The world’s glaciers are melting but how fast?
Not necessarily as fast as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported in its landmark 2007 report. The United Nations led panel issued an unprecedented apology for a paragraph in the report that said the glaciers in the Himalayas could all melt by 2035 “and perhaps sooner, The Times of London reported.
The scientist on which the report was based had not had his work peer reviewed. And Syed Hasnain, the Indian scientist whose New Scientist Magazine article was cited, told the Times he never was so specific.
Meanwhile, American scientists held a press conference Wednesday to defend the overall IPCC findings on glaciers. Ben Santer, a research scientist in the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Lonnie Thompson, a professor in the School of Earth Sciences and a research scientist and glaciologist in the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University, said the IPCC’s conclusions on glacier loss and reduced water availability is consistent with the underlying science of climate change outlined in the broader IPCC document.
"Over the last 30 years I've watched many glaciers shrink in South America,” Thompson said. “But it's not just isolated to that continent—it's happening globally in Europe, North America, China, and the Himalayas.
He said more than 90% of the world's glaciers are receding.
“Glaciers have no political agenda,” Thompson said.
The poor citation undercuts the credibility again of the report that inherently people don’t want to believe. Following on the footstep of the recent “climategate” scandal, the new “glaciergate” controversy is certain to continue the undercutting of political support for taking bold action to reduce greenhouse gases except in China, where the leaders don’t have to react to politics as much.
Idaho lost its last glacier, the Otto Glacier, in the Lost River Range sometime since the 1980s.
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A symptom of "pop" science
How in the world can a group such as the IPCC publish results based upon something that has not been peer reviewed?
Peer review is the basis of all legitimate research.
Peer review
Well, peer review really isn't the basis of all legitimate research -- probably methodology is. A lot of peer review is highly suspect "buddy-system" formality. But what is interesting is all of the pronouncements coming from the IPCC claiming to be peer-reviewed and setting that as the "standard" by which to gauge the work of others. Turns out that they were not only hypocrites, but liars as well. More proof that scientists are actually humans under the lab coats.
Peer review is critical, but it includes private consultations, presentations in front of peers, work with academic committees, correspondence, and quite a few other ways of having your work reviewed by knowledgeable co-workers. The so-called "blind peer review" that goes into journal publication is how most people define the process these days, and it has become fairly corrupt in many circles as a method of obtaining and maintaining funding from targeted agencies among peers.
The IPCC emails touched upon this process, and some of the ways in which it is manipulated.
They come and they go.
Rocky:
I am very pleased that you have become a lot more moderate and balanced the past few months in your reporting of AGW science issues -- in fact, in many respects, you have led much of the region in your attention to the facts and significance regarding recent events.
Now, concerning the recent "loss" of glaciers. In the Pacific Northwest there is a clear record that these things come and go over time. Maybe you miss them today, but 15,000 years ago their presence was over bearing.
My favorite example is Fred Stadter's 1926 discovery of a buried forest above timberline on Mt. Hood, which was named and profiled by E. T. Hodge in Vol. 13, No. 12: pp. 82-86 of Mazama Magazine. In the September, 1946 Ore.-Bin, in an article titled "Mt. Hood's Vanishing Glaciers" (Vol. 8, No. 9: 61-65), Ralph Mason wrote:
"Today, the receding tongues of Reid Glacier have uncovered evidence that at one time in the not too distant past the glaciers suffered a shrinking back as profound as that now going on. Several years ago a buried forest was discovered on the ridge dividing Reid and Zigzag glaciers at an elevation of 6200 feet. The trees, now pressed flat and buried by glacial debris, measure from 1 to 3 feet in diameter. The nearest living trees of comparable size now grow far down in the valleys. Evidently the glaciers on Mt. Hood at one time receded until their snouts were far up on the mountain or had even vanished entirely for a time."
Writing in 1991 in Oregon geology (Vol. 53, No. 2: 34-43), Kenneth Cameron and Patrick Pringle in "Prehistoric Buried Forests of Mount Hood," noted that the Stadter Forest trees had actually grown at 5,850 feet elevation and had been buried sometime around 1,700 years ago.
The "tree ring data" regarding glacier dynamics seems pretty clear. Locally, they have been receding and growing for millennia: currently (on Mt. Hood at least) growing smaller for over 100 years -- apparently well in advance of Global Warming modeler awareness or recent atmospheric CO2 increases.
To say these effects have anything to do with Anthropogenic Global Warming seems highly unlikely, given the evidence. To say they are related to climate change is obvious. The climate has always been changing and likely always will. Fortunately, we are a resilient species and will probably continue adapting. Just like always.
Rocky: Remember when you
Rocky:
Remember when you were writing about Global Warming causing an imminent 50% decline in plant and animal species, loss of critical habitat, and other apocalyptic predictions that some of your readers were giving you grief about?
Well, you weren't the only one being peddled advocacy politics dressed up as "consensus science" by self-serving Enviros -- the IPCC was doing the same thing. The melting glaciers were only the tip of the iceberg:
http://tinyurl.com/nofrakking-WWF
To stretch the analogy further, IPCC scientific credibility is melting and retreating so rapidly in the face of Global Warming that nothing will remain by 2035, if it manages to cling on that long. More like 2015, if additional WWF-type influences are found (which seems likely at this juncture).
Those melting glaciers? Disappearing species? Rising seas? Plagues of insects and disease? All an elaborate money-making scam engineered by WWF and others with a buck to make by selling fears of an apocalypse to taxpayers and other contributors.
Charlatans, to be polite. The "science" continues to evaporate as this is typed; the charade of IPCC "peer review" and "scientific certainty" being laughed off the world stage by bitter cold weather, phony statistics, and self-serving prophecies of doom.
You weren't the only one taken in, of course, but it is breathtaking how quickly this is all unraveling. Some are still clinging to shreds of "but the mass majority of the science still holds true" types of rationale, but the reality is in the pervasive degree of dishonesty and shoddy practices that had resulted in mass fundraising efforts based on disappearing glaciers, rising seas, dying polar bears, and other outright lies and fabrications.
Glad to see you continue reporting things as they unfold. Keep watching. You ain't seen nothing yet! A lot of this stuff was not just bad science, used car sales tactics, and unethical practices, it was likely illegal as well.
Nobel must be spinning in his grave. Thank Gore for the Internet!
CHLOROPHYLL!
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Like a midair collision with a tugboat
Hurt credibility
As I've reported, the IPCC has hurt itself with the ciimategate and now glaciergate issues. But since the conditions in the ecosystems haven't changed, the polar ice cap is still melting, the Columbia River is still warming, glaciers are continuing to disappear and the world's oceans experienced the second warmest year on record in 2009 and all of the other evidence that underscores the human caused climate changes, I'm not ready to go there with you yet.
The threat to biodiversity remains real as does the threat to international security. When the National Academy of Sciences reverses itself I will be there... But I'm sadly not expecting such a reprieve.
It doesn't matter, most of us will be dead.
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Like a midair collision with a tugboat
Things still going on as always
Rocky:
Good reporting, bad logic. You are missing my point.
The condition of ecosystems HAVE changed and ARE changing, as always (it's odd to make such an assertion, as you do, and then follow it immediately with proof that your own assertion is wrong).
I'm not sure the polar ice cap is still melting as this is being typed, or that the Columbia is warming lately, but do know that some glaciers are "continuing to disappear" at this time. For the sake of argument, let's say all of those things are true:
So What?
Things always have to get warmer and cooler because the "ecosystems" are dynamic and always change, always have, and always will. No matter what.
How in Gore's Name does that demonstrate AGW? That's the trick that keeps getting overlooked. It's all speculation. For the sake of argument again, though, let's say AGW is actually taking place:
So What?
Does that mean all of the Hollywood-type catastrophes will follow? Of course not! That's not science, Rocky -- it's a bunch of crap.
Warmer is better. If people are responsible for a warmer planet, then good for us. The tropics are better than the ice caps for almost everyone and everything, except polar bears (maybe).
It's a house of cards, Rock, and it's falling in. The "evidence" is not there simply because it never existed in the first place. Maybe the planet is getting warmer (that's a good thing), and maybe people are causing it to do so (good for us, if true!), but: 1) CO2 probably isn't involved in the process in any meaningful way, and 2) all of the "predicted" (technically: "prophesied") calamities are just a bunch of morbid speculation. No one has demonstrated any observable "science" to this hoakum for the simple reason that it doesn't exist. It's computer games, not biology!
I had the privilege of signing a letter along with 140+ scientists that was delivered to the UN at Copenhagen in which we asked for scientific evidence that any one (of ten) assumptions made regarding AGW and apocalyptic prophesies be shown before more of the planet's resources were spent on this scam. It's not "consensus" (and never has been), and the current unraveling of this nonsense is not stopping anytime soon.
It's a house of cards, Rock. Trust me.
You forgot Pachurigate and Amazongate.
..just sayin
Thanks Slipstream
I was just about to bring up Amazon Gate. I think I will ignore hyperbolic and apocalyptic warnings from hypocrites and liars with an agenda. Seemed like a good idea two years ago, and it seems a damn safe bet now.
Truth is hard to come by
Yawn.
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Like a midair collision with a tugboat