pdf

Sixto
Reply to  Sixto
September 20, 2017 12:49 pm

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.

Sixto
Reply to  Sixto
September 20, 2017 12:54 pm

Here’s another one, with links to the glaciers growing in Chile and Argentina:
https://www.iceagenow.info/largest-glacier-chile-advancing-2/
More inconvenient truths!

Reg Nelson
Reply to  crackers345
September 20, 2017 12:37 pm

This graph is quite misleading. Of the 40 “reference glaciers” used to produce this graph none of them are in Greenland or Antarctic — the two regions that contain that vast majority of land ice.

crackers345
Reply to  Reg Nelson
September 20, 2017 12:49 pm

ice sheet mass
balances are measured
separately — the annual data are
easy to find (with daily
data for greenland)

Reg Nelson
Reply to  Reg Nelson
September 20, 2017 12:53 pm

You miss my point. Are you trying say that only some ice on land is important? How ridiculous.
If SLR is a threat than the ice volume of Greenland and Antarctica trump any shrinking glacier in Montana.

Reply to  Reg Nelson
September 20, 2017 12:54 pm

Reg,
Antarctica has about 89% of the ice
Greenland about 10%
Mountain glaciers about<1%

Sixto
Reply to  Reg Nelson
September 20, 2017 12:55 pm

Most of the freshwater on earth is in the massive East Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is growing.

Sixto
Reply to  Reg Nelson
September 20, 2017 1:11 pm

And the big decline in alleged ice mass coincides with reduction from 40 to 25 glaciers. This is supposed to be science?
More hoots and hollers!

crackers345
Reply to  Reg Nelson
September 20, 2017 8:23 pm

and other parts of Antarctica
are seeing ice loss — the net
number including the EAIS is
a negative mass balance:
http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/antarctic-ice-sheet-surface-mass-balance/

Frederic
Reply to  Reg Nelson
September 20, 2017 11:51 pm

“And the big decline in alleged ice mass coincides with reduction from 40 to 25 glaciers. This is supposed to be science?”
Coming from the propagandist UNEP, it means 15 glaciers in the 40(!) “worldwide glaciers” sample are heretically growing and have been tossed out of the narative. Science by climate scientologists.

Reply to  crackers345
September 20, 2017 12:57 pm

Crackers, your chart show only 25 glaciers on it. There are THOUSANDS estimated………..
Your other link doesn’t even talk about how FEW Mountain glaciers are regularly monitored.
Snicker……

crackers345
Reply to  Sunsettommy
September 20, 2017 8:24 pm

again – global glacier changes
fig 5.1
World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS)
http://www.grid.unep.ch/glaciers/pdfs/5.pdf

Reply to  Sunsettommy
September 21, 2017 8:20 am

Cracker, from YOUR link,
“Length change measurements have been available since
the late 19th century (Fig. 5.1). These observations show
a general glacier recession from the positions of the LIA
moraines worldwide. The overall retreat of the glacier
termini is commonly measured in kilometres for larger
glaciers, and hundreds of metres for smaller glaciers
(Hoelzle et al. 2003).Within this general trend, strong
glacier retreat was observed in the 1920s and 1940s,
followed by stable or advancing conditions around the
1970s, and again drastic glacier retreats after the mid
1980s. On shorter timescales, deviations from these
global trends are found in many regions. Looking at the
individual data series, one finds a high variability in gla-
cier fluctuations. Large, flat valley glaciers with centen-
nial response times are too long to react dynamically
to decadal mass variations, but exhibit a continuous
retreat from their LIA moraines, while medium-sized
steeper glaciers reacted with re-advances to intermit-
tent wetter and cooler periods. ”
It says the LIA effect was WORLDWIDE. The chart in YOUR link make clear of a worldwide LIA effect.
“Fig. 5.1 Glacier length changes –
Temporal overview on short-term glacier length changes. The number of advancing (blue) and retreating (red) glaciers are plotted as stacked columns in the corresponding survey year. This figure shows 30 420 length change observations with a time range of less than 4 years (between survey and reference year). This corresponds to almost 85 per cent of the reported data which in addition include observations covering a longer time scale and/or stationary conditions. The time period of glacier LIA maximum extents is
given according to the regional information in Chapter 6. Note that the scaling of the number of glaciers on the y-axis changes between the regions. Source: figure based on data analysis by R. Prinz,
University of Innsbruck,Austria; data from WGMS.”
No one here disputes the decline of Mountain glaciers,but you,Ivan and Chris keep on with the misleading,dishonest crap. Stop being stupid!
You are a terrible reader,since I asked for how many glaciers are actually properly monitored out of the THOUSANDS that exist. You never answered it.
You should stop here,since I used YOUR link against you.

AndyG55
Reply to  crackers345
September 20, 2017 2:52 pm

Do you DENY the Little Ice Age existed, crackpot ?
Do you DENY that it was the coldest period in 10,000 years?
I don’t deny that there has been some totally beneficial warming out of that coldest of periods.

crackers345
Reply to  AndyG55
September 20, 2017 8:25 pm

the lia existed, but it
wasn’t a global
phenomenon.

AndyG55
Reply to  AndyG55
September 20, 2017 9:30 pm

Global warming isn’t a global phenomenon, either. !!

AndyG55
Reply to  AndyG55
September 20, 2017 9:32 pm

Do some reading instead of remaining ignorant.
http://www.co2science.org/subject/l/subject_l.php

Reply to  AndyG55
September 21, 2017 8:34 am

Cracker, once again you are wrong,
The LIA has been found in various parts of Southern Hemisphere:
The ‘Little Ice Age’ in the Southern Hemisphere in the context of the last 3000 years: Peat-based proxy-climate data from Tierra del Fuego
“Abstract
The so-called ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA) of the 15th to 19th centuries ad is well-attested from much of Europe and from some other parts of the Northern Hemisphere. It has been attributed to solar forcing, associated with reduced solar activity, notably during the Spörer, Maunder and Dalton solar minima, although other causes have also been proposed and feature strongly in recent papers. Detection of the LIA in some proxy-climate records from the Southern Hemisphere is less clear, leading to suggestions that the LIA was perhaps not a global phenomenon. Resolving this issue requires more data from the Southern Hemisphere. We present proxy-climate data (plant macrofossils; peat humification) covering the past three millennia from an ombrotrophic mire (peat bog) in Tierra del Fuego, southern South America, but focus our discussion on the period traditionally associated with the LIA. During parts of this time, the mire surface was apparently relatively dry compared with much of its 3000-year record. It was reported earlier that a particularly dry episode in the mire coincided with the 2800 cal. BP ‘solar’ event (since identified as a Grand Solar Minimum), which was attributed to solar-driven changes in atmospheric circulation, and more specifically to a shift in position of the Westerlies. Parts of the LIA record show a similar shift to dryness, and we invoke a similar cause. The shifts to and from dry episodes are abrupt. These new data support the concept of a global LIA, and for at least the intense dry episodes might reinforce the claim for solar forcing of parts of the LIA climate.”
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0959683614551232

Reply to  AndyG55
September 21, 2017 8:42 am

Another science paper,
Little Ice Age climate and oceanic conditions of the Ross Sea,
Antarctica from a coastal ice core record
Abstract.
Increasing paleoclimatic evidence suggests that
the Little Ice Age (LIA) was a global climate change event.
Understanding the forcings and associated climate system
feedbacks of the LIA is made difficult by the scarcity of
Southern Hemisphere paleoclimate records. We use a new
glaciochemical record of a coastal ice core from Mt. Erebus
Saddle, Antarctica, to reconstruct atmospheric and oceanic
conditions in the Ross Sea sector of Antarctica over the past
five centuries. The LIA is identified in stable isotope (δD)
and lithophile element records, which respectively demon-
strate that the region experienced 1.6 ±1.4◦
C cooler average temperatures prior to 1850 AD than during the last 150 yr
and strong (>57 m s1) prevailing katabatic winds between
1500 and 1800 AD. Al and Ti concentration increases of an
order of magnitude (>120 ppb Al) are linked to enhanced
aeolian transport of complex silicate minerals and represent
the strongest katabatic wind events of the LIA. These events
are associated with three 12–30 yr intervals of cooler tem-
peratures at ca. 1690 AD, 1770 AD and 1840 AD. Further-
more, ice core concentrations of the biogenic sulphur species
MS−suggest that biological productivity in the Ross Sea
polynya was∼80 % higher prior to 1875 AD than at any sub-
sequent time. We propose that cooler Antarctic temperatures
promoted stronger katabatic winds across the Ross Ice Shelf,
resulting in an enlarged Ross Sea polynya during the LIA”
https://search.proquest.com/openview/1a8405c6fcd2be03fce0911d513db78c/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=105735

Reply to  AndyG55
September 21, 2017 8:51 am

Another paper,
Can a little ice age climate signal be detected in the southern alps of New Zealand?
“Abstract
The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a late Holocene interval of climate cooling registered in the North Atlantic region by expansion of alpine glaciers and sea ice (Grove, 1988). Here the LIA includes an early phase from about AD 1280 to AD 1390, along with a main phase from about AD 1556 to AD 1860, followed by warming and ice retreat (Holzhauser and Zumbiihl, 1999a). It has recently been demonstrated from records of North Atlantic ice-rafted debris that the LIA is the latest cooling episode in a pervasive 1500-year cycle of the climate system that may lie at the heart of abrupt climate change (Bond et al., 1999). This raises the question of whether the LIA climate signal is globally synchronous (implying atmospheric transfer of the climate signal) or out of phase between the polar hemispheres (implying ocean transfer of the climate signal by a bipolar seesaw of thennohaline circulation) (Broecker, 1998). New Zealand is ideally situated to address this problem as it is located on the opposite side of the planet from the North Atlantic region where the classic LIA signal is registered so clearly. Due to high precipitation and ablative activity gradients, glaciers in the Southern Alps of New Zealand respond to climate change on a decadal timescale (Chinn, 1996). Therefore, moraine sequences deposited during oscillations of these glaciers are ideal for determining the character of the LIA signal in this portion of the Southern Hemisphere. The chronology of the late Holocene moraine sequences fronting Hooker and Mueller Glaciers in the Southern Alps is controversial. Initial dating of these moraines from historical records, as well as from lichenometric and tree-ring analyses (Lawrence and Lawrence, 1965; Burrows, 1973), pointed to deposition in the LIA, indicating a global near-synchronous climate signal. In contrast, a subsequent chronology based on weathering rinds of surface clasts suggested that most of the late Holocene moraines antedate the LIA (Gellatly, 1984), implying lack of a classic LIA climate signal in this portion of the Southern Hemisphere. To resolve this dilemma, a new and detailed chronology of the Hooker and Mueller Holocene moraine systems was constructed in this study by using geomorphologic maps, historical records, and the FALL lichenometry technique. A major result of this study is that most of the Holocene moraines fronting Mueller and Hooker Glaciers were Deposited during the main phase of the LIA as defined in the North Atlantic region. The glacier advances recorded by these moraines are about equivalent in age with those in the North Atlantic region. The magnitude and timing of the ILA climate signal is nearly the same in the two regions. The collapse of Hooker and Mueller Glaciers in the last 140 years is also approximately synchronous with retreat of glaciers in the North Atlantic region. Therefore, the LIA climate signal occurs in the atmosphere as far south as New Zealand, on the other side of the planet from the North Atlantic region.”
http://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/etd/523/

MarkW
Reply to  AndyG55
September 21, 2017 9:15 am

Funny, for a phenomena that wasn’t global, we find evidence of it all over the globe.

MarkW
Reply to  AndyG55
September 21, 2017 9:17 am

Sunsettommy, there’s no evidence for the LIA along the mid-Atlantic ridge, therefore it wasn’t a global phenomena.
/sarc for those who have had that function surgically removed.

Mark
Reply to  crackers345
September 20, 2017 8:19 pm

Gee Crackers, what do you suppose that chart looks like pre 1945?

MarkW
Reply to  Mark
September 21, 2017 9:18 am

Cherry picks both glaciers and time frame. Now that’s how we do science.

David Grimes
September 20, 2017 12:14 pm

ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Are there not comprehensive catalogs of satellite photographs that would answer this question?
If we don’t have them ask the Russians or the Chinese. You can bet they have plenty of pictures of us.

TC in the OC
September 20, 2017 12:17 pm

Have always liked Glacier having grown up not to far from there. I follow the opening date for the Going to the Sun road as when I visit my Mom in the summer I like to drive through if it is opening. Below is a link to a PDF of the historic opening dates of Logan Pass and the Going to the Sun road from the National Park Service. The missing dates from this PDF are 2013-6/21, 2014-7/3, 2105-6/11, 2016-6/16 and 2017-6/28.
Being a numbers geek I converted the dates to day of the year and adjusted for leap years, did not include 1933 when they had a late grand opening and 1943 which opened late due to the war and adjusted 1964 to 6/9 per their footnotes.
I know this is probably meaningless but the overall average opening date is 6/9 (160.5). I averaged out the decades and the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 70’s and 90,s were all plus or minus a day of the total average date. the 60’s were 5 days earlier and the 80’s were 8 days earlier. Conversely the 00’s were 4 days later and the current decade is 14 days later than average.
Total snowfall is not the reason the glaciers are changing. I think Allen who replied to a comment near the top of the comments might be on to something about the Mount St. Helens eruption and the ash. Would also suggest the population in the area and especially to the west has grown a lot since the 30’s and most of those people heat with wood. I have an occasional medical problem that pops up and my doctor explained that it isn’t just one thing that causes it but a combination of several factors that bring it about. I think the changes to the glaciers in Glacier National Park are also being affected by a combination of factors some man caused and some not.
Also Holly is right on the money about most of the rangers not answering questions that go contrary to the official park dogma.
https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/news/upload/Logan-Pass-Open-Close-Dates_Press-Kit.pdf

crackers345
September 20, 2017 12:24 pm

average glacier
thickness change (global)comment image

crackers345
Reply to  crackers345
September 20, 2017 12:24 pm

comment image

crackers345
Reply to  crackers345
September 20, 2017 12:25 pm
crackers345
Reply to  crackers345
September 20, 2017 12:27 pm
Reg Nelson
Reply to  crackers345
September 20, 2017 1:16 pm

Another misleading graph. The “All” (dashed blue line) glaciers is only 130 glaciers.
“Mass balance values for the observation period 2014/15 have been reported from more than 130 glaciers worldwide”

EricG
September 20, 2017 12:29 pm

It would be helpful if this were followed up by sattslite studies to show the etent in more quantifiable terms.

Reply to  EricG
September 20, 2017 7:58 pm

No much easier to believe the reports of a crank who runs a fly by night university

Reply to  Steven Mosher
September 21, 2017 8:21 am

Awwww Steve is really disturbed by a tiny group…….

Chris
Reply to  Steven Mosher
September 21, 2017 8:48 am

He’s not disturbed, he just thinks it’s a waste of time to give this guy airtime. Clearly you don’t feel the same. way.

Reply to  Steven Mosher
September 21, 2017 8:58 am

Chris, as usual you make clear that you are an idiot,since I made clear SEVERAL times,that it is an itty bitty project,without any publishable research material to be gathered. My first comment about them,
““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!”
Never made an endorsement for the group at ANY time,never said it was a valuable project or that it would add materially to the science of the region.
You are Steve are whining over it so much.It is funny to see it out in the open.

MarkW
Reply to  Steven Mosher
September 21, 2017 9:20 am

As opposed to your cranks little stevie?

Sixto
September 20, 2017 12:52 pm

Here’s a prediction from 2009 to be savored in just three years:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/03/090302-glaciers-melting.html

Adrienne
Reply to  Sixto
September 20, 2017 1:19 pm

Hey, they still have 3 years to melt! Get cracking!

Jeffrey Westcott
September 20, 2017 12:56 pm

Stayed at the Many Glacier Inn in late June this year. I too noticed the old /new photo comparison on the wall, but was pleasantly surprised that the ranger lectures and tour conversations that I heard tread very lightly on AGW and drew the distinction between that and natural cyclical warming, acknowledging that the science wasn’t settled. The big outdoor signs like the ones shown in the post obviously were prepared and installed during the Obama administration, but the rangers apparently are following a new, more enlightened script! I could only get two-thirds of the way to the Grinnell glacier as the trail was still snowed in. Did get to Iceberg Lake, but no icebergs because the lake was still frozen over. I can’t think of a better place to see proof of the power of natural forces and change vs. the tiny, temporary effect of man. Biggest impact of man in Glacier National Park is obviously poor forest management.

Sixto
Reply to  Jeffrey Westcott
September 20, 2017 1:13 pm

National Park rangers know that there is a new boss in DC, who knows that CACA is a crock.

Dave
September 20, 2017 12:58 pm

The Chief Quadrangle most certainly is wilting from man’s work. The post WWII Columbia Basin’s irrigated green fields are upsetting high air flows and dumping more precipitation onto the Palouse Prairie. Flying over the Basin Project is like driving on a washboard gravel road! This is making the Palouse greener, and mellowing our climate out! Nobody needs to live and work at the top of Glacier Nat’l Park.

Adrienne
September 20, 2017 1:10 pm

Okay, I have a stupid question-
How can you accurately track global temperature without sampling temps in every book and cranny of the globe, at the same time? How can one possibly collect and process all that data?
Or is it cherry-picked? I often hear “It was the hottest summer on record for ___; but here in the NY area, we’ve had one of the coolest summers in my 61 years, but that isn’t mentioned anywhere.

Adrienne
Reply to  Adrienne
September 20, 2017 1:20 pm

I MEANT NOOK; obviously.

Reg Nelson
Reply to  Adrienne
September 20, 2017 1:38 pm

Not a stupid question. There are no long term temperature records for 75% of the planet (oceans + uninhabitable regions). The satellite temp data began in the late 70’s. When it didn’t agree with the climate model predictions, it was ignored and then attacked.
Much of the surface temperature data has been adjusted or in-filled. In the Climategate emails, Phil Jones (ex-head of the CRU) admitted that much of the Southern Hemisphere data was simply made up.
The Earth is 4.5 billion years old, we simply don’t have enough quality data to say that today’s climate is in any way unusual — if anything it would be considered extremely mild compared to other geological eras.

Sixto
Reply to  Reg Nelson
September 20, 2017 4:26 pm

IMO we have plenty enough data to say that absolutely nothing the least bit unusual is happening in today’s climate, bad though the data are.

Reply to  Reg Nelson
September 20, 2017 7:57 pm

there you go again citing the discredited Phil Jones

crackers345
Reply to  Reg Nelson
September 20, 2017 8:27 pm

where did jones say that?
citation?

crackers345
Reply to  Reg Nelson
September 20, 2017 8:29 pm

>>> The Earth is 4.5 billion years old, we simply don’t have enough quality data to say that today’s climate is in any way unusual — if anything it would be considered extremely mild compared to other geological eras. <<<
the question isn't "mild" or "harsh," it's
about change.
when did global temperature
last change this fast?

MarkW
Reply to  Reg Nelson
September 21, 2017 9:23 am

The oceans alone are about 72% of the planet.
In reality less than 5% of the globes surface comes anywhere close to being adequately sampled.

MarkW
Reply to  Reg Nelson
September 21, 2017 9:24 am

crackup, to answer your question, we not only don’t know, we can’t know.
Most proxies only resolve to century or millenial scales, so movements that last a few decades or so do not show up in them.
Why don’t you try learning a little science. It’s refreshing.

Sixto
September 20, 2017 1:29 pm

Has the air around Glacier NP actually warmed since the 1980s? I’d venture a guess that the winters have gotten a bit warmer than during the mid-century cooling period, ie 1940s to ’70s, but that the summers haven’t gotten hotter. The milder winters might well have had more snow, however. If summers aren’t hotter and snow has increased (or even if it hasn’t), then how can “global warming” possibly be the cause of whatever retreat might have happened since then?

Sixto
Reply to  Sixto
September 20, 2017 1:30 pm

Also, what about surrounding forest practices? Has there been more logging? Almost certainly.
Recall that ice loss on Gore’s poster child Kilimanjaro was due to forest reduction downslope, not from temperature change around the mountain top.

Sixto
Reply to  Sixto
September 20, 2017 1:33 pm

Plus more dwellings and commercial structures in the area, warming the air with heating and air conditioning. And more roads.

Sixto
Reply to  Sixto
September 20, 2017 2:28 pm

And, as noted above, forest fires from idiotic management practices.

Dwayne Keith
September 20, 2017 1:45 pm

I don’t doubt that the earth is warming. It has been since the end of the LAST ice age. How, with geologic evidence abounding, that the earth cycles back and forth between being an ice cube and water world, can people say it is human-caused? The best theory I’ve heard to date says that warming increases the volume of fresh water in the ocean until it disrupts the great conveyors of warm water from the lower latitudes (apparently salinity aids in maintaining the Gulf Stream and others) until such time that a tipping point is reached, plunging the earth into the next Ice Age. Then the gradual melt begins anew. I tend to lean on that single thing responsible for 100% of the warmth on this planet: the sun. Fluctuations or cycles result in warming or cooling respectively. Or maybe I’m wrong and man is the culprit (this time). The real truth is that no one knows for sure and that the left is trying to use this as a means to enact capitalist crippling economic policies so as to give statist economics they favor a fighting chance. Politics is religion for the left where approved orthodoxy is taken on faith and postulating contrary ideas is apostasy. They shout down climate change skeptics (even those with PHD’s) with the same zeal and certainty of conviction once employed by the Inquisitors.

crackers345
Reply to  Dwayne Keith
September 20, 2017 8:30 pm

no, it’s clearly not the sun.
and, yes, scientists know with a lot of
confidence
what’s causing our warming.

paqyfelyc
Reply to  crackers345
September 21, 2017 9:25 am

cracks. double cracks.
“scientist” is not a title, and the very same man can be at the very same time a scientist (when doing proper science, that is, trying hard to DISPROVE his own theory) and non-scientist. Most renowned “scientist” were actually NON scientist at the very same time, refusing to depart from old theory, refusing to accept they are proven wrong. This is no problem.
“scientists” just do not accept authority argument, they only accept reproducibility. So anyone using “scientists know” (a kind of authority argument) just negates science.
Nobody would never, ever, need to say “Einstein knows that E=mc²” as a proof of his theory . You just don’t have to name him, since known devices works using this formula. This is what makes his theory relevant. He is no prophet to be trusted, he is the source of working devices.
A scientist doesn’t KNOW a thing is causing another. He only have a theory, and he only knows this is just a theory that somehow has not still been proven wrong (as all theory ultimately are). A man that knows what is causing what is not a scientist, he is religious zealot.

MarkW
Reply to  crackers345
September 21, 2017 9:26 am

The confidence comes from models that have been tuned to show what the modelers have been paid to make them show.