New study analyses roughly 220,000 glaciers
ETH ZURICH
Glaciers are a sensitive indicator of climate change – and one that can be easily observed. Regardless of altitude or latitude, glaciers have been melting at a high rate since the mid-?20th century. Until now, however, the full extent of ice loss has only been partially measured and understood. Now an international research team led by ETH Zurich and the University of Toulouse has authored a comprehensive study on global glacier retreat, which was published online in Nature on 28 April. This is the first study to include all the world’s glaciers – around 220,000 in total – excluding the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The study’s spatial and temporal resolution is unprecedented – and shows how rapidly glaciers have lost thickness and mass over the past two decades.
Rising sea levels and water scarcity What was once permanent ice has declined in volume almost everywhere around the globe. Between 2000 and 2019, the world’s glaciers lost a total of 267 gigatonnes (billion tonnes) of ice per year on average – an amount that could have submerged the entire surface area of Switzerland under six metres of water every year. The loss of glacial mass also accelerated sharply during this period. Between 2000 and 2004, glaciers lost 227 gigatonnes of ice per year, but between 2015 and 2019, the lost mass amounted to 298 gigatonnes annually. Glacial melt caused up to 21 percent of the observed rise in sea levels during this period – some 0.74 millimetres a year. Nearly half of the rise in sea levels is attributable to the thermal expansion of water as it heats up, with meltwaters from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and changes in terrestrial water storage accounting for the remaining third.
Among the fastest melting glaciers are those in Alaska, Iceland and the Alps. The situation is also having a profound effect on mountain glaciers in the Pamir mountains, the Hindu Kush and the Himalayas. “The situation in the Himalayas is particularly worrying,” explains Romain Hugonnet, lead author of the study and researcher at ETH Zurich and the University of Toulouse. “During the dry season, glacial meltwater is an important source that feeds major waterways such as the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Indus rivers. Right now, this increased melting acts as a buffer for people living in the region, but if Himalayan glacier shrinkage keeps accelerating, populous countries like India and Bangladesh could face water or food shortages in a few decades.” The findings of this study can improve hydrological models and be used to make more accurate predictions on a global and local scales – for instance, to estimate how much Himalayan glacier meltwater one can anticipate over the next few decades.
To their surprise, the researchers also identified areas where melt rates slowed between 2000 and 2019, such as on Greenland’s east coast and in Iceland and Scandinavia. They attribute this divergent pattern to a weather anomaly in the North Atlantic that caused higher precipitation and lower temperatures between 2010 and 2019, thereby slowing ice loss. The researchers also discovered that the phenomenon known as the Karakoram anomaly is disappearing. Prior to 2010, glaciers in the Karakoram mountain range were stable – and in some cases, even growing. However, the researchers’ analysis revealed that Karakoram glaciers are now losing mass as well.
Study based on stereo satellite images As a basis for the study, the research team used imagery captured on board NASA’s Terra satellite, which has been orbiting the Earth once every 100 minutes since 1999 at an altitude of nearly 700 kilometres. Terra is home to ASTER, a multispectral imager with two cameras that record pairs of stereo images, allowing researchers to create high-?resolution digital elevation models of all the world’s glaciers. The team used the full archive of ASTER images to reconstruct a time series of glacial elevation, which enabled them to calculate changes in the thickness and mass of the ice over time.
Lead author Romain Hugonnet is a doctoral student at ETH Zurich and the University of Toulouse. He worked on this project for nearly three years and spent 18 months analysing the satellite data. To process the data, the researchers used a supercomputer at the University of Northern British Columbia. Their findings will be included in the next Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is due to be published later this year. “Our findings are important on a political level. The world really needs to act now to prevent the worst-?case climate change scenario,” says co-?author Daniel Farinotti, head of the glaciology group at ETH Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL.
Alongside the University of Toulouse, ETH Zurich and WSL, other institutions that participated in the study include Ulster University in the UK, the University of Oslo in Norway and the University of Northern British Columbia in Canada (please refer to the study for a complete list).
Reference Hugonnet R, McNabb R, Berthier E, Menounos B, Nuth C, Girod L, Farinotti D, Huss M, Dussaillant I, Brun F, Kääb A. Accelerated global glacier mass loss in the early twenty-?first century, Nature, published online April 28th 2021. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-?021-03436-z
###
“one that can be easily observed”
False. Glacier volume cannot be measured without detailed observation and analysis on an individual basis.
If the height of the glacier is decreasing, it’s losing volume, if it’s height is increasing, then it is gaining volume. You don’t need measure the exact amount in order to spot a trend.
Except that this occurs as a range of values over a broad area physically, and that changes daily. If you don’t know the volume below the surface, no single two dimensional measurement is going to tell you anything. You have to know the mean densitiy, from surface to the ground, at every given geo point, which also changes seasonally, to be able to tell. You need lots of cores, and a reasonable way to project the density for the areas you don’t have cores.
Periodicity in global rainfall patterns will change the density of the upper pack, and “the same” height, length, or width at a given position is meaningless.
And the techtonic plates change position laterally and vertially, making “the same position” meaningless from year to year as well. Several reported measurements for sea level rise that I’ve been able to check match suspiciously to the measured tectonic movement for the same areas. Under glacial cover changes in ground level are much worse than at the beach.
And if you measure the peak by local mean sea level, you’ve got meters of uncertainty already in your equation.
Satelite observations are not enough to measure glacier volume. Nor is NASA’s Terra (or any other satellite’s) absolute height above ground known, within meters, from orbit to orbit. Orbital jitter is well documented, occurs unpredictably in three dimensions, and positional measurements of any ground features must take it all into account (which is done by attributing a three dimensional error/confidence to every measurement).
All the measurements quoted are orders of magnituce less the the possible error — less than noise.
If you’ve corrected for all this, and still have a loss of volume, but don’t know the rate of evaporation and surface temp, you still don’t know anything.
But you are right, if you grab a bunch of bytes, and plot them, then draw a line, then exclude the stuff that doesn’t match your line, you can spot a trend. You’re still really stretching credibility if you say that it applies to 220,000 glaciers, worldwide. Just say supercomputer, and folks will believe you.
Saying that it is easy, while easy, is false. Saying that it is one observation is also false.
Addendum: I suspect that the author may knows that it is not simple calculation, and probably knows that it can’t be precise. Surely Professor (PhD candidate) Hugonnet knows it is neither. But even if he thinks so, his advisor, Professor Doktor Farinotti knows it is not simple, having led a paper in just 2019 entitled “A consensus estimate for the ice thickness distribution of all glaciers on Earth.” The abstact contains the partial statement “Here we use an ensemble of up to five models to provide a consensus estimate…”Let us ponder for a moment, the meaning of the word “estimate.” Then, we can move on to “consensus.” Insert favorite ideological choice rant about models.
When those become a little too contentious, let us reexamine the circularity of reasoning apparent in the first half of the opening statement : “Glaciers are a sensitive indicator of climate change.”
I don’t blame either Professor for inaccuracies by the media hack department, even if they signed off on the announcement. They are after funding, and any means justifies the end–a doc’s gotta eat. The opening line is still false.
“To their surprise, the researchers also identified areas where melt rates slowed between 2000 and 2019, such as on Greenland’s east coast and in Iceland and Scandinavia.”
“To their surprise”??? Do I detect an element of disaster bias & expectation in such a statement, impartiality being left at the starting post?
Yes, it looks like they were expecting to find something.
The glaciers have to be melting. After all: “CO2”.
As has been pointed out by others & me, that in the palaeo-geological past, there was 19 times as much CO2 in the atmosphere, yet the northern hemisphere, at least, was smack bang in the middle of an Ice Age!!!! Nothing like ignoring the historical evidence to maintain a scary story!!!!! Manmade global warming = a scary story for children (pester power)! Climate Change = a scary story for grown-ups!!!!! I refuse to allow people to talk about Climate Change, Global Warming is what they’ve promised, Global Warming is what they MUST deliver!!!! Hence the travelling salesman-like rantings about we how must act now or else, a tad like, “the deal is only on the table right now, I may not be back for months so either buy now, or the deal’s off!!!! Good old fashioned pressure tactics!!!! For the last two million years or so, Ice Ages have lasted between 90,000, & 130,000 years, & Interglacial periods only between 10,000 to 20,000 years! The Holocene started about 11,000 to 12,000 years ago, (on a Tuesday afternoon, around tea-time, I believe), so technically speaking, mankind, & all other life on Earth, is living on borrowed time!!!!
Alan,
Was it afternoon tea, high tea, or just plain tea? If I remember correctly it was closer to dinner; which here in the States we used to call supper!
Tea time – that’s about 4-4.30 pm. Afternoon tea and high tea are definitions based on content, not time-related.
“Definition of supper
1a: the evening meal especially when dinner is taken at midday
b: a social affair featuring a supper
2: the food served as a supper
3: a light meal served late in the evening
Well, according to my reptilian friend, Terry the dinosaur, is was afternoon tea, I had to teach him some table manners, he was so aggressive tearing into the tea cake, he nearly took my hand off!!!! 😉
I believe glaciers have been generally receding for about 12000 years. If so it is likely the rate of recession has varied widely.
They are claiming an acceleration for a unknown (to me) period. What period are we comparing it to and why is this relevant?
As long as they are retreating we are emerging from a period of glaciation. The minute they begin growing is when we are beginning to enter a new age of ice. Be very afraid.
Not at all. The mass of ice in any glacier is a product of many variables, of which “height” is but one. Thickness is more precise than height, because glaciers abrade the land under them continuously, but you can’t directly measure the thickness of a glacier. Also, glaciers are 3D structures so areal extent also matters. Also ice varies a LOT in density, being a function of depth within the ice pack as well as other factors. Finally, a glacier is not a static 3D form – it is a frozen river that continually moves across the face of the earth’s surface which itself varies in topography.
You see, everything looks easy when you don’t know what you’re talking about.
That the essential problem of global warmists – the know vastly less than they think they know.
And they love to waste computing time on super-computers.
They can also be easily observed going in the other direction, something which the article never mentions. And the reversal can happen in a generation:
Little Ice Age, Big Chill (Climate Documentary)
The above video clip discusses what happened in 1653, when the glaciers of the French Alps abruptly reversed direction and started growing to the point where they were engulfing entire villages that had been in existence for hundreds of years. Back then the only thing they could do was to send monks with Holy Water to try and stop the advance.
Glacier activity is a spectacularly visual way of convincing people of the veracity of CAGW, but it is one of the most dubious scientifically, for the above mentioned reason. IMHO So you often see headlines like “Otzi the Ice Man is proof of CAGW” or “Scientists discover 5000 year old remains of trees (stumps) in path of retreating glacier”… all very alarming. But if you take a deep breath and turn off the panic, what the finds actually indicate is that the planet was hotter in the past than it is now, and in eras with demonstrably lower levels of atmospheric CO2.
For what it is worth…
“Back then the only thing they could do was to send monks with Holy Water to try and stop the advance.”
The modern equivalent to dealing with a ‘threat’ is switching off economies, social distancing and face masks. I suppose we are really the same people as in 1653.
The Monks were more effective. Well, at least they didn’t cause any more damage and didn’t destroy the economies of entire nations.
After watching that documentary, it seems like a warming climate is greatly preferable to the Little Ice Age, even if the sea is a silly millimeter higher!
Not to worry, Michael Mann has “cancelled” the Little Ice Age. (lol)
Interesting film which ends in full, Day After Tomorrow style, new Ice Age brought on by AGW. It’s like the other stuff never happened.
In New Zealand they are “retreating seven times faster” but cf https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14202
Here we go again … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5GfWY0xZSE
No Chinese involvement? Many climate related studies are done by at least partially…Chinese names …..or even European or USA universities and their “campuses” in China. It is pretty alarming how much the CCP has penetrated western universities.
Ever wonder where ETH Zurich, U Toulouse, or U. Northern B.C. might get their funding, and foreign students?
A doctoral student is lead author……why doesn’t even the supervisors put their name on it…are they even glacier scientists?
Yeah, the American Left has taken over the American school system and the Chicoms are doing their part. Internal and external attacks on our school system, undermining our nation.
Both entities use brainwashing as their chief method of attack.
Who are they both attacking? The answer is they are attacking Western society.
It may also be a slightly different cause – there was a recent article about how Chinese involvement in universities and funding studies has led to Chinese military advances. Basically they’ve been infiltrating academia to asset-strip western learning and research.
Hmmm, I see they make no predictions for glaciers disappearing from Glacier National Park or Kilimanjaro.
Claims of glacier melt acceleration based on 20 years data seems a bit myopic. I wish they’d take a 50,000 year glacier perspective. That was when glaciers were near peak in most recent glacial interglacial cycle. Then, 12-15k years ago, there was sudden warming and massive glacial melt occurred. How much does current acceleration compare to then?
By the Holocene Climatic Optimum, almost all glaciers except for Antarctica and Greenland were completely melted. Then things began to cool off and glaciers began to reform. That’s why most mountain glaciers are only about 8000 years old. Most of them reached maximum extent during the little ice age a couple hundred years ago, and they have been receding a bit since it has warmed since then. They may eventually disappear if temperature exceeds Holocene Optimum, but I doubt that will occur until the next interglacial.
Catastrophic Alarmists have often pointed to melting glacier as canaries in the coal mine for doom, but are woefully inaccurate for predicting timing of their death.
but this isn’t based just on 20 years of data… they have decades worth of data from BEFORE the observed acceleration to compare it with
WRONG. the study only has 20 years of data.
You CANNOT compare to periods that they didn’t have exact data for.
Gees you are DUMB.., girff ?????
I agree, you make dumb comments.
griffter,
Climate change is both cyclical AND regional! The great oceanic cycles cause periods of floods and droughts in many regions! Look at Australia and the American Southwest for examples.
Glacier growth is determined by both temperature and precipitation. Just a few centuries ago the glaciers in the Alps were growing so fast that the local priests were called in to try and stop them! Now that many are shrinking the Climastrologists are bringing in THEIR priests to try and reverse the process!
Clearly Griff thinks they had a time machine or maybe he just can’t read because they specified the study time.
No such “decades worth of data” is mentioned in the subject paper, perhaps you can elighten as to what data exists for the aforementioned 220,000 glaciers?
Or you could just continue to be an uninformed twat?
RelPerm,
Nice succinct synopsis! The Climastrologists always like to ignore the HCO, and especially dread being shown the steady downward trend in the warming and cooling cycles since!
Now all that is needed is acceleration of sea level rise. But there isn’t any – going back as far as 150 years.
Yes, ebb and flow, advance and retreat, growth and maturity, following a natural course.
Nearly half of the rise in sea levels is attributable to the thermal expansion of water
Uh huh, so if the water in the Pacific Ocean warms and expands, does that make the water in New York harbor rise?
Yep
If you pour water in one end of a bath tub, will the water level of both ends go up?
(Climate4you –> Ocean temperatures and sea level –> Sea-level in general).
Chris
“and will therefore not affect the potential at the top of the water column. “
Potential. What a funny word to use. I wonder what it means in this context.
The water expands locally, upward, and forms a dome that flows outward. This is convective overturning. A rolling donut. I suppose this cell will have an affect on remote surfaces, but you will have to take account of all heating and cooling cells in all oceans. This must be why they invented super-computers.
How odd!
When water freezes in something columnar, the expanding ice breaks the container unless it can expand sideways.
As Scouts, we used to repair dented canteens by filling them with water and freezing them. The ice pushes the dents out.
Yet, you claim that expanding seawater due to temperature only expands vertically?
How does water do that?
The water molecules are not aligned, which means that every molecule of water can expand in all directions.
It’s funny how the UN built their new building in NY at the waters edge. Just like a former climate clown President.
The ice has NEVER been “permanent!” There were few glaciers before the onset of the current Neogene Ice Age, which started at the beginning of the Pleistocene Epoch, about 2 million years ago. The continental ice sheets have waxed (Nebraskan, Kansan, Illinoian, and Wisconsin in North American) and then waned during the interglacials. During the current interglacial, alpine glaciers have periodically retreated such as during the Roman and Medieval warm periods, and after the LIA (Little Ice Age), and advanced (e.g. during the LIA). There are periods during which alpine glaciers are relatively static, but as they retreat from melting, they leave terminal moraines that show that the retreat is eposodic.
The other side of that coin is that if the climate were to turn cold and the glaciers again advanced, there would be reduced meltwater and that also would create water and food shortages! It is almost as if alarmists expect that the normal state of affairs is a static climate — that is, they are unconsciously denying that climate changes!
What is remarkable is how constant sea level rise has been for the last 7,000 years, with the only suggestion of an acceleration being when satellite measurements are appended to tide gauge measurements:
That is it, after all. The only sort of change they seem interested in is human, as long as they can torture the science into submission.
After all, unconscious denial is deniable. Probably as unconscious. Subconsciously, there is probably something wrong with this statement. I’ll have to sleep on it.
dk,
Are you having an argument with yourself, or was that just a discussion?
I always try to avoid arguing with myself in public; it can be very embarrassing, especially when I lose!
I have often been called a “Climate denier”, & “Climate Change” denier (not sure what a “Climate Denier” actually is either!), to which I reply that, “I have never ever denied that the Earth has a climate, nor that is changes from time to time! Therefore as far as I’m concerned, the true “Climate deniers & Climate Change deniers”, are those who claim that a changing Climate is unnatural, therefore it must be manmade, which roughly translates into caused by evil wicked free-enterprise Capitalism, the creator of wealth & prosperity around the world!!!
“It is almost as if alarmists expect that the normal state of affairs is a static climate — that is, they are unconsciously denying that climate changes!”
That does seem to be their basis for alarm, the horror of change in their environment. Change is Bad and leads to uncertainty. Poor snowflakes, however will they make it in the real world, constantly beset with small changes.
But that’s the point. These papers are mainly written by universities, i.e. by people who have opted to stay in the protected environment of the “education” system. Naturally they fear change.
Such a hard life is Academia! Long holidays, virtually guaranteed pay increases! Stress???? Wish I used to get it like that!!!!! Yes I know not all are like that, but I’ve known enough teachers in my time!!!! I recall being a member of a regional professional committee & vice-chairman, being consulted by a friend & colleague who was chairman, & a local university lecturer & head of structural engineering, who, when issued with new proposed guidelines for professional procedures for practicing engineers, to help him fill out the comments questionnaire, because he’s hadn’t worked in private practice since graduating from uni, & only had 5 years of experience!!!!
I was the one in private practice with the frontline experience!!! Yes academics do work hard & suffer from stress, but they are NOT the only ones who do so, & they do lead a quite sheltered life, protected from the trials & tribulations of free enterprise!!! There, moan finished!!!!
What is ironic is that political conservatives tend to support changes in the environment to support economic development, while discouraging political changes. On the other hand, liberals (most notably progressives) assume that the environment never changes on its own and object strenuously to any changes wrought by Man, while never being happy with the political state of affairs, and always pushing for changes in the name of ‘social justice.’
“It is almost as if alarmists expect that the normal state of affairs is a static climate — that is, they are unconsciously denying that climate changes!”
Climate alarmists seem to think the trend goes on forever.
When it got real cold in the 1970’s, the climate alarmists assumed the temperatures were going to continue to fall and they declared that the Earth might be entering into another Ice Age.
Now that the temperatures have warmed since that time, the Climate Alarmists seem to think the upward trend will go on forever.
But, of course, climate trends don’t go on forever, they are cyclical in nature, cooling for a few decades, and then warming for a few decades and on and on.
Climate alarmists think trends are forever.
I remember seeing that fascinating documentary narrated & fronted by the late, great, Leonard Nimoy on such a potential happening of serious concern at the time!!!
Clyde,
I think many climate scientists consider mayflies and butterflies to be long lived species!
Every now and then I get a strong urge to yell at them:
WHAT PART OF ICE AGE IS NOT CLEAR TO YOU!!
The part where the animals don’t talk.
Clyde,
Whew! I just missed a coffee spew due to your reply!
You’re right; most alarmists live in a Disney or Hollywood bubble! ROTFLMAO!
AM
I’m glad you appreciated my ‘wet’ humor.
Mr. Spencer: “[i]f the climate were to turn cold ….” What an excellent point! Not sure I’ve seen anyone else make it in all the “disappearing glacier” stories the AGW folks put out. I fear you may have given them the next scare story that forces us to stop burning stuff. Of course, the contrast between “burning fossil fuel overheats the planet” and “burning FF freezes the planet” will make them think.
That last part was /s/, there is no evidence contradictions make them think.
“It is almost as if alarmists expect that the normal state of affairs is a static climate…”
But that IS what they expect. The more of their nonsense they publish, the more I come to believe that they don’t even understand seasonal changes – you know: NORMAL STUFF – on this planet and think it’s supposed to always be just one season all year long. That only happens in deserts, but even there it can be bitterly cold at night, even when it’s hot during the day.
They expect averages to be The Way Things Are, not what the Real World presents.
You have to pity people like that…. no imagination. How sad can you get????
Great news! Gonna put that Arizona oceanfront back on the market tomorrow.
It may not be in Arizona any more
Maybe another “Ice Man” will be revealed….archeologists should be scouring the land for artifacts. Farmers should be planting orchards and such on the new land……finally rid of that pesky ice…..hurray!
now the atefact search, that is a good suggestion. most Alpine glaciers that I know ( in Chamonix Valley) currently are at quite high elevations and so are not the best suited for human artefacts. I would concentrate on known Roman trade routes across the Alps. Any suggestions anyone?
Maybe trees will once more be able to grow where these glacier currently defy life…..
…. maybe… at some time in the distant future.
They were talking about this (unsure of this specific study) on the news (ABC Australia). As they were discussing how glaciers were retreating at an EMERGENCY! rate, they showed a time lapse of a glacier. The only trouble was that the glacier was advancing.
Don’t get bogged down is trivial details!!!!! ;-))
“amount [of ice] that could have submerged the entire surface area of Switzerland under six metres of water every year.”
yet
“caused up to 21 percent of the observed rise in sea levels during this period – some 0.74 millimetres a year.”
Less than 21% of 0.74 millimeter per world wide
“Nearly half of the rise in sea levels is attributable to the thermal expansion of water as it heats up”
— Attributed by whom? Named sources needed.
— Attributed by what means? No facts cited.
— Glacial melt is fresh. Water becomes more dense as it changes state from ice to liquid. It increases in volume as gasses and solids become dissolved or as it mixes with water where those materials are already dissolved, but by 200%.
“meltwaters from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and changes in terrestrial water storage accounting for the remaining third”
++ <20% without source or reference
++ <50% unlikely, without source or reference.
1/3 is not equal to approximately 30%. This is a significant portion of the claimed total. Where is the source for this quantity and how is it calculated? Who is studying this phenomenon?
This article is fiction.
The switzerland reference is actually funny it’s a Stokism you define an area so small to get an alarming number.
It reminded me of the “All the water on the planet fits into a ball with a diameter of 860 miles” calculation made
https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/all-earths-water-a-single-sphere
Interesting link. Thank you.
.
33.33….%
Close enough for “climate science” 😉
“1/3 is not equal to approximately 30%”
In climate science,1/3 is equal to approximately 97%
That .74mm is 21% of the 3mm+ sea level rise measured by satellites recently (accuracy is dubious). The article didn’t mean that glaciers’ share was 21% of .74mm.
The figures are not that far off. Switzerland has a land area of about 40,000 km2, so that a 6 meter depth of water over Switzerland would have a volume of 240 km3. The world’s oceans have an area of about 360 million km2, so that 240 km3 spread out over that area would have a depth of 6.7(10^-7) km, or 0.67 mm. By the way, 1 cubic kilometer of water has a mass of about 1 gigatonne (10^12 kg).
But it does sound more impressive to flood one small country with 6 meters of water than to raise sea level by a fraction of a millimeter. Although 6 meters of water would not flood much of Switzerland, since most of the Swiss Alps are more than 6 meters high!
This sums it up nicely:
““Our findings are important on a political level. The world really needs to act now to prevent the worst-case climate change scenario,” says co-?author Daniel Farinotti,….
That was an obligatory conclusion to assure further funding for future studies.
— “findings will be included in the next Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)”
–“Our findings are important on a political level. The world really needs to act now to prevent the worst-?case climate change scenario,”
The co-author defines this study as a political change position paper, not a scientific finding.
No actions are defined, implied or stated that would prevent (unverified, unvalidated) glacial melt of less than 0.1554mm/year.
A 0.27mm annual sea rise can be ignored with impunity.
The world will fall short of even warming to half of the least-case climate scare scenario.
There is no evidence that even the worst case warming scenario would cause any harm. Much more historically and imminently likely to cause harm is political and economic change due to environmental terrorism, fraud, and confidence games.
More “the sky is falling”.
“IMAGE: RAPID GLACIER MELT: A ROARING MELTWATER STREAM CONNECTS THE MORTERATSCH AND PERS GLACIERS (R.), ENGADINE, SWITZERLAND. A FEW YEARS AGO, THE GLACIERS WERE CONNECTED.“
Maybe the “experts” will find Otzi’s grandfather as those Swiss glaciers retreat a bit more to where they were 5,500-7,000 years ago? Then they’ll have more ‘splaining to do.
And yet, receding glaciers are uncovering artifacts and flora that can be dated to show that there was no glacier there during medieval times, or Roman times, or during the Holocene climate optimum. Tree stumps under the receding Mendenhal glacier in Alaska have been dated to 1200 years ago. Receding glaciers in Sweden reveal that the tree line 9000 years ago was some 300 meters higher in altitude then than it is today, and that beavers lived in forested areas that are now barren alpine tundra above the tree line.
The reason that instruments made by the shop founded by Antonio Stradivari are so prized was that before 1600, global cooling with increased glaciation made the spruce forests produce better wood for sound production.
The Italian Renaissance, brought to you courtesy of modern banking, global trade, the black death, and global climate change!
Not quite.
Yes, a TV show made that claim, but they failed to account for the age of trees necessary for the tonewood used for instrument tops.
A guitar top
Stradivari’s choices of top woods were based on his assessment of tonal quality, not closeness of the annual rings. Some of his tops have broad annual rings and others have tight annual rings.
The TV show claimed that during Stradivari’s life, the cold weather caused annular growth rings to be very close and narrow.
Annular rings are considered broad at 12-13 rings per linear inch, (25.4mm).
Annular rings are considered tight at 20-24 rings per linear inch. Some instruments were made with up to 30 rings per linear inch.
Which means that the TV show’s claims require far older trees.
Stradivari made his instruments at the nadir of the Little Ice Age, using woods that grew during warmer periods preceding the LIA and during the early LIA years.
If the TV’s show was accurate, Stradivari’s apprentices’ apprentices’ apprentices should have had access to superior woods. Yet they did not exceed or even match Stradivari’s instruments.
If you’re curious, trees sections are quartered. The pith and the sapwoods are either discarded or used for bracing.
That is, a 20″ tree is halved to 10″ maximum.
The pith is planed or split off.
The sapwood, 2″ to 4″ is split off, leaving a remaining maximum 6″-8″ width for use as the top and bottom plates.
Nor should it be surprising that a tree’s pith and heartwood tend to have wider annular growth rings. As the tree gets large, the annular rings tighten. Meaning the sapwood shows the closest annular rings.
Discarding two inches of sapwood discards the tree’s final two to four decades of growth.
Simplified, it is unlikely that Stradivari used any tonewood that grew during his lifetime during the LIA nadir.
Just so. I have walked around on Alpine glaciers and was not impressed. what is so great about huge areas of ice in one’s back yard? It is the stuff under them that is really interesting and if they all melted we could stay busy for decades collecting, examining, and cataloging this treasure. The world could use some of that fresh water tied up in ice too.
Stop with your optimism, the media says this is an emergency well then we have an emergency…well right after we finish the war on drugs and the war on Covid 😉
Pamela,
What is the matter with you? Always trying to find a bright side to all these emergencies! Don’t you know that NO modern nation has ever successfully dealt with rising sea levels or shoreline subsidence!?
The message from the Climastrologists to those living along ocean shores is clear: RUN, RUN, YOU FOOLS!
“The message from the Climastrologists to those living along ocean shores is clear: RUN, RUN, YOU FOOLS!”
So we can swoop in and buy up all your excellent ocean-front property at distressed prices!
Britanicca
History Of GreenlandThe Inuit (Eskimo) are believed to have crossed to northwest Greenland from North America, using the islands of the Canadian Arctic as stepping stones, in a series of migrations that stretched from at least 2500 BCE to the early 2nd millennium CE. Each wave of migration represented different Inuit cultures. Several distinct cultures are known, including those classified as Independence I (c. 2500–1800 BCE), Saqqaq (c. 2300–900 BCE), Independence II (c. 1200–700 BCE), Dorset I (c. 600 BCE–100 CE), and Dorset II (c. 700–1200). The most recent arrival was the Thule culture (c. 1100), from which the Inugsuk culture developed during the 12th and 13th centuries.
In 982 the Norwegian Erik the Red, who had been banished from Iceland for manslaughter, settled on the island today known as Greenland. Returning to Iceland about 985, he described the merits of the newly discovered land, which he called Greenland, and in 986 he organized an expedition to the island that resulted in the development of two main settlements: the East Settlement, near present-day Qaqortoq (Julianehåb), and the West Settlement, near present-day Nuuk (Godthåb). These settlements may have reached a population of 3,000–6,000 on about 280 farms, suggesting that temperatures at that time may have been as warm or warmer than they are today. Christianity arrived in the 11th century by way of Erik’s son Leif Eriksson, who had just returned from the recently Christianized Norway. A bishop’s seat was established in Greenland in 1126.
Beginning sometime in the 13th century, the Norse (Scandinavian) settlers began to interact with the expanding Inuit Thule culture that had appeared in northern Greenland about 1100. But in the 14th century the Norse settlements declined, perhaps as a result of a cooling in Greenland’s climate. In the 15th century they ceased to be inhabited.
“These settlements may have reached a population of 3,000–6,000 on about 280 farms, suggesting that temperatures at that time may have been as warm or warmer than they are today.”
It would have had to be warmer than today. Crops could not be grown in Greenland today, like was done then, unless it warmed up a lot more that today’s temperatures.
When I was in NW Greenland (near Thule AB) in 1967, there were a sufficient number of plants growing to support a population of hares that in turn helped support Arctic foxes. I’m sure things would be more conducive to agriculture in the far south.
Farmers that rely on glacial meltwater should reasonably be pleased that glaciers melt.
Otherwise, they would have to trek into the mountains and transport glacial ice down to their fields.
Farmers that rely on the melting of the previous winter’s snowfall (and not the snowfall from 200 years previous) will, from time to time have squabbles over water rights, or deal with flooding of their fields.
Farming is tough!
OK, so they just found more evidence that the earth is still recovering from the Little Ice Age.
Tell me something I didn’t already know.
If you model the shape of a glacier as (say) a half cone,with the pointy end uphill, then the energy required to melt it will decrease as more and more melts. With this half-cone, geometry, the lower end of the reducing ice will accelerate as you lose more of the thick material downstream until you are left with a tiny tail at the top that disappears rapidly. I wonder if this geometric acceleration is accounted for? Geoff S
Exactly. I believe that the thing that convinced Theresa May to adopt a stricter ‘net zero’ position in the uk was her observation that the glaciers she could see from her walking holidays appeared to be receding noticeably quickly.
I am talking of acceleration, not velocity, as are the original authors quoted above. Significant difference. Geoff S
Geoff
I’m not sure that the “half cone” is a good representation. As alpine glaciers move out of the mountains onto the the plains below, they change from a channel to a delta shape. For relatively flat land, such as the Canadian Shield, a continental glacier starts out as a ‘pancake’ at the zone of maximum accumulation, and then spreads radially. The process is reversed during melting, albeit it is no longer driven by flow away from center, and blocks may become stagnant and stranded.
Why did you pick a model of a ‘pointy’ cone?
Clyde,
Trying to find an easy-to-visualise picture of what can happen if you use the rate of retreat of the lower end of the glacier to measure acceleration.
Idea derived from watching ice of different shapes dissolve in whiskey. The last. slender bit disappears really fast. For sure, there are other mechanisms as you note but they do not automatically exclude this ‘last sliver faster’ effect. Geoff S
Do you need any encouragement to get back to your observations? You might try a different brand of whiskey and see if it makes any difference in the rate. 🙂
Alpine glaciers are at altitude, where warming is for brief periods daily during summer seasons.
They are replenished during winters, starting the melt process all over.
Ice loss from alpine glaciers should be incremental, not accelerating.
Seasons like the winter of 2020-2021may have replenished several years worth of glacier loss.
Your characterization of alpine glaciers is certainly correct for ice fields. However, for very large alpine glaciers, they can transition a considerable elevation difference and have distinct zones of accumulation and ablation.
How can glacial loss accelerate and sea level rise not accelerate?
Isostatic rebound?
The answer in part is that glaciers can lose ice from sublimation, and when they don’t end in the ocean, melted ice can make its way to subsurface aquifers.
Aren’t glaciers supposed to melt during an interglacial period? These guys ask as if the answer is NO!
This is not a ‘claim’… this is verifiable, documented, physical proof.
SO WHAT !!!
We just had a series of NON-HUMAN-CAUSED strong El Ninos due to the recent series of strong solar cycles…
Glaciers that DIDN’T EVEN EXIST during the MWP and before, are melting a bit as the planet climbs very slowly out of the COLDEST PERIOD IN 10,000 years.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/07/very-inconvenient-alps-glacier-historytop-glaciologists-alps-were-ice-free-6000-years-ago/
And no , they only have measurements from 2000, so claims of “acceleration” are MEANINGLESS.
and if there really is any, it is due purely to the NON-HUMAN CAUSED 2015,16 El Nino/Big Blod transient.
So Romain spent three years looking at photos and measured the ice loss of 220,000 glaciers. He must be an incredible worker.
Not measured.
Estimated would be a better description.
Estimated from assumptions based strictly on estimated height.
as of yet unverified … so a claim … nothing more …
Griff – Glaciers are just an area of frozen water. They advance, they recede; it’s the cyclical nature of the natural world around us – think of it like the earth is breathing. And stop bloody complaining about how hard life is when you live in one of the most developed and prosperous countries in the world, during a benign, climate golden age. Ffs.
While potentially verifiable, until a peer attempts to duplicate the ‘experiment,’ it remains unverified. This singular piece of research is evidence, not proof.
Perhaps the reason you so frequently post inane comments is that you have a poor understanding of the meaning of words. Or is it just poor reading comprehension?
Pffft!
Not verified in any way.
Not documented in any real fashion. It’s the equivalent tourist 3D glasses.
Not one bit of physical proof.
But then, you have a serious problem with dealing with any sort of reality or truth.
Actually it is not, as the authors use satellite imagery as a proxy for volume. So no, it is not “physical proof” as that would require actual observations of volume change.
Only if it never happened before it might be something new. Obviously it has happened before. In Sweden the biodiversity was much higher 7000 years ago due to a warmer climate. Today many plants and trees have retreated hundreds of km in the “arctic” regions compared to then.
I thought that the main driver of glacier movement was the weight of snow at the top rather than a small change in temperature at the bottom.
If so, that would mean the real “problem” would be reduction of precipitation rather than increase in temperature, so is “the climate emergency” supposed to reduce precipitation or increse it
Faster than when?
The NH was cooling in the mid 20thC – 1960s and 70s, consequently sea level rise slowed down.
However, sea levels were rising as fast as now in the early 20thC, suggesting glaciers are melting no faster than then
Wow glaciers shrink in an interglacial period. Shocking
The shocking part is that the interglacial is cold enough to maintain glaciers in the first place.
Are they really sensitive indicators of climate change?
Sounds like a stretch that these huge structures are sensitive to minuscule temperature change…
They are sensitive indicators of climate change, but not necessarily air temperatures. The rate of snow accumulation, the presence of dark volcanic ash on the surface, warm rain, windiness, and most importantly cloudiness, all impact glacial ablation in addition to air temperatures.
From the article: “Glaciers are a sensitive indicator of climate change – and one that can be easily observed. Regardless of altitude or latitude, glaciers have been melting at a high rate since the mid-?20th century.”
This should be expected since “the mid-20th century” was one of the coldest periods since the Little Ice Age, so when it warms up from one of the coldest periods since the Little Ice Age, we can expect some ice to melt. It has nothing to do with CO2. At least, the alarmists can’t prove it has anything to do with CO2.
It’s Mother Nature, not CO2, until proven otherwise.
Mid 20th Century or a century or two earlier?
Geoff S
The authors of this study haven’t thought through the implications of their results. Sea level rise is a combination of aquifer extraction, thermal expansion of sea water and glacial melting. This means that if the amount of glacial melting is greater than previously thought, the amount of thermal expansion must be less than previously thought to obtain the same amount of sea level rise. So I wish to congratulate the authors for their evidence that the amount of global warming is much less than previously imagined. Climate alarmists will not be pleased with this study.
BT,
Sea level rise as currently understood requires no change in the shape and volume of the basin formed by the surrounding rocks. Does not take a huge change to affect levels by a millimetre. And we know the basins are changing because there is underwater volcanism moving some rock around. As yet, we do not know by how much it changes basin volume.
Here is an interesting exercise for you. Try to find the figure that represents the change in sea level globally for a 1 degree C change in the global air temperature. Happy hunting!! Geoff S
Geoff
And we can reasonably expect that as the ice-loading responsible for isostatic depression of land, and subsequent rebound, is transferred to the ocean basins, the basins will isostatically adjust to the increased load by deepening the basin(s).
Is there such a thing as permanent ice?
It depends on one’s definition of permanence. From a geologic perspective, the answer is “No.” There might be permanent ice on the moon.
SA,
In terms of phase changes, this is the same question as “Is there such a thing as permanent water?”. Or even permanenmt water vapour. Geoff S.
When glaciers in some regions of the world melt, it’s “climate change”, and when others either don’t melt or grow, it’s a “weather anomaly”. Got it.
The volume of meltwater estimated by this study is claimed to have contributed to sea level rise. But how much of this flow actually gets to the oceans? Evaporation and aquifer replenishment among other factors are in play. Have the waters of the Rhine, Rhone, Yangzi, Indus and other rivers increased?
The article is a talking point. It is meaningless, but alarmists, such as AlGore, will simply drop the line in a long list of ‘alarms’ with no attribution, and no validation. Glacial melting, along with sea levels rising, temperatures rising and CO2 rising.
“The findings of this study can improve hydrological models and be used to make more accurate predictions on a global and local scales”
The study certainly cannot predict the AMO cycle which drives the advances and retreats of Alpine glaciers.
“The world really needs to act now to prevent the worst-?case climate change scenario,” says co-?author Daniel Farinotti”
The world needs to act now to prevent the worst case anti-science, the warm AMO phase driving the glacier retreat, is due to lower indirect solar forcing since 1995, not rising CO2 forcing.
Ulric,
The Climastrologists will soon be claiming that the AMO, the PDO, the ENSO and other cycles are driven by CO2! They should be required to heat their bath water with a blow dryer!
Soon? Mikey Mann has started that particular line of drivel already – statistically insignificant increases due to volcanic eruptions only – the only significant increases due to CO2. Transparent, desperate and complete bullsh!t.
Truly a disgrace to his profession! Mikey Mouse!
While they are sitting in the tub? 🙂
If only! 🤪
When people stop believing the environista lies they just screech them louder. Very pathetic and totally predictable.
A better metric would be olympic swimming pools, and doing the math, that’s enough to fill about 97 million olympic swimming pools per year. Yowza. Then we just need to know how many hiroshimas worth of energy melting that much ice would be. Now where did I put my hiroshima calculator?
The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was c. !5 kilotons. That on Nagasaki c. 21 kilotons. The Castle Bravo H bomb used on Bikini atoll was about 1000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.
Hope this helps wth the calculation!
Funny how those numbers have changed through the years. The original estimates were around 20 Ktons.
Ice Sheets and Sea Level Rise
By: Claire L. Parkinson, Oceans and Ice Branch, Code 971, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt MD 20771 e-mail: clairep@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov
From: The PUMAS Collection http://pumas.jpl.nasa.gov
©1997, California Institute of Technology. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Based on U.S. Gov’t sponsored research.
I found this document above that appears to be a write up for Middle School curriculum that correlates cryo melt and SLR.
Parkinson concludes that the complete melting of Greenland, 2,343,728 Gt and Antarctica, 26,384,368 Gt, would raise sea levels 79.6 m or 260 feet.
So, 100 Gt of cryo melt would raise sea level 2.77 E-4m, .277 mm.
“Table Al summarizes the compiled information on glacierized surface areas of the world. The large ice sheets of Antarctica (85.7%) and Greenland (10.9%) together represent 96.6% of the total area. Within 2 the remaining 3.4% (roughly 550,000 km ), slightly less than two thirds (about 2.1%) concern smaller ice caps at higher latitudes and only about 1.3% mountain glaciers (Shumskii et al. 1964). Such moun[1]tain glaciers, however, are those features of perennial surface ice most closely related to human activities at lower latitudes.”
https://wgms.ch/downloads/wgi_1988_small.pdf
96.6% of the cryo is Greenland and Antarctica and glaciers are about 1.5% or 446,088 Gt and if 100% melted producing a SLR of 1.2 m.
267 Gt would be 0.06% of the total glacial amount.
The only real use of the word accelerating in climate science would be.
Climate scientists accelerate societies complete rejection of objective reality.
Again numbers presented out of context in order to alarm, rather than inform. For example:
All the fuss is about <1% of global land ice, which itself is measured with a wide error range.
Full discussion is at https://rclutz.com/2021/04/29/zombie-melting-glacier-hype-again/
Cherry picking is in full effect on glacial melt. I was on a family trip to the Columbia Ice Field in Alberta as a kid in the 60’s. At one point the highway passed close to the toe of a massive glacier. You could get out and walk down to the edge and there were bus tours out onto the glacier. On the walk down there were signposts set up with photographs showing the retreat of the glacier since the mid=1800’s. They wee melting back a hundred years before 1950. Just another artifact of the recovery from the completely unexplained Little Ice Age.
And most of the melting of glaciers in the US Glacier National Park are on south facing slopes, with some of the ice fields in the shadows on north-facing slopes having shown little change in a century. It argues for cloudiness being more important than actual average air temperature.
Clyde,
is Grinell glacier (north facing) the among those not covered with
“some of the ice fields in the shadows on north-facing slopes having shown little change in a century.”
https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/grinnell-glacier-1938-2019-glacier-national-park
When I first got interested in this topic, I found a statement on the NPS site about the north-facing slopes being static. A couple years later I tried to find the statement and it was gone.
The images you link to demonstrate clearly that Grinell is not in the shade of the mountains, and would therefore by impacted by decreasing cloudiness.
This smacks of a simple model where the researchers claim to divine many absolutes depending upon their fancy analyses model.
Now they need to provide real proof their model works.
Ideally for every single one of the 220,000 glaciers.
Glacier melt only accounts for 4% of the water in the Ganges.
R. Armstrong, D. Alford, and A. Racoviteanu, A preliminary assessment of the role of glaciers in the hydrologic regime of the Nepal Himalaya, Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol. 11, EGU2009-10794, 2009
One thing that is ‘super ‘ about super computers is the way models from them can be claimed to tell you all about history for which there is little to no actual valid measured values. From temperatures, to sea heights to animal populations and glaciers. We live in a age where there is no need for boring honest science, with its concerns over accurate and valid data and good experimentally design ,with measurements. All we now need is ‘models’ and you can prove the value of something from a thousand years ago which people did not even known existed , let alone measured, until the last 100 years. Simply amazing !
Right, never mind that the Earth is struggling to get out of an ice age, any climate changes must be due to humanity trying to survive by using fuels to stay warm and for their livelihood to stay fed.