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Photographs from the World War II era not only helped to map northern Alaska but also captured its majesty
April 26, 2010 | 54
Peaks in the southern Brooks Range, near the confluence of the John River and Allen River.
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54 Comments
Add CommentI shudder to think of these photos being discarded. How much history is being lost because of lack of storage?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYow. One can also look at many older photos of Glacier National Park and see the huge changes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisImages like this need to be preserved.
It's asking me for a user name & password to see them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe link is on the dev.sciam.com server. Could that be why?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm not sure this is what I wanted
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'd like to see the photo comparisons, but am hampered with a username and password. Did anyone determine how to get past this?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you
To get around the password protection click on the slideshow hyperlink along the right side (below videos and podcasts).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOK
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, in other words, warming weather has resulted in an increase in biodiversity. And, yet, this is somehow catastrophic, signalling the end of the planet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfrgough,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNobody credible is saying that glbal aarming is going to be the end of the planet. What is being said is that the expected changes are going to be very bad for us humans. The rise of sea levels that will inundate coastal communities and the desertification of America's breadbasket can hardly be seen as positive changes. But who knows, maybe the world will turn into a veritable tropical paradise with monkey butler's who will cater to our whim but somehow I don't thinks so.
what caused warming at the end of the ice ages? I don't believe that we had much in the way of a industrial CO2 cause so maybe natural cycles exist and we are so arrogant to think that we should somehow not be bothered by these changes that have occurred for 1000's of years before us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@jbairddo: seriously? The old "it's been warm" bull? Really? That one's the oldest and stalest rhetoric that's out there in the denier community. You people really need to update your documentation. Please look up "Milankovich cycles" for your answer. Hint: we're on what should be the downward trend of a cycle, but it's heating up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjbairddo,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo tired an argument. Let's see, there were no arsonists a million years ago and there were forest fires; therefore arsonists can not be a cause of forest fires today. That's makes about as much sense as what you are saying.
A cheap way of seeing the change is to collect Alaska postcards.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeautiful though these pictures are I fail to see how they make any case for global warming given that they only show one point in time... If the point of the article was to show lovely pictures, the title should reflect this. If on the other hand the point of the article was to highlight the impact of climate change, the article should be some supporting pictures or evidence. It seems therefore that the author of the article inserted the title owing to feeling some pressure - perceived or explicit - that the pictures would not be published unless there was some link to global warming. This is neither good science nor good editorial policy. I am disappointed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeautiful though these pictures are I fail to see how they make or support by themselves any case for global warming given that they only show one point in time... If the point of the article was to show lovely pictures, the title should reflect this. If on the other hand the point of the article was to highlight the impact of climate change, the article should contain some supporting pictures or evidence. It seems therefore that the author of the article inserted the title owing to feeling some pressure - perceived or explicit - that the pictures would not be published unless there was some link to global warming. This is neither good science nor good editorial policy. I am disappointed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Jebigbie,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Beautiful though these pictures are I fail to see how they make or support by themselves any case for global warming given that they only show one point in time... If the point of the article was to show lovely pictures, the title should reflect this. If on the other hand the point of the article was to highlight the impact of climate change, the article should contain some supporting pictures or evidence."
This article is a adjunct to another article that appears in this May's issue of Scientific American on page 66. This is mentioned and hyperlinked in the story that accompanies these photos.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=arctic-plants-feel-the-heat
"It seems therefore that the author of the article inserted the title owing to feeling some pressure - perceived or explicit - that the pictures would not be published unless there was some link to global warming."
Their is a link to Global Warming you just need to READ the article instead of looking at the pretty pictures and the headlines.
BTW, have you ever seen the World Glacier Monitoring Services preliminary report for 2007/2008? No? Here take a look:
http://www.wgms.ch/mbb/sum08.html
FTA:
"The average mass balance of the glaciers with available long-term observation series around the world continues to decrease, with tentative figures indicating a further thickness reduction of 0.5 metres water equivalent (m w.e.) during the hydrological year 2007/08. The new data continues the global trend in strong ice loss over the past few decades and brings the cumulative average thickness loss of the reference glaciers since 1980 at about 12 m w.e. (see Figures 1 and 2). All so far reported mass balance values, given in Table 3, are tentative."
I was up in Alaska working just a while ago. It has become so damn ugly with all the warming. Really, with all the beautiful glaciers gone, the whole damh land is getting covered with trees, plants and animals...and you know those animals will just poop on everything and make it even uglier..I know, I know, who'd have thought it was possible to look even uglier. It makes me so mad when I see how fuggin' ugly Glacier National Park is now that its glaciers are gone. Just thinkin' of Alaska lookin' that pathetic makes me physically ill. I won't be surprised if people stop going to places like that...it would serve us right. There's no point now in even going up there to visit now that the place is almost destroyed by warming. I don't know how the animals stand it up there, on top of how the state pays everyone to fly over it and shoot all the wolves and bears and walrus...it's terrible. Thank goodness we have some photos taken from before the days when there was color...hey! Maybe the invention of color in film produced so much greenhouse gas that it caused the glaciers to melt all away to mud and muck and mosquitoes with malaria. I wouldn't be surprised. We are such a miserable species. Is there nothing we do that even is any good? We suck. Terrible, simply terrible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHave a nice day.
Shorter Doug I
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEverything will be so much prettier than before that no one one will mind that glacial run off dependent areas of the Earth such as California and South Asia can not sustain agriculture at their current output.
@Trent1492, seriously? The World Glacier Monitoring Service is showing mass-balance data on 90 glaciers? 90? That's it? Is that supposed to be representative of the roughly 100,000 glaciers worldwide? That works out to...lemme see...divide 90 by...then multiply by 100...oh yeah: 0.09%. Nine hundredths of one percent of the world's glaciers have mass-balance data that extends beyond just a few years and we're supposed to read that report and wring our hands over global warming? I don't think so. But you illustrated beautifully one of the major problems with global-warming alarmism: not enough data to draw definitive conclusions. Oh, and the other great problem with global warming alarmism is a profound lack of perspective. Warming is a much better thing than cooling. For example, Minnesota, Michigan, and New York are eminently more habitable now than they were during the Ice Age when they were covered in a mile of ice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Trent1492, playing around with the numbers posted on the World Glacier Monitoring Service's website, I find that for 2007/2008 the net mass balance of the two largest groups of glaciers (Norway, USA) is significantly POSITIVE, not negative. What's up with that? Is that supposed to worry us about global warming? Oh wait, I get it. You were being ironic. Sorry, I get the joke now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI guess most people don't realize that glacier mass-balance is affected by several factors like annual precipitation (and droughts), humidity, local weather patterns and ocean currents...oh, and temperature.
It is already well known that scientists are arrogant when they purport that humans have contributed to the recent changes in climate. Amongst the most arrogant of humans, let me point out some of scientists' more sickening examples. (I won't even dignify the topic of Evilution by mentioning it).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have read in a book that some scientists have claimed that humans are responsible for some of the extinctions of plants and animals. What a sad and arrogant claim.
No, this is not at all all. There are a few scientists - with their heads up in the clouds - that have insisted that humans have something to do with the increased population of our species through the development of medical and pharmaceutical sciences. The arrogance of these people. (And I also suspect they think they know more about these subjects than I do!).
Some of these stuck-up guys even think humans had something to do with the green revolution - that us humans were behind it! Imagine that, all the extra mouths to bless the Lord's name are here today, so they claim, because some humans figured out how to make fertilizer. Again I say "arrogant".
My life is infinitely touched by science, but some of it I just find too pompous. No, that's not the word. Arrogant. Yes, that's the one. Don't listen to the scientists and their arrogance. God made the internet and he is going to send this message and stop the arrogance as soon as I finish writing this. Full. Stop.
Another real posability is that, with several known (and how many unknown?) mechaisms which cause positive feedback (snowball effect - like pushing a snow ball off the top of a slope and it gets going on it's own and grows as it speeds down the slope) that we cause the earth to literally, become so hot as to destroy all life. One such effect that is happening now and was not know a few years ago is the release of more greenhouse gas (methane - many, many tons of it) with the thawing of the permafrost in Siberia. The earh is not that different from Venus is size and in how much energy is recieves from the sun. I'ts hot enough to melt lead and no life can exist there DUE TO IT'S GREENHOUSE EFFECTIVE ATMOUSPHERE.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe may, well, be on a stable shelf with the possability that we could push it over the slope - never to return. I say these are possbilities becuase we know we are warming the climate and we don't and, too often, can't understand nature's complexity except in hind sight. Oh well. Gotta preserve those jobs !
Shorter Laurena:Even though 92% of glaciers are reporting a negative mass balance and that the population as a whole has not reported a positive mass balance of any kind has not been reported in 20 years I am going to concentrate on the 8% that do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLaurena Cherry Picker Extraordinaire.
@ Laurena
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"..., seriously? The World Glacier Monitoring Service is showing mass-balance data on 90 glaciers? 90? That's it? Is that supposed to be representative of the roughly 100,000 glaciers worldwide? That works out to...lemme see...divide 90 by...then multiply by 100...oh yeah: 0.09%."
You may want to investigate this thing called statistics, it enables a sample size to tells us something about a population of as a whole.
However, since you will inevitably disagree, I urge you to submit a peer reviewed article to the appropriate journal laying out your objections. When can I expect to see you published?
"I guess most people don't realize that glacier mass-balance is affected by several factors like annual precipitation (and droughts), humidity, local weather patterns and ocean currents...oh, and temperature."
Have you informed the professional Glaciologist of these findings? I mean here they are studying these natural phenomena after having taking courses in calculus, physics, chemistry, statistics, geology, geophysics, and then making a positive contribution to the science via earning a Ph.D. I am positive you have insights that never crossed their minds before. /s
I have just two questions: Why is it you seem utterly ignorant of the difference between weather and climate? Why is it you are ignorant of the concept of what a trend means?
Hambone.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"One such effect that is happening now and was not know a few years ago is the release of more greenhouse gas (methane - many, many tons of it) with the thawing of the permafrost in Siberia. The earh is not that different from Venus is size and in how much energy is recieves from the sun. I'ts hot enough to melt lead and no life can exist there DUE TO IT'S GREENHOUSE EFFECTIVE ATMOUSPHERE. "
Isn't Venus not only different in compostion, but a HELLUVA lot CLOSER to the Sun than the Earth? It seems to me that methane is not the only culprit in Venus's "heat wave."
Before global warming everything was in black and white. afterward its all in color. CO2 can do some miraculous things!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs CO2 increases it will be fascinating to watch the increase in plant growth and animal life. From frozen tundra to lush meadows. I have 124 acres of timber and hope to see an early harvest in decades future because of the free fertilizer called CO2. Hopefully all the non-CO2 aerosols being emitted by East Asia (40 billion pounds per year according to NASA) won't damage my forest.
“It’s all over, Earth can’t be saved by Man, no matter what we do”, so says Professor Lovelock, founder of the Gaia Theory that presumes Earth is a single organism. In an amazing March 30, BBC interview http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8594000/8594561.stm, he said scientists ,”have moved from investigating nature as a vocation, to being caught in a career path where it makes sense to "fudge the data"”, something he said was also done with CFC ozone studies. And “while renewable energy technology may make good business sense, he says, it is not based on "good practical engineering"” He discusses the European alternative energy mandates and exclaims that “they’re not really going to work”. Professor Lovelock “predicts, the earth's climate will not conveniently comply with the models of modern climate scientists. As the record winter cold testifies, he says, global temperatures move in "jerks and jumps", and we cannot confidently predict what the future holds.” He goes on to say “we can only hope that the earth will take care of itself in the face of completely unpredictable climate change”. I like this last part. “And whether the planet saves itself or not, he argues, all we can do is to "enjoy life while you can"”. The article provides video clip links to the interview for you skeptics.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut the article highlights what many of us have been saying, the “crisis” of climate change is political, not scientific. It is used as a tool to wrest control over life styles, industry, the economy, and our freedoms. Yes we should be careful with our environment but keep environmentalism in focus. The Earth is going to do what the Earth is going to do. We are along for the ride.
Carbon soot has been found to cause over half the melting of glaciers and ice fields. Global warming gases are less than half. And if you want to see the effects of glacier melting go to Jasper NP in Alberta and see the markers of 400 years of glacier retreat on the Columbia glacier. Yes, 400 years, (before SUVs).
Want to reduce methane AND make jobs? Reverse Congressional progressive policy of not allowing the removal of biomass from national forests. Biomass rots and turns into methane. Using it for fuel converts it directly into CO2.
HOUSTON, Texas -- 43% of all global warming deniers surveyed were convinced that they had three tits. The survey found a slight difference between men and women with 48% of women being convinced while only 38% of men cared either way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUpon further investigation, scientists found that oil company propaganda was the cause of the tit perception discrepancy. People who were convinced that they had three tits were mesmerized by advertisements that caused them to forget the number 2. When subsequently asked to count their tits, they counted 1, 3.
@Reality Check,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince you have become a sudden fan of James Lovelock I thought we could look at some other very recent BBC Lovelock Interviews.
"Lovelock: Yes. I do believe it’ll get a lot worse. *YOU CAN'T PUT SOMETHING LIKE A TRILLION TONS OF CARBON DIOXIDE INTO THE ATMOSPHERE WITHOUT SOMETHING NASTY HAPPENING. It’s happened in the past in the earth’s history as a result of geological accidents. And always it’s followed by a rise in temperature of about five to eight degrees Celsius. So why should we expect to escape if we do the same thing? Moreover, the sun is putting out more heat now than it was back then. "
http://perpetual-lab.blogspot.com/2010/03/james-lovelock-transcript-of-radio.html
Do I need to cite the part where he thinks that 7/8ths of the human population will die during the crisis?
"But the article highlights what many of us have been saying, the “crisis” of climate change is political, not scientific. It is used as a tool to wrest control over life styles, industry, the economy, and our freedoms."
I do wonder though if you could help up figure out who is behind the this vast conspiracy to "wrest control over life styles, industry, the economy, and our freedoms". The Masons, the Club of Rome, Muslims, Atheist, Communist, Socialist? Who? What evidence do you have that the world's scientist have been engaged in world wide conspiracy for a century?
BTW, Reality Check that whole stolen E-mail manufactured controversy has been found to be nothing but a propaganda tool for the fossil fuel industry.
I do wish you would read the article before you commented upon it. If you had then you would have discovered that article also contains a report of the "browning" of the more southern taiga.
"Carbon soot has been found to cause over half the melting of glaciers and ice fields. Global warming gases are less than half. And if you want to see the effects of glacier melting go to Jasper NP in Alberta and see the markers of 400 years of glacier retreat on the Columbia glacier. Yes, 400 years, (before SUVs). "
You do not even realize how you have contradicted yourself do you? First you insist that glaciers are melting because of anthropogenic soot ( mostly true) then you turn around and say that the glaciers are melting because of natural cycles. Do you ever stop to think?
How is soot making the tundra more green? How is soot browning the more southern taiga?
*Emphasis add
:When subsequently asked to count their tits, they counted 1, 3."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLOL!
@Trent1492, I guess if your argument is weak on its merits, the next thing to do is attack the person criticizing your argument--me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou don't need scientific credentials to be able to use logic to analyze articles and data. No need for me to submit a peer-reviewed article on glaciers because others have already done it. You just happened to pick a study that favored your viewpoint, despite its obvious limitations.
If you haven't figured it out yet, especially after the recent East Anglia and IPCC scandals, "scientists" are not immune from personal bias especially about controversial topics like anthropogenic global warming. That includes glaciologists. Regardless of their belief in the legitimacy of their conclusions, the data say otherwise...or rather, the data set is so small as to be unreliable for extrapolating to other regions, much less the entire globe.
If the net mass balance of glaciers in Norway and the USA are increasing, though they are decreasing elsewhere, how do you stand by the statement that glaciers worldwide are shrinking, especially when all you have is data on about 90 glaciers of the 100,000 or so on earth? You don't. Unless your bias overwhelms your critical thinking skills. A "good" scientist would simply say (and many do) "further study is indicated." That's why we put satellites up to get better information on a global scale.
I'll bet pretty much every glaciologist understands that glacier mass is affected by--as I already pointed out but you struggle to accept--precipitation, humidity, droughts, temperature and other factors.
So in words adapted to the lay mind:
Glaciers lose mass every summer because of seasonal warming and melting. They gain mass as new snow accumulates on the glacier. If it snows less due to a drought, the net mass balance will be negative because more glacier is melting than is being replaced by new snow. The glacier recedes, or becomes smaller if you like. In some areas, precipitation is the bigger factor, in others like Antarctica where there is very little precipitation, temperatures are the bigger factor.
Trend: what you extract from statistical data by cherry-picking the data set.
Climate: what you claim is changing in dramatic and unprecedented ways because you found "trends" in your cherry-picked data.
The link you helpfully provided to the World Glacier Monitoring Service's website shows that for 2007/2008 about a third of glaciers have increased in mass. That's roughly 32% or 32 of 100 or 9 of 28, take your pick. I'm not sure where you get 8% and 92%. Of course that also means that two-thirds of the glaciers are receding. Again, that's about 90 glaciers out of 100,000 and the study period is extremely limited. Only a few glaciers of that 90 have data beyond a decade. To say that those few glaciers measured over such a limited period of time is representative of a century-long trend over the entire globe is amusing to say the least.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Trent1492, I need to correct one thing. In the article you referenced, long-term data is available on only a few glaciers. However in the world inventory, there are more than that. You can double-check by looking up the references in the article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf the 160,000 glaciers in the world, mass balance data for more than a year or two exists for only 200+ glaciers. If you want mass balance data for more than 10 years, there are only 42 glaciers.
Of the 18 glaciers with the longest record, almost 80% have a negative mass balance but the trend is toward less negative. In other words, they are losing less mass each year.
All of this is consistent with the fact that glaciers have been losing mass since the end of the Ice Age. It says nothing about man-made global warming.
In fact many of the articles referenced on the World Glacier Monitoring Service website say exactly that: there is not enough data to draw any conclusion on trends, much less on man-made global warming.
@ Laurena,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"You don't need scientific credentials to be able to use logic to analyze articles and data. No need for me to submit a peer-reviewed article on glaciers because others have already done it. You just happened to pick a study that favored your viewpoint, despite its obvious limitations."
I am sorry Laurena but expressions of incredulity do not a argument make.
"If you haven't figured it out yet, especially after the recent East Anglia and IPCC scandals, ....."
What you mean to say is the manufactured scandals that have not turned up jack. Keep on parroting those lines.
"...scientists" are not immune from personal bias especially about controversial topics like anthropogenic global warming. That includes glaciologists."
Oh, so now the glaciologist are biased now. Do you have primary evidence for this? What global survey of glacial mass balance do you have that says otherwise?
"Regardless of their belief in the legitimacy of their conclusions, the data say otherwise...or rather, the data set is so small as to be unreliable for extrapolating to other regions, much less the entire globe."
I am sorry but your declarations do not make it so. I keep on asking you if you have ever heard of that field of inquiry called statistics and you continue to maintain a peculiar silence. I wonder why?
"If the net mass balance of glaciers in Norway and the USA are increasing, though they are decreasing elsewhere, how do you stand by the statement that glaciers worldwide are shrinking, especially when all you have is data on about 90 glaciers of the 100,000 or so on earth? You don't."
While you were cherry picking that web site did you notice that the survey was GLOBAL? I do not know if you know this or not but the globe is larger that Norway or the USA?
You keep on rabbiting on about a too small size. Yet, you fail to realize that statistics enables us to make judgments about a population without having to survey the entire population. So once again when are you going to publish in a peer reviewed paper your "findings"?
'"ll bet pretty much every glaciologist understands that glacier mass is affected by--as I already pointed out but you struggle to accept--precipitation, humidity, droughts, temperature and other factors."
Where have I said otherwise? Do you always attack strawman positions? What an incredibly vacant tactic to try.
I want to keep on pointing something out to you. The past thirty years have show a steady loss of glacial mass balance. No matter how much you scream otherwise.
Laurena Says: Trend: what you extract from statistical data by cherry-picking the data set.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo it is not. Try again. Tell me are you going to keep on displaying this willful ignorance?
Laurena Says: Climate: what you claim is changing in dramatic and unprecedented ways because you found "trends" in your cherry-picked data.
Why is it you refuse the answer the questions? You seem utterly ignorant of the fact that climate is not defined arbitrarily. Oh, I forgot that for you to take how professionals define a subject of their expertise seriously would undermine your ideological talking points. Forgive me. Please carry on with the ignorance.
So once again Laurena why are you so uninformed about even such a concept as climate?
"The link you helpfully provided to the World Glacier Monitoring Service's website shows that for 2007/2008 about a third of glaciers have increased in mass."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI keep on asking if you know the difference between weather and climate and what a trend is.
If you knew the difference you would realize that a TREND is not decided on a single data point. If you had looked at the data as WHOLE you would understand that you are looking at a GLOBAL sample.
If you understood how climate is defined then you would stop with making the egregious error of looking at a single year or two and know that that trend of the last thirty years has been for the WORLD'S glaciers to shrink.
But you refuse to acknowledge these facts and this is why you look like a ideologue for whom no amount of facts is going to change their stance. A pity really.
@Trent1492, I guess you don't understand the difference between an argument about conclusions and an argument about arguing. You're arguing about arguing and I'm not interested in pursuing that because it tells us nothing other than who knows more about arguing or who has a stronger and/or less-informed, opinion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI keep referring to the link you provided. I'll re-iterate. The references in your own link point out that there is not enough data to make meaningful statements about worldwide glacier mass trends, which in turn means there is not enough data (from glaciers) to make a conclusive statement about human contributions to global warming.
I live in Alaska and things are still just like these pictures! I think global warming is a bunch of crap; yes there is climate change but it's meant to be. How can people think WE are the cause of this? The big scheme of things is so large that I don't believe we are capable of such dramatic change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI live in Alaska and things are still just like these pictures! I think global warming is a bunch of crap; yes there is climate change but it's meant to be. How can people think WE are the cause of this? The big scheme of things is so large that I don't believe we are capable of such dramatic change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI live in Alaska and things are still just like these pictures! I think global warming is a fraud; yes there is climate change but it's meant to be. How can people think WE are the cause of this? The big scheme of things is so large that I don't believe we are capable of such dramatic change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow that you have hung yourself with sufficient amount of rope allow me to quote from the World Glacier Monitoring Services 2000-2005 report ( the 2005-2010 report is not due for a little while yet).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrom the report:
It comprises information about changes in glacier length,
mass, area, volume and thickness from 723 glaciers of 27 countries/regions, as well as 21 special events and 10 glaciological maps.
III http://www.wgms.ch/fog/fog9.pdf
Is that a big enough sample size for you? I also recall something about the World Glacier Monitoring Service making no judgments? So can you help me out here and explain the following quotes then?
Strong acceleration of glacier melting characterized the first fi ve-year period of the 21st century. Rates of mass loss-
es (-0.60 m w.e.) of the 30 ‘reference’ glaciers with (almost) continuous measurements since 1976 more than doubled the mean value observed during the two preceding decades
1980–2000 (-0.29 m w.e.). The average annual mass loss of 0.58 m water equivalent (w.e.) for the decade 1996–2005 is more than twice the loss rate during the period 1986–1995
(-0.25 m w.e.), and more than four times the rate of the period 1976–1985 (-0.14 m w.e.). The mean of the 30 ‘reference’ glaciers is influenced by the great number of Alpine and Scandinavian glaciers but closely corresponds to the mean value calculated using only one single (in some places averaged) value for each of the involved mountain ranges and can be considered representative for all measured mass balances according to analysis
using various statistic aproaches. While 34% of the reference glaciers had an overall positive balance during 1976–1995, only two (7%) of them had an overall mass gain over the past decade (1996–2005). This indicates that glacier shrinkage not only becomes faster but also more spatially uniform. Further analysis requires detailed consideration of such aspects as glacier sensitivity and feedback mechanisms.
Ibid Page 71.
Hold it! I can hear you now complaining that they said nothing about these changes being anthropogenic. Well, let us just mosey on down to the next page see what they got say.
"Because unchanged climatic conditions would cause mass balances to approach zero values, constant non-zero mass balances reflect continued climatic forcing. The observed trend of increasingly negative mass balances is consistent with accelerated global warming and correspondingly enhanced energy flux towards the earth surface."
Fancy that! That 34% measured over a longer period drops down to 7%. Now you know.
Monkey butlers? Perhaps one of them will be called Caesar and talk like Roddy McDowall?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMonkey butlers? Maybe one of them will be named Caesar and speak like Roddy McDowall?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowcome, whenever climate change gets brought up all ya'll go weird, even the sensible ones.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's like people driving in the rain, they just go weird!
Nature is balanced, anything that gets added artificially, upsets that balance, which in nature is never beneficial to the living organisms within that ecology. (Except for rapidly developing micro-organisms, which we are not.)
Just like on a balance scale, adding just 1 gram will tilt the scales, it's common sense.
@Squish,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour entire argument is one long logical fallacy known as the Argument from Incredulity. Really, just because you find something unbelievable does not mean it is not true.
What really scares me is that temperature remains constant during phase changes (melting of ice) but once that process is complete temperature shoots up like a rocket.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnless we do something to curb global warming we are in for a world of hurt.
I and my friends have lived in and near Wiseman Alaska the last couple decades. I think many people there would love see or possibly print copies of any of the photos that are of the local area. I was pained to read when the archivist said he was preparing to throw them away, without even thinking the local communities would want them, especially when for people in the Arctic, there are few records. In the article you wrote you had recieved 6000 photos, I don;t know if any covered the wiseman area or if you have digitized them all in the study or just selected images, etc. But it can't hurt to ask f they might be digitized and available on-line. Most folks in Wiseman have internet access now, or I can bring prints when I go back to visit (I have land in Delta Junction, now).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthanks
Brian
I am not convinced that Man has done anything wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Theologians say that God created Man in his image.
Therefore Man must being doing what God wants.
I admit that Theology is something I don't know
about as well as some of you do.
Please advise if I have got this right.
Thank you in advance.
Having worked for a statistical research company for several years and helped "normalize" data by discarding everything that didn't fit our previous conclusions I can honestly say that statistics don't impress me much. A .09%, .03% or .7% sample is statistically meaningless. This is why more research is required. That and the glaciologists don't want to starve.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn an independent survey of my coworkers I discovered that 2.2% of the surveyed population think the statistics debate by Trent1492 and Laurenra7 is seriously flawed and silly with both sides misrepresenting things. I have the highest % in the stats I quote so I win!
I just want to state that I support global warming. Not the theory mind you, I want the globe warmer. Yeh, I'm a monster. So what? Get over it. If 4 billion people die there is that much more for the rest of us.
P.S. Any thing humans do is natural because we are part of the ecosystem too. We are just animals. Animals with souls, opposible thumbs and slightly different brains but animals indeed.
I see we have another one of those internet "experts" here on hand. So Bucket of Squid, since you have claimed expertise: show us your credentials. Where did you graduate from? What was the name of the statistical research company that you worked at? I would never normally ask this of somebody but since you have made it part of your argument...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"A .09%, .03% or .7% sample is statistically meaningless."
I wonder how modern statisticians derive accurate number then from say a population of 300 million people with under 2100 respondents?
"I just want to state that I support global warming. Not the theory mind you, I want the globe warmer. Yeh, I'm a monster. So what?"
Thanks for the confirmation that you are a troll.
"P.S. Any thing humans do is natural because we are part of the ecosystem too. We are just animals. Animals with souls, opposible thumbs and slightly different brains but animals indeed."
Well then, since beating small children is a natural act then you must have any problems with beating them. Are you writing this from jail?
Great news! We're not killing the planet after all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt will still be here.
Manufactured scandals? It was the IPCC that reported to the U.N. that the Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2050, was that a manufactured lie? Or was it sensational alarmism? Also was it not the President of the IPCC that went even further and swindled large sums of money from many countries to investigate this "manufactured phenomena" in his home town? How convenient.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo you have any data before 1976? If not, then it is weather you are talking about and not climate.
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