Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Disappearing Glaciers...

Thank you Richard P.

dmatt

I'm surprised they didn't grow this year, some glaciers in alaska that have not grown in 250 years grew this year.

Most Alaskan Glaciers Retreating, Thinning, and Stagnating, Says Major USGS Report

I find this bit of information hard to believe, they started largely melting at the coldest period in the last 5000 years?

Always found it fascinating that some advance and some retreat even when virtually next to each other.

Example would be most of the glaciers in Glacier Bay are retreating, while just north of the bay;s upper end you have Hubbard Glacier advancing like a relative race horse.

PC aside, without the retreating, we would not have Yosemite Valley, etc, etc.

Also interesting to compare Glacier Bay from maps of the first French navigators (1700's) to John Muir's notes, to present. Glacier Bay takes a few hours for a cruise ship to get to the top. One of my charts shows the bay almost filled in as far as its entrance at Icy Stait when the French first charted it.

Hubbard is advancing, and not that many years ago formed an ice dam that for a while threatened villages up river, etc. Also required ships to remain up to 4 miles away at one point in case that dam broke (it finally did, but could easily happen again.

Warm Regards, Keith

Now that was a stupid comment "disappearing in our life time" by Dr. Daniel Fager in the film clip.

The world's glaciers have been disappearing for a long time, at least since the end of the last ice age.

For those Global Warming Alarmist out there, don't fear, according to recent data, the earth has been in a mean surface temperatures downward trend for the last 8 years. Click here to read more. http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/scarewatch/really_cooling.pdf

So there's hope yet for those glaciers in the park.


hiiker

Do keep in mind that global average temperature is calculated the old-fashioned way, by looking at thermometers that are scattered throughout the world. A fair number of the thermometers are in Siberia--understandable, given the size of that area. When the Soviet Union closed up shop in 1991, the agencies responsible for gathering data from the Siberian thermometers also went home for the evening. In the years since, therefore, the world's average temperature has been calculated without the data from one of the world's coldest regions. This means the post-1991 uptick in the above graph is a reflection of data coming only from warmer areas. It does not properly reflect the fact that the global average temperature actually has been declining for more than a decade.

Actually, the situation in Siberia is much more interesting than some disappearing thermometers (see also this). It has been getting more study, not less. If you left out Siberian temperature measurements in recent years, you would get an anomalously low estimate of average temperature rather than an anomalously high one.

That chart is inaccurate in important ways but unfortunately after doing some searching I am unable to find a detailed one.

It's hard to find accurate sources for temperatures anymore, NASA has been caught twice recently having completely false data showing way hotter temperatures then there really was and once pointed out by amateurs they corrected the mistake.

That chart shows warming after 1998 which there has been none and also the amount of cooling that has occurred in 2008 alone has nearly dropped us back to the levels of the 19th century.

The last thing I really want to get into is a global warming debate though because this thing has become a cult movement and most people don't do any research at all into the subject, they probably don't even know anything about the sun spot activity lately.

The reality is it's a scam to push for global taxation and more social control / regulation of peoples lives, mean while the good people of the environmental movement are tricked into the need to stop global warming when there are countless real environmental issues we need to deal with.

Anyone recall the big scare in the 1970's about how global cooling was going to kill us all?

No, but I do remember Meathead being chastised by Archie for bringing up the subject of CFCs and its effect on the environment.

Seems to me that climate change is making things worse for me, in that there are far fewer early season storms in the Sierra compared to a few decades ago.

I agree that this is not the forum for a global warming debate. I will comment that the vast majority of scientists who actually study the atmosphere and climate, regardless of political persuasion, agree that warming is real. I also can't resist dealing with the following canard:
There was never a big scare, although the idea did make it as a Newsweek cover story at one point. What actually happened is that some scientists became concerned over the possibility of serious long-term cooling. There was a flurry of research into the matter and it turned out to be a false alarm. This was an example of perfectly responsible behavior on the part of the scientific community. In science, one investigates ideas, throws out the ones that don't pan out and keeps the ones that do. The idea of global warming due to an enhanced greenhouse effect (and we would not be here without the greenhouse effect) predates the global cooling hypothesis by many decades and has outlasted it by several.

Now here's a thread worthy of Summitpost. I thought this board had higher standards.

Well they were worried when there was 40 years of cooling just as some are worried that there has now been 20 years of warming.

As you can see, it allows snide comments.

We both seem to agree that this is not the place for a global warming discussion, but someone needs to have the last word. I'd be happy to let it be you.

So, what's the meaning of "RoguePhotonic"? An actual reference to optical rogue waves?

lol I don't care about last words, I don't have an ego to want it

No the name is quite old for me now - Rogue is my other name in person, I almost changed my name officially to Rogue but because they don't make it easy to do so I never have.

And as for Photonic - off and on through my life I have wondered if we all live in a simulated word (not like the matrix) :P so in light of those thoughts I meant Photonic as in hologram.

Rogue hologram or a Rogue hologram :P

Now if we could possibly get further off topic let me know

agreed

Cool.