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Sore Throat
Joined: 01 Sep 2000
Posts: 1802
Location: x |
 Wed Dec 17, 2003 4:41 am
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"War is peace" George Orwell
Some more erroneous, misleading stories from the world's press:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20031216/sc_afp/un_climate_year_031216181251
2003 third warmest year yet as global warming continues
GENEVA (AFP) - Global warming (news - web sites) continued through 2003 as Europe's hottest summer on record helped fuel the third warmest year on record worldwide, international weather experts at the UN said.
The UN's World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said in its annual statement on the global climate that the rising average temperatures helped generate exceptional drought, floods, hurricanes and typhoons.
Meanwhile, global insurers counted the cost of the impact of extreme weather, as storm damage accounted for eight billion dollars in damage claims in 2003, according to one of the world's largest re-insurance companies, SwissRe.
"This year was very warm but it was not the warmest ever, very probably it will be in third place among the warmest years," said Michel Jarraud, deputy secretary general of the WMO.
"Temperatures since 1976 have progressed three times more than during the 20th century, so the rate of increase in temperatures is accelerating," he added.
The global average temperature this year was expected to have risen by 0.45 degrees Celsius by the end of December, WMO said.
The warmest year so far was recorded in 1998, with a rise of 0.55 degrees Celsius in global temperatures, capping the warmest century in the millennium, according to the agency, which groups the world's national weather forecasters.
The second warmest was 2002.
Average temperatures rose more sharply in the northern hemisphere in 2003 than in the southern hemisphere, with unprecedented highs in western Europe over the summer, WMO found.
"In France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Britain and Spain, there were an estimated 21,000 deaths linked to this heatwave, so it was really something exceptional," Jarraud told journalists.
The heat also melted glaciers in Europe's mountain ranges twice as fast as the record set in 1998, while the Arctic ice pack shrank in September, approaching the record low of 5.3 million square kilometres (2.2 square miles) set in 2002, WNMO said.
But Europe's weather was matched by heatwaves in parts of the United States including Alaska, Canada, parts of China, Russia, and Africa as well as unusually intense heat in the Indian subcontinent before the monsoon season.
There were more typhoons, cyclones and hurricanes than average in the Pacific and Atlantic regions, although the pattern matched an increase recorded since the 1990s, WMO said.
SwissRe reported in preliminary estimates released Tuesday that storms accounted for the bulk of the 15 billion dollars in damages caused by natural catastorphes.
The five most costly disasters during 2003 happened in the United States and Canada, and they were all weather-related, it added in a statement. Each led to claims of more than one billion dollars.
They included a record series of 400 tornadoes that ravaged the US Mid-West in May and Hurricane Isabel which swept into the northeastern US and Canadian province of Ontario in September, while wildfires raged in California a month later.
"Global warming is likely to lead to more frequent extreme events and... to more intense extreme events, but that doesn't mean climate change is an explanation of any particular extreme," Jarraud commented.
The exceptional weather conditions also triggered unusually cold weather in the Gulf state of Oman, parts of Asia around Japan, and Russia where temperatures plunged to minus 45 degrees Celsius during the winter.
The extreme temperatures helped generate floods and drought in several parts of the world, including the United States and China.
The WMO also blamed the heat for triggering massive bushfires in Australia which burnt for 59 days in January and February.
Yet the shifting weather patterns also brought welcome respite from long standing drought for some.
Rain and snowfall ended four years of drought in Afghanistan (news - web sites), filling water reservoirs that had been dry for years, while the Sahel region of the Sahara desert, once the scene of famine, experienced record rainfall.
The WMO's data on annual temperature change is based on an average of temperatures between 1961 and 1990, which is used as a reference.
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Edufer
Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 198
Location: Malagueno, Cordoba, Argentina |
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Wed Dec 17, 2003 7:42 pm
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quote:
by Throatie: “Some more erroneous, misleading stories from the world's press:”
You said it. More “science by press releases”. Typical junk science. This must be a joke!
quote:
GENEVA (AFP) - Global warming (news - web sites) continued through 2003 as Europe's hottest summer on record helped fuel the third warmest year on record worldwide, international weather experts at the UN said.
Russia is part of Europe, as central Europe is. Romania, Bulgaria, etc., where temperatures were WELL BELOW NORMAL for the summer. Misinformation, misinformation, tch, tch.
quote:
The UN's World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said in its annual statement on the global climate that the rising average temperatures helped generate exceptional drought, floods, hurricanes and typhoons.
The temperature observations since 1979 are in dispute. On the one hand, surface observations with conventional thermometers show a rise of about 0.1°C per decade, less than half that predicted by most GCMs. On the other hand, satellite data, as well as independent data from balloon-borne radiosondes, show no warming trend between 1979 and 1997 in the lower troposphere, and could even indicate a slight cooling [Christy and Spencer, 1999].
Direct temperature measurements on Greenland ice cores show a cooling trend between 1940 and 1995 [Dahl-Jensen et al., 1998]. It is likely therefore that the surface data are contaminated by the warming effects of "urban heat islands." Some data support this hypothesis [Goodridge, 1996], others do not [Peterson et al., 1999].
While it is certainly true that human life is affected by temperatures at the surface, the GCMs are best validated by observations in the troposphere. It should be noted also that GCMs predict a warming trend that increases with altitude up to about 250 millibars (~12 km), rising to about 0.5°C per decade [Tett et al., 1996] -- in clear disagreement with all observations, whether from the surface, balloons, or satellites.None of the climate models incorporate the effects of a variable Sun. It has always been assumed that solar variability is simply too small, but this view is now changing. Even if the radiative forcing from changes in solar irradiance is less than that from GHGs, the variability of the Sun in the ultraviolet is much greater. Evidence is now forthcoming that UV-caused variations of the ozone layer or changes in solar particulate emissions ("solar wind") could (indirectly) influence atmospheric circulation or cloudiness - which in turn can cause significant climate changes [Svensmark and Friis-Christensen, 1997]. Climate models generally do not incorporate the large surface albedo changes that have come about through land-clearing for agriculture and, more recently, through reforestation in some parts of the world.
Even though the models are not yet validated as far as temperature trends are concerned, some human influences on climate are already noticeable. Observations indicate that the diurnal temperature range has been decreasing in the Northern Hemisphere and perhaps in the Southern Hemisphere as well [Karl et al., 1991]. These could be traced to possible increases in aerosols or cloudiness. There is evidence also for winter warming, but not yet for the expected warming at high latitudes predicted by the climate models. On the other hand, observed
stratospheric cooling appears in line with what one might expect from the increase in CO2, as well as from the ongoing depletion of ozone [Ramaswamy et al., 1996]. Yet until General Circulation Model climate sensitivity is validated, one cannot accept the predictions of large future temperature increases.
Impacts of Climate Change
If the climate were to change according to model predictions, one would expect to see fewer severe storms, in view of the reduced temperature gradient between the tropics and high latitudes. Model calculations do not indicate an increase of hurricanes, El Nino events, or other kinds of climate oscillations. The empirical evidence displayed in the IPCC Report shows a decline in hurricanes over the last fifty years in both frequency and intensity [IPCC, 1996, p. 170]; a future warming is not expected to affect frequency or intensity appreciably [Henderson-Sellers et al. 1998]. Observations on El Nino events are not conclusive as yet.
With respect to sea-level rise, it has been assumed, conventionally, that a warming will increase the rate of rise, because of the thermal expansion of ocean water and the melting of mountain glaciers. Certainly, when viewed on a millennial scale, sea level has been rising steadily. But when examined on a decadal scale, which is more appropriate to human intervention, sea-level rise is found to slow during periods of temperature increases, for example, during the temperature rise from 1900 to 1940 [Singer, 1997]. Evidently, increased evaporation, linked to warming, results in increased accumulation of ice in the polar regions, thereby lowering sea level. This conclusion seems to be backed by direct observation of ice accumulation, as well as by some modeling studies. A future modest warming should therefore slow down, not accelerate the ongoing rise of sea levels.
Following the publication of the IPCC report in 1996, an increasing number of researchers have adopted the view that much or most of the pre-1940 warming is due to natural causes and represents a recovery from the Little Ice Age. Some would assign a substantial portion to greenhouses gases [Wigley, Jones, and Raper, 1997]. Others claim that most of the temperature increase is caused by solar variability [Soon et al., 1996]. If one applies the "fingerprint" criterion used by the IPCC, then it can be seen from their Figure 8.10 [IPCC, 1996, p.433] that the pattern correlation has a negative trend during the major warming between 1900 and 1940, thereby denying the existence of an appreciable human contribution.
Perhaps the strongest argument against an appreciable human contribution comes from the observed cooling between 1940 and 1975, and the lack of warming since 1979 (in the weather balloon and satellite data). |
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Edufer
Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 198
Location: Malagueno, Cordoba, Argentina |
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Wed Dec 17, 2003 8:37 pm
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quote:
The exceptional weather conditions also triggered unusually cold weather in the Gulf state of Oman, parts of Asia around Japan, and Russia where temperatures plunged to minus 45 degrees Celsius during the winter.
The extreme temperatures helped generate floods and drought in several parts of the world, including the United States and China.
This is preposterous! It equates to: If you want to have ice cubes for your whiskey, then boil water in your kettle! Idiotic statements like "global warming is causing cold spells" plague the IPCC junk science!
quote:
The WMO also blamed the heat for triggering massive bushfires in Australia which burnt for 59 days in January and February…
The WMO's data on annual temperature change is based on an average of temperatures between 1961 and 1990, which is used as a reference.
See the average temperatures used by the WMO. NOAA's Satellite records – draw your own conclusions.
Do we see an upward trend here?
About Australia fires. Here is a contribution to this board on such subject, by John Daly, our correspondent in Australia:
Extreme events like droughts, floods and bushfires are nothing new, contrary to what the AGO and the IPCC would have the public believe. The worst drought since European settlement in Australia occurred around 100 years ago, the so-called Federation Drought, which was more extreme and longer-lasting than either of the two recent droughts of 1982-83 and 2002-03 (both induced by El Niño). That was long before `global warming'.
As for bushfires, there is also nothing unprecedented about recent fires, dramatic though they were. Memories can easily forget the massive fires of `Ash Wednesday' in 1983 when 72 people were killed in Melbourne and Adelaide, or the Hobart Tasmania fires of 1967 when 62 people were killed. The greatest fire of all, `Black Friday', 13th of January 1939, saw a firestorm sweep across Victoria. Millions of hectares were burned and 71 people killed.
On Black Friday itself, the Melbourne temperature reached 45.6°C which remains the highest temperature ever recorded in Melbourne. By comparison, Melbourne scored 44.1°C on one day in the summer of 2002-03 which is the hottest temperature since Black Friday. Melbourne is a much bigger city now and so breaking a record would be both expected and probably inevitable due to the heat island effect, but 13th January 1939 remains the record. There were also very serious fires in 1898, 1905, 1908, 1914, 1919, 1926 and 1932. So, there is nothing new about extreme temperatures or bushfires in Australia, either in number or intensity. It is unprincipled scaremongering by the AGO to claim otherwise.
As you can see, scaremongering and false claims are part of the WMO and the IPCC. Junk science at its best! Come on, Throatie, give us some more of your usual "science by press releases", your shots in your own foot! |
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Sore Throat
Joined: 01 Sep 2000
Posts: 1802
Location: x |
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Wed Dec 17, 2003 10:19 pm
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[URL=http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20031217/tc_usatoday/12072124]http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20031217/tc_usatoday/12072124[/UR L]
Network to monitor climate change
By Patrick O'Driscoll, USA TODAY
Federal scientists will switch on a system of weather stations next month to monitor climate change across the USA for the next 50 to 100 years.
The new "Climate Reference Network" will constantly record temperature, rainfall, wind and solar radiation more precisely than most of today's weather stations. The data the network collects will help researchers measure global warming (news - web sites).
Scientists project that the temperature of the Earth will increase by 2 to 10 degrees by the end of this century. Higher temperatures would lead to droughts and heat waves. Glaciers and polar ice caps would melt.
"It's an accepted fact that we have global warming. What we're trying to do is pin down how much and over what time," says Bruce Baker, chief scientist for the network, a project of the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The center analyzes national and global climate statistics for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Thousands of weather stations across the country - from National Weather Service (news - web sites) posts to amateur setups in backyards - already record temperature and precipitation. But Baker says the network will send hourly readouts via satellite from 100 sites that will result in more accurate measurements.
That's because the new stations will have backup instruments to guarantee an uninterrupted flow of temperatures and rainfall measurements.
Each will transmit readings from three thermometers and two rain gauges. The information will be available at the network's Web site (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/uscrn/index.html).
The stations that form the network will take up about a twelfth of an acre each and will be positioned far from highways, buildings and areas likely to be developed. That way, climate data won't be skewed by heat and pollution. The locations for the stations represent every natural environment in the USA, from mountains and plains to coasts and deserts.
"We want to be able to separate out the urban 'signal,' " says Ken Hubbard, director of the High Plains Regional Climate Center in Lincoln, Neb. "If the temperature is trending upward, we want to know: Is that due to greenhouse gases increasing? Or is that due to somebody having built an urban parking lot nearby?"
Many of the stations are being built in national and state parks, wildlife refuges, government installations and laboratory farms at universities. Forty-seven are in place in 26 states. Fifty-three others will be built in the next two years after sites are chosen.
If funding increases, scientists hope to add 150 to 200 sites to better track regional climate changes.
The first station was built at the North Carolina Arboretum outside Asheville. Others are in Glacier National Park, Mont., Crater Lake National Park, Ore., and on NASA (news - web sites)'s balloon-launch site near Palestine, Texas. Some will be in coastal locations. One sits atop Niwot Ridge, Colo., more than 12,000 feet above sea level. Another will go in Death Valley, Calif.
The stations cost about $20,000 each. A key feature: a pair of eight-sided picket fences (news - web sites), one inside the other. The pens shield the station's rain gauge from the wind for more accurate readings.
[Edited 1 times, lastly by Sore Throat on 12-17-2003] |
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Sore Throat
Joined: 01 Sep 2000
Posts: 1802
Location: x |
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Wed Dec 17, 2003 10:29 pm
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/05/000516114559.htm
Increasing Carbon Dioxide Threatens Coral Reefs
WASHINGTON - Researchers at Columbia University's Biosphere 2 Center have determined that increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere may cause more harm to marine coral reef communities than previous research had indicated. Dr. Christopher Langdon of Columbia's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory and his research team believe that coral growth could be reduced by as much as 40 percent from pre-industrial levels over the next 65 years.
The team found no evidence that reef organisms are able to acclimate after prolonged exposure to the reduced carbonate levels. "This is the first real evidence that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have a negative impact on a major Earth ecosystem," says Langdon, whose research will be published in the June edition of Global Biogeochemical Cycles, an American Geophysical Union journal that covers global environmental change.
Langdon's team is investigating the impact of changing seawater chemistry on coral reef calcification rates. By mid-century, increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, are expected to reduce by 30 percent the carbonate ion concentration of the surface ocean. When Langdon changed the carbonate concentration in the Biosphere 2 ocean to that projected level, he observed significant reduction in calcification rates for the coral and coralline algae.
Langdon believes the results of his research have some important implications. Coral reefs are natural breakwaters protecting tropical islands and other coastal areas from beach erosion. "While some terrestrial ecosystems may actually benefit from elevated carbon dioxide levels, that does not appear to be the case for shallow marine ecosystems like a coral reef," says Langdon. The impacts are much greater than previously believed, leading to increasing vulnerability of many reefs to other man-caused sources of stress, like over-fishing or pollution, he says.
The project is underway in the ocean ecosystem at Columbia's Biosphere 2 laboratory near Oracle, Arizona. The 700,000-gallon aquarium of artificial seawater with its community of coral reef life mimics key aspects of real world coral reef ecosystems. Biosphere 2 President and Executive Director William Harris says the ability to control precisely the chemical environment and accurately measure changes in the system offers a unique opportunity to conduct research of this kind.
Original Article:
http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/prrl/prrl0012.html
******************************************* http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/12/031217073058.htm
NASA Learning To Monitor Coral Reef Health From The Sky
Coral reef health may be accurately estimated from sensors on airplanes and satellites in the future, according to a NASA scientist who is the principal investigator in a collaborative project to develop a method to remotely sense coral health.
Sometimes called the "bellwether of the seas," coral reefs can give first indications of marine ecosystem health. "Scientists can use coral health as a sensitive indicator of the health of the marine environment," said Liane Guild, a scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
"We're looking into how you could remotely detect coral reef health using aircraft with visible light sensors," Guild said. "First, we have to look at the coral close up, underwater, to see what spectral reflectance the sensor picks up from diseased, stressed and healthy coral."
One of the first steps her team took to develop aerial coral monitoring was to take undersea light-reflectance readings of elkhorn coral with a handheld spectroradiometer, or light meter.
A team of four scuba divers, from the Universities of Miami, South Florida and Puerto Rico, helped Guild take the first readings at varying depths in summer 2002 near Andros Island, Bahamas, with assistance from the U.S. Navy Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center. A spectroradiometer measures the amount of ultraviolet, visible and infrared light reflected from an object, and is similar to sensors aboard remote-sensing airplanes and satellites.
"We moved up from the coral, little by little, to the surface to learn how light intensity decreases in the water column, which affects our coral reflected-light readings," Guild said.
"There also will be a layer of atmosphere between the coral, the water and the sensor when it eventually flies aboard an airplane to survey the reefs," she added.
"The effects of the atmosphere on light are pretty well known, but the challenge is to correct for the effects of the layer of water over the coral," Guild explained. "Instead of taking the top-down approach, we are going from the bottom up to the airplane, and later to satellite-sensing of coral health," Guild said.
"Ultimately, we plan to fly 'hyperspectral' instruments, containing many detectors that collect information in the visible light range," Guild explained. These instruments will provide the most useful information about coral-reef community health from above the sea, according to Guild.
The team's research emphasis is on Acropora palmata, or elkhorn coral, a major reef-building coral. It is prevalent in the study area, but is suffering from "white band disease." Elkhorn coral is on the verge of becoming an endangered species because it has severely declined in many areas of the Caribbean, Guild noted.
The team and engineering scientists from the University of Arizona also are developing a specialized computer model to analyze coral reflected-light data. The computer model will help scientists better interpret the raw data gathered by aircraft or satellites.
Guild discussed her group's work at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union on December 9, at 8:45 p.m. EST, in room 3000 of the Moscone Convention Center, San Francisco.
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Sore Throat
Joined: 01 Sep 2000
Posts: 1802
Location: x |
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Thu Dec 18, 2003 12:18 am
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http://www.cyberdyaryo.com/features/f2003_1215_02.htm
US fails to block Kyoto Protocol on climate change
By Sanjay Suri
Inter Press Service
LONDON, Dec 12--Environment groups were celebrating the failure of the United States Friday to block the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
The US made several attempts behind the scenes at the ninth conference in Milan of the parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to derail the agreement, environmentalists say. But other nations attending the meeting reaffirmed their commitment to the treaty.
With Russia now expected by many to sign up, the Kyoto Protocol could finally reach the target of ratification by countries producing 55 percent of the emissions or more.
The 55-percent target is intended to ensure that nobody is bound by the protocol until a lot of others, including enough big industrialized countries have accepted it.
The protocol will take effect once the target is crossed, and bind signatories into cutting emissions under an agreed program.
120 countries have ratified protocol
"The United States had been trying in the background to persuade others that the Kyoto Protocol will not be effective," Roger Higman from Friends of the Earth International told IPS on phone from Milan. "But 120 countries have now ratified the protocol."
The United States has ratified the UN Convention on Climate Change, but not accepted the Kyoto Protocol, which sets targets for cutting down emissions by 2013. Further agreements are expected after 2013.
The environment group WWF said proposals by the Bush administration for more research and investment in new technologies were a mandate to keep polluters in business.
"They are not only woolly, economically unviable and unscientific but the US has no proof that they would deliver any carbon dioxide reductions at all," said Jennifer Morgan, director of the WWF climate-change program.
"This meeting strongly reaffirmed that the only international approach to tackling global warming is the Kyoto Protocol."
Approval by Russia essential
Alexey Kokorin, head of WWF-Russia's climate-change protocol said, "All we need is for Russia to put the key in the door." Approval by Russia is now essential to reach the magic figure of 55 percent after the United States walked out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001.
Kokorin said that "the latest word from Moscow is that the Russian ratification process is still under consideration and is most likely to happen some time after the presidential elections in March 2004."
But Russian delegation chief Alexander Bedritsky gave nothing away. "It's vital, we think, to continue negotiations to try to find solutions that are more acceptable to countries that have accepted to cut their greenhouse gas emissions," he said.
WWF welcomed pledges in Milan by Germany, the Philippines, Britain and others to keep average global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius. "If temperatures rise above this threshold, the world will suffer from increased flooding, droughts and glacial meltdown," WWF said.
2500 delegates, 2400 observers in attendance
About 2,500 delegates and 2,400 observers attended the meeting in Milan. The meeting was called to agree on rules under which the Kyoto Protocol would operate.
"It was called also to agree rules under which tree-planting projects will become available for credit under the Kyoto Protocol," Higman said. Tree-planting is a vital instrument under the protocol to counter harmful emissions from industries that are believed to cause damaging climate change.
But this is an area where environmentalists did not get all they wanted.
"We wanted to exclude genetically-modified (GM) crops and invasive species," Higman said. Countries did not agree to ban GM organisms or invasive species being funded through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Protocol.
The mechanism is intended to promote plantations.
"Friends of the Earth International therefore calls on Northern (industrialized) countries to focus on curbing greenhouse gas emissions at home and on promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency," the group said in a statement Friday.
WWF also raised concerns that the rules agreed at the meeting do not address potential use of large-scale commercial plantations, GMOs and invasive species. But it welcomed some of the projects under the CDM.
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Edufer
Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 198
Location: Malagueno, Cordoba, Argentina |
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Thu Dec 18, 2003 12:51 am
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I was joking when invited Throatie to post another press release. As he seems to be lacking sense of humor, he obliged and sent another of his incredible posts.
quote:
Scientists project that the temperature of the Earth will increase by 2 to 10 degrees by the end of this century. Higher temperatures would lead to droughts and heat waves. Glaciers and polar ice caps would melt.
The Old Same Litany. Jesus!
quote:
"It's an accepted fact that we have global warming. What we're trying to do is pin down how much and over what time," says Bruce Baker, chief scientist for the network, a project of the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The center analyzes national and global climate statistics for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
My goodnes! If that is the kind of chief scientists they have, I wonder how the janitors would be!
Here we can see the subtle implication that the accepted global warming will produce up to 10 degrees by the end of the century. Now: Centigrades or Farenheit? It makes a lot of difference!
Heat waves are local and regional phenomena, caused by blocking anticyclones – as happened this “record breaking hot summer” of 2003. They cannot pin down next week weather, and they claim they can predict climate 100 years in advance. Help us, Jesus!
quote:
Thousands of weather stations across the country - from National Weather Service (news - web sites) posts to amateur setups in backyards - already record temperature and precipitation. But Baker says the network will send hourly readouts via satellite from 100 sites that will result in more accurate measurements.
Now we are getting to the bottom of junk science here. Amateur weather stations have been recording temperatures for the NOOA? Is that what they are saying? In backyards, close to their barbecue stand? Wow! Nice scientific way of doing things!
quote:
The stations that form the network will take up about a twelfth of an acre each and will be positioned far from highways, buildings and areas likely to be developed. That way, climate data won't be skewed by heat and pollution. The locations for the stations represent every natural environment in the USA, from mountains and plains to coasts and deserts.
It seems they are finally acknowledging there is something called “urban heat island effect”, something thay have been dismissing for the past 20 years - and Throatie sent me in a tour on English amateurish vineyards!.
That is a step forward, though. My guess is: this people, facing the Kyoto funeral, are retreating to more honorable positions. Someday they will say: “Well, temperatures seems not to be rising as models predicted. And all the merit is ours, because we started measuring them in the right way with these non-urban stations”. Clever, indeed.
quote:
"We want to be able to separate out the urban 'signal,' " says Ken Hubbard, director of the High Plains Regional Climate Center in Lincoln, Neb. "If the temperature is trending upward, we want to know: Is that due to greenhouse gases increasing? Or is that due to somebody having built an urban parking lot nearby?"
It didn't crossed their minds there could also be a natural reason for it? They should have noticed that years ago. By just taking a look at NOAA's satellite records they would have noticed there was not a warming trend. TREND is the word, not merely ONE year hotter than others, forgetting there were years much cooler too. And looking away when scientists pointed that those years were caused by El Niño – an event man has nothing to do with, and can do nothing about.
quote:
The stations cost about $20,000 each. A key feature: a pair of eight-sided picket fences (news - web sites), one inside the other. The pens shield the station's rain gauge from the wind for more accurate readings.
What? With those picket fences (they seem important) are they fearing eco-terrorists to attack the stations (as they did with genetically modified crops) so there no one will know if the warming is catastrophic?
$20.000 a piece x 200 stations make = $4,000,000. Not much, but totally useless, as already there are thousands of urban area stations doing the same job. Who in high places will be cashing the commission for ordering those stations. Not that I see corruption everywhere, but I have been around for a while in this world …
[Edited 1 times, lastly by Edufer on 12-17-2003] |
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Edufer
Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 198
Location: Malagueno, Cordoba, Argentina |
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Thu Dec 18, 2003 1:45 am
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I had to stop laughing before commenting Throatie last post:
quote:
US fails to block Kyoto Protocol on climate change
By Sanjay Suri
Inter Press Service
LONDON, Dec 12--Environment groups were celebrating the failure of the United States Friday to block the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
They are selling the bear skin prior to hunting him down! Another joke!
quote:
But other nations attending the meeting reaffirmed their commitment to the treaty.
With Russia now expected by many to sign up, the Kyoto Protocol could finally reach the target of ratification by countries producing 55 percent of the emissions or more.
Yeah! 120 countries ratified the protocol. Only some Europeans countries are forced to reduce their emissions, something they have made very clear they could never do, because it would mean a reduction in energy consumption of 30% of their present levels. European have failed to tramp the US into destroying its economy, and now they see they have been left out in the cold.
Russia is never going to ratify the protocol. Never. And those hundreds of poor countries that ratified it, are not forced to cut their emissions – simply because their economy is not productive and use almost no energy. But Kyoto failure would be a catastrophe for them. They plan to trade their “emission shares” and get some fresh money from those that emit more than permitted.
The whole scheme of “emission trading” is a hoax: it allows (and encourage) more emissions by the big energy users, while poor countries cash in some dough in order to repay their external debts. The financial system has found a nice way to recover the money they lent at usury to corrupt politicians in the third world – putting the heavy load of repaying it on the backs of the poor people. Disgraceful!
So, the bottom line is: Kyoto will not stop global warming (even without the trade hoax) for many already proved scientific reasons, but will increase it - if we believed their contention that CO2 is an important greenhouse gas.
And now press releases by no less than Environmental ONGs:
quote:
"… Roger Higman from Friends of the Earth International told IPS … The environment group WWF said … said Jennifer Morgan, director of the WWF climate-change program. … Approval by Russia essential Alexey Kokorin, head of WWF-Russia's climate-change protocol said, … WWF welcomed pledges in Milan by Germany, the Philippines, Britain … the world will suffer from increased flooding, droughts and glacial meltdown," WWF said. .. etc, etc, etc.
Well. They are in for a great disappointment.
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2500 delegates, 2400 observers in attendance
And we are paying for their fancy 5 star hotels, dinners, champagne, oysters and caviar. In what fanciful resort will they make their next meeting?
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But this is an area where environmentalists did not get all they wanted. "We wanted to exclude genetically-modified (GM) crops and invasive species," Higman said. Countries did not agree to ban GM organisms or invasive species being funded through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Protocol.
Those countries just wanted to make sure they could sell emissions they would never send to the air, but they are not so stupid as to ban a technology that proved to be highly beneficial for their economies and their people. Easy money, yes. Everybody loves it. But giving up good technology – not me, buddy.
quote:
"Friends of the Earth International therefore calls on Northern (industrialized) countries to focus on curbing greenhouse gas emissions at home and on promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency," the group said in a statement Friday.
Are this people that naïve? Jesus! And this people are trying to shape world future economies with their campaigns!
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Edufer
Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 198
Location: Malagueno, Cordoba, Argentina |
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Thu Dec 18, 2003 3:26 am
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Throatie: don't think I forgot the issue of glacier melting – globally. I would have preferred not to post this long list, but you seemed to ignore the information, so here it is. You asked for it. This information comes from the World Glacier Monitoring Service at http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/, we have been talking in previous posts. It is an extract of the 250 plus pages in pdf format of their 1995 Report:
OF GLACIERS
1990–1995
(Vol. VII)
A contribution to the
Global Environment Monitoring Service (GEMS)
and the
International Hydrological Programme (IHP)
Prepared by the
World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS)
IAHS (ICSI) – UNEP – UNESCO
1998
Something you'll find strange, they discontinued publishing these reports on Fluctuations of Glacers. This is the last one – from 1995. What's the reason? Anyhow, here are the excerpts:
U.S.A. (US)
Data for 14 glaciers were submitted by A.G. Fountain of Portland State University (PSU). As in previous volumes, the first digit of the Glacier Number (PSFG number) denotes the state where the glacier is located; the second digit denotes the range, the mountains or the specific mountain where the glacier lies. The last two digits are the number assigned to an individual glacier within a particular state and mountain range (or mountain):
Digit 1:
0,1 Alaska 0001–0199 Brooks Range
0200–0399 Alaska Range, Aleutian Range
0400–0599 Kenai Mountains
0600–1099 Chugach Mountains
1100–1299 Wrangell Mountains
1300–1799 St. Elais Mountains
1800–1999 Coast Mountains
Digit 2 : Washington
2000–2099 North Cascade RangeU.S.A. (US)
Data for 14 glaciers were submitted by A.G. Fountain of Portland State University (PSU). As in previous volumes, the first digit of the Glacier Number (PSFG number) denotes the state where the glacier is located; the second digit denotes the range, the mountains or the specific mountain where the glacier lies. The last two digits are the number assigned to an individual glacier within a particular state and mountain range (or mountain):
Digit 1: 0,1 Alaska
0001–0199 Brooks Range
0200–0399 Alaska Range, Aleutian Range
0400–0599 Kenai Mountains
0600–1099 Chugach Mountains
1100–1299 Wrangell Mountains
1300–1799 St. Elais Mountains
1800–1999 Coast Mountains
Digit 2 : Washington
2000–2099 North Cascade Range
2100–2199 Olympic Range
Digit 4: California
4000–4100 Mount Shasta, Mount Lassen
A list of the type of data given in each of the Tables B and BB, together with an explanation of the abbreviations and symbols used, can be found on the cover sheet of each table. Quantitative data represent the variation in the position of the glacier front in meters. Qualitative data are also given for cases where no measurements were made although there was some frontal activity observed in the reported period:
ST = glacier appears to be stationary;
+X = glacier appears to be in advance;
- X = glacier appears to be in retreat;
SN = glacier tongue is covered with snow, making the survey impossible.
CHAPTER 4
MASS BALANCE STUDY RESULTS 1990–1995 AND ADDENDA
FROM EARLIER YEARS (TABLES C, CC, AND CCC)
4.1 The Data
Mass balance study results are presented in the following tables: in Table C summary data are given for the years 1990–1995, Table CC contains data from years prior to 1990 which have not been published in a “Fluctuations” volume, or corrected/updated values of previously published data. More detailed data for mass balance versus altitude are given in Table CCC. Data in Tables C and CC were extracted from the completed “Mass Balance Study Results – Summary Data” standardized WGMS data sheets, while the data in Table CCC were sent to the WGMS in various formats as no specific WGMS data form was prepared for this purpose.
Greenland
Storstrømmen (G00018)
A. Weidick, GEUS
Glaciological investigations on Storstrømmen were initiated in 1988 and ablation mea surements performed along a stake line in 1989 and 1990, and followed up by visits in 1992 and 1994. Climate stations were operated during the 1989 and 1990 field seasons. The aim of the detailed studies in 1994 was to analyze the microclimate in order to explain the extremely “noisy” ablation-elevation profile of the glacier. Degree-day modelling of the field measurements and the climatological series from Danmarkshavn since 1949 show no trend in the mass balance of 1949–1991. The investigations also showed an abrupt advance over 10 km down the fjord in 1978–1984 displaying all the characteristics associated with a surge. A map sheet of the glacier has been made in collaboration with the 'Universität der Bundeswehr'.
Mittivakkat (G00019)
A. Weidick, GEUS
The mass balance has been measured and the glacier margin observed every year since 1988. Since around 1900 the glacier has melted back from a position almost at the sea to the present position 1500 m inland. Mass balance during the last years has generally been positive, especially the year 1990/91 when the ELA was at an elevation of 350 m a.s.l., compared to a normal elevation of 500 m a.s.l. This has resulted in an increase of measured surface velocities and the frontal retreat has stopped. Also sediment transport both with the glacier system and in the pro glacial environment is being studied at the Mittivakkat Glacier (earlier: Mitdluagkat) area. Volume change in 1943/1972/1985 indicates continuous thinning of the ice margin and growth of the accumulation area. Present volume of the glacier has been determined at 193 x 106 m3 (Knudsen & Hasholt, submitted).
USA
Data on the quiescent phase of the surge-type Black Rapids Glacier are given by
Heinrichs et al. (1996).
Gakona (US00215) glacier surge
K. Echelmeyer, UAF
Gakona Glacier underwent a major surge in 1994. The surge was first observed in July during an overflight. At this time the surge was well underway, with much of the upper reservoir region showing significant (up to 70 m) drawdown. The surface was highly crevassed, with surge-related crevassing extending to the pass with Canwell Glacier to the west (about 1890 m MSL), to the pass with the Chistochina Glacier (177) to the east, and high into each of the accumulation basins on the north side of the glacier (up to 2165 m). No accumulation basins were unaffected, but those to the west and northwest showed the largest drawdown.
The lower part of the glacier was extremely broken, with serac fields typical of full surge conditions. On 26 July 1994 the surge front was mapped using GPS in an aircraft (± 60 m). This front was at an elevation of about 1220 m and extended into the terminal (surge) moraine region. The surge front appeared to be an active bulge up to ca. 50 m in height which was progressing into the relatively stagnant ice of the terminal lobe. On 7 September 1994 the glacier was observed again, and the surge front remapped. Very little advance was seen since 26 July, indicating that the surge probably ended in early August. When the surge ended the front was about 4.4 km upvalley of the end of the terminal moraine, and thus was this distance short of the maximum extent of some previous surge. Stream discharge was low and yet extremely turbid in July.
Variegated (US01302) glacier surge
K. Echelmeyer, UAF
Variegated Glacier was observed to be surging in June, 1995. Observations show increased crevassing in September 1994, but the glacier did not appear to be surging at that time. The last surge of this glacier was a two-pulse surge in 1982 and 1983, with the second year's pulse being the strongest and propagating downglacier into the moraines from previous surges.
…
Early June 1995 was a record warm period in the nearby village of Yakutat, and on 11 June there was a large flood of turbid water in the terminal stream of Variegated Glacier. Time lapse camera data shows no significant surge motion for some time after this date, indicating that the surge pulse terminated in June. However, comparison of airborne elevation profiles made on 5 June 1995 and 5 June 1996 show some continued drawdown in the upper reaches of the glacier and a progression of the bulge at the surge front downglacier a short distance. This indicates that there may have been a small second pulse of the surge sometime between summer 1995 and spring 1996. Observations later in 1996 indicate that no significant surge motion occurred during the
summer of 1996.
The 12- to 13-year period between the last two surges is shorter than the 16- to 18-year surge period estimated from the history of all known previous surges.
MEXICO
Ventorillo (MX00101) tectonic impact
H. Delgado, UNAM
A surge started in 1982 in the middle part of the glacier at 5,000 m.a.s.l. and may still be continuing. Volcanic eruption started on December 21, 1994. Not much impact until now (no additional melting or retreat has been documented, pole velocities are remarkably uniform and stable).
ICELAND
Kaladalónsjökull (IS00102) glacier surge
O. Sigurdsson, OS
A new surge started in 1995. The last surge in 1936–1940 resulted in a total advance of
200 m.
Leirufjardarjökull (IS00200) glacier surge
O. Sigurdsson, OS
A new surge started in 1995. The last surge in 1936–1940 resulted in a total advance of
1000 m.
Múlajökull S (IS0311A) glacier surge
O. Sigurdsson, OS
Surges took place in 1954–1955, 1966, 1971–1972, 1979, 1986 and 1992–1993. Advances are typically between 50 and 400 m.
Gígjökull (IS00112) glacier flood / mud flow
O. Sigurdsson, OS
The glacier is calving into a proglacial lake which has shrunk to one-third of its original size since the start of the advance in 1972.
Oldufellsjökull (IS00114) glacier surge
O. Sigurdsson, OS
Asurge event in the period 1989–1993 went unnoticed. The advance during the surge was probably 200–300 m.
Tungnaárjökull (IS02214) glacier surge
O. Sigurdsson, OS
Asurge event started at the terminus in the fall of 1994. Maximum speed of advance was 10–15 m/day. The advance stopped in the fall of 1995. The last surge event had been in 1945–1946.
Sídujökull W (IS00015) glacier surge
O. Sigurdsson, OS
A surge event started at the terminus in January 1994. Maximum speed of advance was 100 m/day. The advance stopped in the spring of 1994. Earlier surge events had taken place in 1934 and 1963–1964.
Skeidarárjökull W (IS00116) glacier surge
O. Sigurdsson, OS
A surge event started at the terminus in May 1991. The advance stopped in late fall of 1991. Earlier surge events had been observed in 1985–1986 and 1929. The glacier also very clearly reacts to climate between surges and is therefore designated as “mixed glacier”.
Skeidarárjökull E1 (IS0117A) glacier surge
O. Sigurdsson, OS
A surge event started at the terminus in May 1991. The advance stopped in late July of 1991. Earlier surge events had been observed in 1983–1985 and 1929. The glacier also very clearly reacts to climate between surges and is therefore designated as “mixed glacier”. A jökullhlaup (outburst flood) started in late September 1991, lake level subsequently subsided and rose again in November 1991. Peak discharge on 21 November 1991 was 2,200 m3/sec. Total volume amounted to 1.6 km3.
Skeidarárjökull E2 (IS0117B) glacier surge
O. Sigurdsson, OS
A surge event started at the terminus in May 1991. The advance stopped in late July of 1991. Earlier surge events in 1983–1985 and 1929. The glacier also very clearly reacts to climate between surges and is therefore designated as “mixed glacier”. A jökullhlaup (outburst flood) started in late September 1991, subsided and rose again in November 1991. Peak discharge on 21 November 1991 was 2,200 m3/sec. Total volume 1.6 km3.
PAKISTAN
Panmah (PK00007) glacier surge
K. Hewitt, WLU
The 15.5 km long Chiring tributary surged between 1994 and 1996. It advanced 2.5 km from its 1993 position and carried a lobe of ice 3.2 km2 into the main glacier. The Chiring flows north then west from a watershed with Sarpo Laggo and Baltoro Glaciers, has its highest elevation at 6200 m a.s.l. and meets the main glacier at 4260 m a.s.l. The surge transferred 1–1.5 km3 of ice from the upper to the lower glacier and into the main glacier valley. The “Maedan” tributary, which joins the Chiring near the junction with the main glacier advanced 1.7 km between 1993 and 1996, and may be surging.
Bualtar (PK00004) glacier surge
K. Hewitt, WLU
Rapid advance of terminus between 1989 and 1991 was associated with the second surge in an episode of major disturbance commencing in 1986. Severe crevassing of the lower ice tongue, formation and sudden drainage of ice margin lakes were observed. The terminus advanced approximately 2 km.
Aling (PK00035) glacier surge / flood
K. Hewitt, WLU
The surge of the “Lokpar” tributary massively disturbed the main glacier and triggered an advance of the terminus 2 to 3 km. The surge occurred between 1989 and 1993. The Lokpar tributary descends in steep ice falls from the south bank, in a NE direction to join the Aling near its terminus.
In 1992, a glacier lake outburst flood, apparently triggered by the surge destabilizing a large ice-margin lake, destroyed the “Gweh-Aling” summer village. References/most important data sources: Hewitt (1997).
Sarpo Laggo (PK01002) glacier surge
K. Hewitt, WLU
Some time between 1992 and 1996 the Moni tributary of Sarpo Laggo surged, advancing a lobe of ice about 1.5 km2 across the main ice stream. The Moni is a right/east bank tributary that drains NE from the Mustagh Tower (7260 m) and the Baltoro Glacier watershed.
Baltoro (PK00006) glacier surge
K. Hewitt, WLU
Between 1992 and 1996, the Liligo tributary surged, advancing 2.5 km to join the main glacier. The Liligo is a left/south bank tributary, which flows NNE to the Baltoro, 10 km above its terminus. Explorers' and mountineers' reports since 1861 seem always to place the Liligo terminus 1–3 km away from the main glacier. No previous surge is recorded.
Karambar (PK00028) glacier surge
K. Hewitt, WLU
Beginning in March 1993, a rapid advance of the terminus was observed. The glacier is severely crevassed, ice margin ponds quickly formed and drained. In June 1993, the rate of terminus advance was about 12 m per day. Total advance by summer 1994 was about 3 km, reaching and interfering with Karambar River, but not damming it (as in 1905, surge and glacier lake outburst flood).
THOMPSON GLACIER, CANADA 1:5000
(Aerial Photogrammetric Map)
Institute of Cartography, ETH Zuerich
Thompson Glacier is an advancing outlet of the Fritz-Mueller Ice Cap (former McGill Ice Cap) in Axel Heiberg Island, Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The mean width of the main stream measures about 3 km. The front of the glacier is rimmed in the center and on the east side over a distance of about 2 km by the push moraine and on the west side by an ice-cliff 30 to 50 m high. The valley filling consists, at least on the surface, of permanently frozen fluvioglacial sediments. The snout of the Thompson Glacier is bulldozing the frozen detritus to a push moraine. On the map the push moraine appears as a halfmoon shaped bulge, subdivided into ridges running roughly transversely to the glacier.
STORSTRØMMEN, NORTHEAST GREENLAND 1:150,000
(Aerial Photogrammetric Map)
H. Oerter, Alfred-Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven
Storstrømmen is one of the major outlet glaciers in northeast Greenland, with a drainage basin of 32,100 km2 in total. For the years 1994 and 1995 mass balance studies yield the following results (Jung-Rothenhäusler, in press):
1994 1995
ELA [m a.s.l.] 1280 1350
ablation area [km2] 6155 6723
net ablation [mm WE/a] 510 810
mass balance [mm WE/a] 7 -83
Recent velocity fluctuations of Storstrømmen indicate surge-type behaviour (Reeh et al. 1994), further evidence is presented by Weidick et al. (1996), who describes changes in the glacier extent during the Holocene. For the Storstrømmen Glacier front, called Bredebrae, three positions are shown in the map: the 1978 ice front, the year of the aerial survey, the 1912/13 ice front as described by Koch and Wegener (1930, 1911), and the 1984 ice front as seen by LANDSAT MSS image, the foremost position documented in recent time. The period 1978–1980 was the most active phase of the glacier with ice velocities at the front of up to 4035 m/a (Jung-Rothenhäusler, in press).
Obviously, the advance had come to an end in 1984 and since then a retreat of the ice front can be observed. The total increase of the glacier area between 1978 and 1984 was 118.6 km2. Storstrømmen may presently be described as being in the recovery phase, which began 1988 and is ongoing.
NIGARDSBREEN, NORWAY 1:20,000
(Aerial Photogrammetric Map)
The famous Nigardsbreen Glacier is a 48 km2 outlet from the largest ice cap in Norway, Jostedalsbreen (487 km2). It drains from the highest point of the ice cap (1952 m a.s.l.) down to the Nigardsvatn in the Jostedalen valley. The glacier tongue is presently at about 350 m a.s.l. but has recently started to advance down the valley.
During the “Little Ice Age” the glacier had a larger extent than today, but since the advance around 1750, when it completely destroyed a farm, it has been receding almost continuously. Only small re-advances, forming minor end moraines, occurred in the 19th century.
CHAPTER 9 - GENERAL COMMENTS AND PERSPECTIVES FOR THE FUTURE
A corresponding test study with the European Alps (Haeberli and Hoelzle 1995) indicates a total alpine glacier volume of some 130 km3 at the mid-1970s. Total loss in alpine surface ice mass from 1850 to the mid-1970s can be estimated at about half the original value. Most of this change took place during the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century (Patzelt and Aellen 1990), i.e., in times of weak anthropogenic forcing.
NORWAY
| NR | GLACIER | PSFG # | FIRST | LAST | 1991 | 1992 |
1993 | 1994 |
1995 | | 57 |
AUSTERDALSBREEN | N31220 | 1906 |
1990 | 0.0 | 5.0 | 7.0 | 15.0 | 15.0 |
58 | BRIGSDALSBREEN | N37110 | 1901 | 1990 | 10.0 | 35.0 | 75.0 | 80.0 | 65.0 | | 59 | ENGABREEN | N67011 | 1903 | 1990 | - 24.0 | - | 18.0 | - | 115.0 | | 60 | FAABERGSTOELSB | N31015 | 1907 | 1990 | - 18.0 | - 6.0 | 10.0 | 34.0 | 44.0 | | 61 | HANSBREEN | N12419 | 1936 | 1990 | - 309.0 | -56.0 | - 64.0 | 45.0 | 42.0 | | 62 | HELLSTUGUBREEN | N00511 | 1902 | 1990 | - 7.0 | - 9.0 | - 3.0 | - 9.0 | - 6.0 | | 63 | LEIRBREEN |
N00548 | 1910 | 1990 | - | - | - 16.5 | - | - 14.5 |
64 | NIGARDSBREEN | N31014 |
1907 | 1990 | 10.0 | 21.0 | 14.0 | 36.0 | 50.0 | | 65 | STEGHOLTBREEN | N31021 | 1907 | 1990 | - 7.0 | - 5.0 | - 3.0 | - 10.0 | - 5.0 | | 66 | STORBREEN | N00541 | 1904 | 1990 | - | - | - | - 1.5 | 0.0 | | 67 | STYGGEDALSBREEN | N30720 | 1903 | 1992 | - | - | 0.0 | 4.0 | 2.0 |
[/CENTER]
NEW ZEALAND
+x (Advancing) = 32 -X (receding) = 14 SN (no data) = 17 ST (stationary) =16
455 ABEL NZ893A3 1989 A + X ST ST
456 ADAMS NZ08974 1987 A - X - X + X
457 ALMER NZ888B1 1989 A ST + X + X
458 ANDY NZ863C1 1987 A ST - X + X
459 ASHBURTON NZ688A1 1989 A + X + X
460 BALFOUR NZ882B1 1985 A + X
461 BARLOW NZ893A2 1989 A - X - X + X
462 BLAIR NZ711D1 1989 A - X + X + X
463 BONAR NZ863A1 1987 A + X
464 BREWSTER NZ868C1 1989 A - X + X - X ST
465 BURTON NZ888A1 1989 A ST ST
466 CAMERON NZ685B2 1988 A - X + X ST
467 CLASSEN NZ711M1 1989 A - X ST
468 COLIN CAMPBELL NZ693C1 1988 A + X
469 CROW NZ664C2 1988 A + X
470 DART NZ752C2 1980 1989 A - X + X - X
471 DONNE NZ851B2 1987 A - X
472 DOUGLAS (KAR.) NZ880B2 1987 A ST ST
473 DOUGLAS (RAK.) NZ685B1 1989 A SN SN SN SN
474 EVANS NZ08972 1988 A ST ST
475 FITZGERALD NZ880B3 1984 A - X + X
476 FOX NZ882A1 1989 A + X + X + X + X + X
477 FRANZ JOSEF NZ888B2 1867 1989 A + X + X + X + X + X
478 GLENMARY NZ711F1 1989 A + X ST
479 GODLEY NZ711M3 1989 A - X
480 GREYAND MAUD NZ711M2 1989 A - X ST
481 HOOKER NZ711H2 1985 A - X - X - X
482 HORACE WALKER NZ880B1 1987 A + X
483 IVORY NZ09011 1969 1989 A - X - X - X ST
484 JACK NZ08751 1989 A + X + X SN
485 JACKSON NZ868B5 1989 A ST
486 JALF NZ08861 1989 A SN - X SN
487 KAHUTEA NZ685E1 1989 A + X
488 KEA NZ08971 1989 A SN SN SN
489 LA PEROUSE NZ882B2 1985 A ST
490 LAMBERT NZ08973 1989 A ST + X - X
491 LE BLANC NZ868B3 1985 A - X + X
492 LINDSAY NZ08671 1989 A SN SN SN
493 LYELL NZ685C2 1989 A - X
494 MARCHANT NZ880A1 1986 A ST
495 MARION NZ863B4 1989 A - X ST + X
496 MARMADUKE DIXON NZ664C1 1989 A + X SN
497 MC COY NZ693C2 1985 A + X
498 MUELLER NZ711H1 1989 A - X - X - X
499 MURCHISON NZ711J1 1989 A - X ST
500 PARK PASS 1 NZ752B1 1989 A + X + X
501 POET NZ868B2 1986 A + X
502 RAMSAY NZ685C3 1983 A - X
503 REISCHEK NZ685C1 1989 A - X
504 RETREAT NZ906A1 1989 A SN SN SN
505 RICHARDSON NZ711E1 1987 A + X + X
506 RIDGE NZ711L1 1989 A ST SN
507 ROLLESTON NZ911A2 1989 A SN SN SN
508 SALE NZ906B1 1993 A + X
509 SIEGE NZ893A1 1989 A - X SN ST SN
510 SINCLAIR NZ693C3 1985 A + X
511 SNOW WHITE NZ863B2 1987 A - X - X
512 SNOWBALL NZ863B3 1987 A ST ST ST
513 SPENCER NZ888A2 1989 A + X + X + X
514 STRAUCHON NZ880A2 1986 A - X ST
515 TASMAN NZ711I1 1989 A - X - X - X - X - X
516 THERMA NZ08641 1987 A + X
517 THURNEYSON NZ711B1 1989 A + X + X
518 TORNADO NZ863C2 1986 A - X
519 UNNAMED NZ664C NZ664C1 1989 A SN SN
520 UNNAMED NZ685C NZ685C4 1989 A SN SN SN + X
521 UNNAMED NZ685F NZ685F1 1989 A SN SN
522 UNNAMED NZ752E NZ752E1 1989 A + X SN SN
523 UNNAMED NZ752I NZ752I1 1989 A SN SN SN SN
524 UNNAMED NZ797G NZ797G1 1989 A SN SN SN
525 UNNAMED NZ846 NZ08461 1989 A + X + X + X
526 UNNAMED NZ851B NZ851B1 1989 A ST ST ST
527 UNNAMED NZ863B NZ863B1 1989 A SN SN SN
528 UNNAMED NZ868B NZ868B4 1980 A ST
529 UNNAMED NZ911A NZ911A1 1989 A SN SN SN
530 VICTORIA NZ882A1 1989 A + X
531 WHITBOURNE NZ752C1 1988 A - X
532 WHITE NZ664C1 1989 A + X + X
533 WHYMPER NZ893B1 1980 A - X
534 WIGLEY NZ873B2 1989 A - X - X
535 WILKINSON NZ906B2 1989 A ST
536 ZORA NZ868B1 1986 A + X
ANTARCTICA
537 BARTLEY AN00016 1983 1990 C - 1.8 + X
538 CLARK CPI AN00012 1982 1990 C + X
539 HART AN00019 1985 1990 C 0.0 - .5
540 HEIMDALL AN00003 1970 1991 C + X
541 MESERVE MPII AN00017 1983 1990 C - 3.3
542 VICTORIA UPPER AN00013 1984 1990 C + X
543 WRIGHT LOWER AN00018 1975 1990 C - 1.8 + X
544 WRIGHT UPPER B AN00011 1984 1990 C - 1.2
Glaciers: 8 - advancing = 5 receding = 3
The data supplied by the World Glacier Monitoring Service show clearly the Receding Glacier pehonemenon is merely REGIONAL or LOCAL - NOT GLOBAL.
Now, some press releases, by uninformed journalists, my say otherwise...
[Edited 3 times, lastly by Edufer on 12-17-2003] |
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Sore Throat
Joined: 01 Sep 2000
Posts: 1802
Location: x |
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Thu Dec 18, 2003 4:35 am
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What a nice bowl of picked cherries.
Proving? ?
...just how desperate SEÑOR Eduardo Ferreyra is to promote his distorted version of reality.
Where is the peer review published data indicating that 65% of the world's glaciers are advancing...as he has repeatedly claimed?
Here's my observation...
Don't you think that it is stange that SEÑOR Ferreyra has been unable to find ONE peer reviewed, published journal article to substantiate his claim?
Wouldn't this information be of the upmost importance given the current concern over climate change?
Certainly if this were TRUE, SOMEONE would have published this verifiable data.
It reminds me of SEÑOR Ferreyra's effort to plot the location of 11 vineyards in England, only to eventually learn that there were over 300!
Like I said, nice bowl of cherries.
********************************************
This is what real scientists are saying:
http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=131&subid=192&contentid=252267
Scientists Say Human Impact on Climate Change Certain
The American Geophysical Union, the world's largest organization of earth, ocean, and climate scientists, has always been extremely cautious in interpreting the growing evidence that human activities -- especially carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles and utility plants -- are a major contributor to global climate change. Indeed, American conservatives often distort AGU's "let's-see-all-the-evidence" approach into support for their position that the whole global warming controversy is some sort of environmentalist hoax.
But yesterday AGU issued a strongly worded statement -- adopted unanimously by a special panel convened for that purpose -- concluding that "human activities are increasingly altering the Earth's climate." The statement also calls for actions to reduce "the harmful effects of global climate change through decreased human influences (e.g., slowing greenhouse gas emissions, improving land management practices), technological advancement (e.g., removing carbon from the atmosphere), and finding ways for communities to adapt and become resilient to extreme events."
As The Wall Street Journal reported, "The scientific committee that drafted the statement includes John Christy, a University of Alabama, Huntsville, climatologist who has often sided with warming skeptics in the past. But scientific dissent now increasingly involves details of the warming phenomenon, not the basic result that man-made gas emissions are a probably cause of the warming trend." In an interview with National Public Radio today, Christy said it was "scientifically inconceivable" that natural influences are solely responsible for climate change.
It will be interesting to see if the Republican politicians who like to quote Christy are paying attention. Just last week, a group of conservative Members of Congress led by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) contributed to the world-wide impression that the Bush administration and its supporters are dangerously irresponsible on this subject, holding a press conference outside a United Nations conference on global climate change in Milan to air their claims that "the science is flawed; it is anything but certain." At some point, preferably right now, Republicans need to stop embarrassing their country with this kind of ignorant hokum.
If AGU's scientific conclusions bear repeating, so, too, does its call for action before climate change potentially becomes catastrophic. At a minimum, the administration should risk upsetting its flat-earth fans in the GOP "base" by agreeing to restart the international negotiations on climate change that it torpedoed as one of George W. Bush's first actions in foreign relations. And both Congress and the administration need to get serious about limiting our own greenhouse gas emissions, preferably through a "cap-and-trade" system that will impose mandatory limits while encouraging market means to reach them. This kind of system could avoid the false choice between economic growth and environmental improvement that conservatives so often cite, by stimulating the development of new "clean technologies" that would give the U.S. a big comparative advantage in one of the global economy's fastest growing sectors.
The time for denial on global climate change is long over. The time for action is now.
*******************************************
Now for the fun...watching SEÑOR Eduardo Ferreyra duke it out with John Christy, one of the premier global warming skeptics, who states that it was "scientifically inconceivable" that natural influences are solely responsible for climate change.
Sense of humor?
Are you kidding?
This is unbearably ironic.
Have at it guys !
[Edited 7 times, lastly by Sore Throat on 12-18-2003] |
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Sore Throat
Joined: 01 Sep 2000
Posts: 1802
Location: x |
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Thu Dec 18, 2003 5:11 am
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So when do we add the prestigious AGU to SEÑOR Eduardo Ferreyra's hit list?
Just who is the incompetent?
http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/climate_change_position.html
Human Impacts on Climate
Adopted by Council December, 2003
Human activities are increasingly altering the Earth's climate. These effects add to natural influences that have been present over Earth's history. Scientific evidence strongly indicates that natural influences cannot explain the rapid increase in global near-surface temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century.
Human impacts on the climate system include increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases (e.g., carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons and their substitutes, methane, nitrous oxide, etc.), air pollution, increasing concentrations of airborne particles, and land alteration. A particular concern is that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide may be rising faster than at any time in Earth's history, except possibly following rare events like impacts from large extraterrestrial objects.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have increased since the mid-1700s through fossil fuel burning and changes in land use, with more than 80% of this increase occurring since 1900. Moreover, research indicates that increased levels of carbon dioxide will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years. It is virtually certain that increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will cause global surface climate to be warmer.
The complexity of the climate system makes it difficult to predict some aspects of human-induced climate change: exactly how fast it will occur, exactly how much it will change, and exactly where those changes will take place. In contrast, scientists are confident in other predictions. Mid-continent warming will be greater than over the oceans, and there will be greater warming at higher latitudes. Some polar and glacial ice will melt, and the oceans will warm; both effects will contribute to higher sea levels. The hydrologic cycle will change and intensify, leading to changes in water supply as well as flood and drought patterns. There will be considerable regional variations in the resulting impacts.
Scientists' understanding of the fundamental processes responsible for global climate change has greatly improved during the last decade, including better representation of carbon, water, and other biogeochemical cycles in climate models. Yet, model projections of future global warming vary, because of differing estimates of population growth, economic activity, greenhouse gas emission rates, changes in atmospheric particulate concentrations and their effects, and also because of uncertainties in climate models. Actions that decrease emissions of some air pollutants will reduce their climate effects in the short term. Even so, the impacts of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations would remain.
The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change states as an objective the "...stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system." AGU believes that no single threshold level of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere exists at which the beginning of dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system can be defined. Some impacts have already occurred, and for increasing concentrations there will be increasing impacts. The unprecedented increases in greenhouse gas concentrations, together with other human influences on climate over the past century and those anticipated for the future, constitute a real basis for concern.
Enhanced national and international research and other efforts are needed to support climate related policy decisions. These include fundamental climate research, improved observations and modeling, increased computational capability, and very importantly, education of the next generation of climate scientists. AGU encourages scientists worldwide to participate in climate research, education, scientific assessments, and policy discussions. AGU also urges that the scientific basis for policy discussions and decision-making be based upon objective assessment of peer-reviewed research results.
Science provides society with information useful in dealing with natural hazards such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and drought, which improves our ability to predict and prepare for their adverse effects. While human-induced climate change is unique in its global scale and long lifetime, AGU believes that science should play the same role in dealing with climate change. AGU is committed to improving the communication of scientific information to governments and private organizations so that their decisions on climate issues will be based on the best science.
The global climate is changing and human activities are contributing to that change. Scientific research is required to improve our ability to predict climate change and its impacts on countries and regions around the globe. Scientific research provides a basis for mitigating the harmful effects of global climate change through decreased human influences (e.g., slowing greenhouse gas emissions, improving land management practices), technological advancement (e.g., removing carbon from the atmosphere), and finding ways for communities to adapt and become resilient to extreme events.
[Edited 1 times, lastly by Sore Throat on 12-17-2003] |
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Edufer
Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 198
Location: Malagueno, Cordoba, Argentina |
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Thu Dec 18, 2003 6:24 am
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quote:
What a nice bowl of picked cherries.
Proving? ?
That glacier receding is a regional or local phenonmenon. Not more, not less. You insist melting is a global phenonemon due to global warming, despite all NOAA's satellite readings showing there is a cooling trend. Enough? Oh, yes: download the WGMS report on glaciers I posted here and see if there was cherry picking. It showed just that: most glaciers are stable or advancing. Some are receding. But the balance is about that: 65% stable or advancing, just 35% receding.
quote:
...just how desperate SEÑOR Eduardo Ferreyra is to promote his distorted version of reality.
Poor Throatie has some problems in dealing with reality. Desperate are the IPCC and its cohort (Throatie on of them) seeing Kyoto's coffin going down the street. On the contrary, I am delighted!
quote:
Where is the peer review published data indicating that 65% of the world's glaciers are advancing...as he has repeatedly claimed?
Besides being an hypocrite yourself, you show yourself now as a liar. Where did I say there was a peer-reviewd study claiming such a thing? I said: Fred Singer says that, according to available data (as the one I just provided for your information) it is clear that 65% of glaciers are advancing or in stable condition.
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Don't you think that it is stange that SEÑOR Ferreyra has been unable to find ONE peer reviewed, published journal article to substantiate his claim?
There is no peer-reviwed study claiming such a thing, as there is not a study claiming the contrary, that is, 65% of the glaciers are in retreat. Find one for us.
On the contrary, I found and posted here data in the World Glacier Monitoring Service showing most glaciers are in +X or ST condition (advancing or stable). Check the data again. You are making a fool of yourself.
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Wouldn't this information be of the upmost importance given the current concern over climate change?
You bet. But "global warmers" have not provided the evidence for global retreat or melting. Just local or regional occurrences.
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Certainly if this were TRUE, SOMEONE would have published this verifiable data.
The same applies to global melting or receding glaciers. Can't you see the difference between press releases and real down to earth science yet? Need a pair of glasses?
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It reminds me of SEÑOR Ferreyra effort to plot the location of 11 vineyards in England, only to eventually learn that there were over 300!
In 60 km around my home town we have more than 400 vineyards - big commercial ones, not amateurish vineyards, with limited production, that started to be planted in 1969, because before that year (and since 1350 AD), England was too cold for grapes. The onset of the "urban heat island effect", due to the increased developing and population growth, allowed the vineyards to grow - although many years the crops froze and production was lost.
quote:
Like I said, nice bowl of cherries.
I love cherries. As you do. Only my cherries come from science; yours are picked from the mass media.
BTW: You have not commented Dr. Sherwood Idso's study (fully peer-reviewed!, as you demand) showing the "forcing function" for CO2 is 0.13 w/m2, and not 1.49 w/m2 as you unfortunate post claimed. Any comments? Or are you going to make another of your spectacular dodges?
Or are you going to maintain you autistic behaviour of posting press releases one after the other, in an endless and futile manner? I thought you could do better than that. I was wrong.
[Edited 5 times, lastly by Edufer on 12-17-2003] |
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Sore Throat
Joined: 01 Sep 2000
Posts: 1802
Location: x |
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Thu Dec 18, 2003 7:29 am
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Ah, the distinguished SEÑOR Eduardo Ferreyra has become so puckered that he has to resort to name calling...
He must be feeling increasing isolation...somewhat used, even abandon by his previous compatriots.
Bad enough that a body like the AGU puts to lie his position, but to be suddenly left out on a limb by the infamous John Christy...
well, it's easy to see why he has lost his composure.
Please note that I never said that SEÑOR Eduardo Ferreyra ever stated that he had a peer reviewed scientific article stating that 65% of the world's glaciers are advancing. That is precisely what I am pointing out...
...he doesn't have any such evidence!
despite making such claims (which now he appears to disavow and place the blame on his mentor Fred Singer).
And yet look how desperately he attempts to distort what was said.
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Here are some other sources of glacial retreat to ponder:
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Remember Glacier Park in Montana that SEÑOR Ferreyra cited as an example of an "advancing" glacier? Well check out this great time series animation to see how accurate he was:
http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/7639/atmosphere/glcrsgne.htm
******************************************* http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/gallery.htm?name=Malaspina
Malaspina Glacier, Alaska
This ASTER image was acquired on June 8, 2001, and covers an area of 55 x 40 km over the southwest part of the Malaspina Glacier and Icy Bay in Alaska. The composite of infrared and visible bands results in the snow and ice appearing light blue, dense vegatation is yellow-orange and green, and less vegetated, gravelly areas are in orange. According to Dr. Dennis Trabant (US Geological Survey, Fairbanks), the Malaspina Glacier is thinning. Its terminal moraine protects it from contact with the open ocean; without the moraine, or if sea level rises sufficiently to reconnect the glacier with the ocean, the glacier would start calving and retreat significantly. ASTER data are being used to help monitor the size and movement of some 15,000 tidal and piedmont glaciers in Alaska. Evidence derived from ASTER and many other satellite and ground-based measurements suggests that only a few dozen Alaskan glaciers are advancing. The overwhelming majority of them are retreating.
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/06/010605072007.htm
Source: American Institute Of Physics
New Research Shows Mountain Glaciers Shrinking Worldwide
Boston, MA (May 30, 2001) -- Mountain glaciers around the world are receding, said geophysicists today at the annual spring meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). In a finding he calls "dramatic," Dr. Rick Wessels from the United States Geologic Survey (USGS) presented research that compared new satellite data to historical records and photographs of glaciers on mountains worldwide, showing that the majority of glaciers studied have decreased in size.
Wessels is part of the Global Land Ice Measurement from Space (GLIMS) project at USGS, which is using NASA's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) to monitor mountain glaciers around the world. ASTER is one of the instruments on the TERRA satellite, which launched in December 1999. ...more
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Europe From Space | The Alps | Glacial Retreat
Almost all the World's glaciers are retreating. A remarkable quantity of ice disappears every year, with subsequent lowering of the surface level and considerable melting at its front edge.
http://www.eduspace.esa.int/eduspace/project/default.asp?document=213&language=en
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Shrinking glaciers worldwide
http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap10/nzglacier.html
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http://www.etsimo.uniovi.es/solar/portug/earthpr1.htm
NASA Researchers Document Shrinking of Greenland's Glaciers
Greenland's southeastern glaciers are rapidly thinning and their lower elevations may be particularly sensitive to potential climate changes, a NASA study suggests.
"The results of this study are important in that they could represent the first indication of an increase in the speed of outlet glaciers," said Bill Krabill, principal investigator at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, VA. An outlet glacier acts as a major ice drainage region for an ice sheet.
"The excess volume of ice transported by these glaciers has had a negligible effect on global sea level thus far, but if it accelerates or becomes more widespread, it would begin to have a detectable impact on sea level," Krabill said.
In the March 5 issue of SCIENCE, researchers report the glacial thinning is too large to have resulted from increased ice- surface melting or decreased snowfall. The researchers believe the thinning, as much as 30 feet over five years in some locations, is the result of increasing discharge speeds of glaciers flowing into the Atlantic Ocean.
Krabill said surface-melt water might be seeping to the bottom of glaciers. Such seepage may be reducing the friction between the ice and the rock below it, enabling the glaciers to slide with less friction across the bedrock and thus allow more ice to slip off into the ocean, according to Krabill.
"The results of this study are significant because they provide the first evidence of widespread thinning of low-elevation parts of one of the great polar ice sheets. The results also suggest that the thinning outlet glaciers must be flowing faster than necessary to remove the annual accumulation of snow within their basins," said Krabill.
"Why they are behaving like this is a mystery," said Krabill, "but it might indicate that the coastal margins of ice sheets are capable of responding quite rapidly to external changes, such as a potential warming of the climate." ...more
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http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/AG/BerlinerHutte.html
These three images show Waxeggkees Glacier and Berliner Hütte in the Zemmgrund (the valley of the Zemmbach) in the upper reaches of the Zillertal (the Ziller valley) above Mayrhofen in the Austrian land of Tirol. The upper two images are from postcards dated 1912 and 1933, and the lower image is from a slide taken in 2003.
The three images show the extent to which the Waxeggkees receded between the early 1900s and 2003. The valley glacier of the Waxeggkees can be seen behind Berliner Hütte in the upper two images and consists of ice flowing down from the upper reaches of the glacier. In the 2003 image, there is no such flowing valley glacier at all. Instead, the till that previously underlay the glacier is visible, as is a large area of gray bedrock that was likewise covered by the glacier. Only at the white in the upper reaches of the image is there still any glacier. Another image from a lower vantage point shows the U-shaped trough between the lateral moraines left behind by the receding glacier.
The significance of sequential images like these documenting glacial retreat is that they provide natural non-instrumental evidence of global warming. Skeptics of global warming argue that world climate is not getting warmer, and that instrumental (thermometer) records of rising temperatures are only the result of increasing temperatures at busy airports and in urban heat islands. Retreating glaciers, however, are not at airports or in urban heat islands, and so cannot by so easily dismissed by those skeptics. The retreat of these glaciers, which is widespread around the world, is independent evidence of global warming.
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Mark B.Dyurgerov and Mark F. Meier, 1997. "Year-to-year fluctuations of global mass balance of small glaciers and their contribution to sea-level changes", Arctic and Alpine Research 29(4):392-402.
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"World's Glaciers Continue to Shrink According to New CU-Boulder Study", University of Colorado news release, May 26, 1998.
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According to the National Ice Center, a new iceberg -- one roughly twice the size of the state of Rhode Island -- is adrift in the icy waters off Antarctica. March 19, 2002.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/03/19/new.iceberg/
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Alaska's glaciers are melting at more than twice the rate previously thought because of warming temperatures, dramatically altering the majestic contours of the state and driving up sea levels, according to a new study.
By Eric Pianin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 19, 2002;
****************************************** http://www.thewe.cc/contents/more/archive/october2003/fastest_area_of_glacial_retreat .htm
South American glaciers' big melt
The Patagonia glaciers of Chile and Argentina are melting so fast they are making a significant contribution to sea-level rise, say scientists.
They report ice was lost at a rate sufficient to push up ocean waters by 0.04 millimetres per year during the period from 1975 through to 2000.
This is equal, the researchers say, to 9% of the total annual global sea-level rise from all mountain glaciers.
The American research team reports its findings in the journal Science.
Rising temperatures
The team combined data from a space shuttle mission in 2000 and survey data gathered on the ground to study the 63 largest Patagonia ice fields.
They compared ice loss rates between 1968 and 1975, and from 1975 to 2000. As well as the general increase in melting, the team also found accelerated ice-mass loss between 1995 and 2000.
This period saw melting sufficient to push up sea-levels by 0.1 millimetres per year.
In comparison, the team says, Alaska's glaciers, which cover an area five times larger, account for about 30% of the total annual global sea-level rise from mountain glaciers.
The researchers, led by Eric Rignot, from the US space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, believe climate change has led to the region experiencing a rise in air temperatures and decreased precipitation.
Going backwards
Still, those factors alone are not sufficient to explain the rapid thinning.
The rest of the story appears to lie primarily in the unique dynamic response of the region's glaciers to climate change, the researchers believe.
"The Patagonia ice fields are dominated by so-called 'calving' glaciers," Rignot said.
"Such glaciers spawn icebergs into the ocean or lakes and have different dynamics from glaciers that end on land and melt at their front ends.
"Calving glaciers are more sensitive to climate change once pushed out of equilibrium, and make this region the fastest area of glacial retreat on Earth," he said.
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http://www.acs.ohio-state.edu/units/research/archive/glacgone.htm
ICE CAPS IN AFRICA, TROPICAL SOUTH AMERICA LIKELY TO DISAPPEAR WITHIN 15 YEARS
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Many glaciers and ice caps atop mountains in Africa and South America will probably have melted within the next 15 years because of global warming and little can be done to save them, an Ohio State University researcher explained today.
Lonnie Thompson, professor of geological sciences, reported that at least one-third of the massive ice field atop Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa has disappeared, or melted, in the last dozen years. About 82 percent of the ice field has been lost since it was first mapped in 1912.
And the Peru's Quelccaya ice cap in the Southern Andes Mountains has shrunk by at least 20 percent since 1963. More troubling however, Thompson said, is the observation that the rate of retreat for one of the main glaciers flowing out from the ice cap, Qori Kalis, has been 32 times greater in the last three years than it was in the period between 1963 and 1978.
Thompson, a researcher with Ohio State's Byrd Polar Research Center, reported the results of two decades of studies by his research team, which has surveyed tropical ice caps and retrieved and analyzed ice cores from South America, Africa, China, Tibet and other locations around the globe. He presented his findings during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco.
"These glaciers are very much like the canaries once used in coal mines," Thompson said. "They're an indicator of massive changes taking place and a response to the changes in climate in the tropics."
The retreat and loss of these massive ice bodies make up part of the evidence Thompson presented that has convinced him global warming has begun to make its mark on the planet. He also looked at the ratio between two oxygen isotopes -- oxygen-16 and oxygen-18 - trapped in ice cores drilled from four sites on the Tibetan Plateau. The higher the oxygen-18 enrichment, the warmer the atmospheric temperatures were when the ice formed from fallen snow. From these, he can extrapolate a history of regional temperatures.
At one site, the Dasuopu Glacier, a two-kilometer-wide ice field that straddles a flat area on the flank of Xixabangma, an 8,014-meter (26,293 feet) peak on the southern edge of the Tibetan Plateau where they drilled in 1997, the cores showed that the last 50 years were the most enriched - and therefore, warmest - in the history of the ice cap. A preliminary look at the isotopes in a core retrieved late last year from Puruogangri, an ice cap in the center of the Tibetan plateau north of Dasuopu, showed a similar enrichment and corresponding warming.
While Thompson's team focused on the records preserved in the ice, his colleagues from the People's Republic of China, have analyzed 30 years of records from 178 weather stations spread across the Plateau. Those records show that between 1969 and 1990, the rate of warming has increased at higher elevation sites. That is consistent with the oxygen isotope measurements from the Tibetan ice cores, Thompson said.
"We have long predicted that the first signs of changes caused by global warming would appear at the few fragile, high-altitude ice caps and glaciers within the tropics," the band extending from 30 degrees North to 30 degrees South. "These findings confirm those predictions," Thompson said.
The retreat of the Kilimanjaro and Quelccaya ice caps are the most dramatic evidence, however. Thompson's photographs documented the retreat of both, as well as that of the glaciers that flow from them.
In the case of Qori Kalis, Quelccaya's main ice tongue, the rate of retreat has reached 155 meters (509 feet) per year, three times faster than the rate measured during the last measurement period from 1995 to 1998. The melting ice has formed a large lake at the front of the glacier which did not exist in 1983 but now covers more than 10 acres. (It is four acres bigger than it was in 1998.) Bare earth has been exposed for the first time in thousands of years.
Thompson and his colleagues drilled their first core from Quelccaya in 1976. "I fully expect to be able to return there in a dozen years or so and see the marks on the rock where our drill bit punched through the ice," he said. If that happens, it means that an ice cap 154 meters (505 feet) thick at that spot has vanished.
For Kilimanjaro, four-fifths of the vast ice field that covered the top of the highest mountain in Africa has disappeared in the last 80 years. "At this rate, all of the ice will be gone between the years 2010 and 2020. "And that is probably a conservative estimate," he said.
African officials worry that the loss of the ice cap atop Kilimanjiro will be devastating to the thriving tourist trade that brings thousands of people to the mountain each year and fuels the country's economy. But for Quelccaya in Peru - and similar ice caps and glaciers in the Andes - the loss represents a much greater threat than lost tourism dollars.
"The loss of these frozen reservoirs threaten water resources for hydroelectric power production in the region, and for crop irrigation and municipal water supplies," he said. The ice in the high-altitude glaciers represents a "bank account" of sorts to feed their power needs. With the melting ice caps, streams have grown and the government is building new dams and hydroelectric plants.
"What they're really doing now is cashing in on a bank account that was built over thousands of years but isn't being replenished. Once it's gone, it will be difficult to reform," he said. In such cases, the countries will probably have to switch to burning fossil fuels to meet their power needs. And by doing so, they'll add more carbon dioxide and water vapor to the atmosphere - two gases that are known to enhance the greenhouse effect and intensify global warming.
Thompson said that other researchers have documented similar ice losses. An ice cap on Mount Kenya has shrunk by 40 percent since 1963. Two glaciers atop mountains in New Guinea are disappearing and should be gone in a decade. And in Venezuela in 1972, there were six such glaciers - now there are only two left and they will have melted in the next 10 years.
"We need to take the first steps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions," he said. "We are currently doing nothing. In fact, as a result of the energy crisis in California - and probably in the rest of the country by this summer - we will be investing even more in fuel-burning power plants.
"That will put more power in the grid but, at the same time it will add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, amplifying the problem."
Thompson's work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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And finally, for tonight, here's one from another prestigious institution, The Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology.
One must wonder how increasingly lonely SEÑOR Eduardo Ferreyra must feel.
Note that this study was published in the peer reviewed journal Science.
Exactly what SEÑOR Ferreyra has been asking for but can't produce himself.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2003/138.cfm
South American Glaciers Melting Faster, Changing Sea Level
October 16, 2003
Patagonia Icefields of Chile and Argentina, the largest non-Antarctic ice masses in the Southern Hemisphere, are thinning at an accelerating pace and now account for nearly 10 percent of global sea-level change from mountain glaciers, according to a new study by NASA and Chile's Centro de Estudios Cientificos.
Researchers Dr. Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; Andres Rivera of Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile; and Dr. Gino Casassa of Centro de Estudios Cientificos, Valdivia, Chile, compared conventional topographic data from the 1970s and 1990s with data from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, flown in February 2000. Their objective was to measure changes over time in the volumes of the 63 largest glaciers in the region.
Results of the study, published this week in the journal Science, conclude the Patagonia Icefields lost ice at a rate equivalent to a sea level rise of 0.04 millimeters (0.0016 inches) per year during the period 1975 through 2000. This is equal to nine percent of the total annual global sea-level rise from mountain glaciers, according to the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Scientific Assessment. From 1995 through 2000, however, that rate of ice loss from the icefields more than doubled, to an equivalent sea level rise of 0.1 millimeters (0.004 inches) per year.
In comparison, Alaska's glaciers, which cover an area five times larger, account for about 30 percent of total annual global sea-level rise from mountain glaciers. So what's causing the increased Patagonia thinning?
Rignot and his colleagues concluded the answer is climate change, as evidenced by increased air temperatures and decreased precipitation over time. Still, those factors alone are not sufficient to explain the rapid thinning. The rest of the story appears to lie primarily in the unique dynamic response of the region's glaciers to climate change.
"The Patagonia Icefields are dominated by so-called 'calving' glaciers," Rignot said. "Such glaciers spawn icebergs into the ocean or lakes and have different dynamics from glaciers that end on land and melt at their front ends. Calving glaciers are more sensitive to climate change once pushed out of equilibrium, and make this region the fastest area of glacial retreat on Earth.”
Rignot said the study underscores NASA's unique contributions to understanding changes in Earth's cryosphere. "From the unique vantage point of space, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission provided the first complete topographic coverage of the Patagonia Icefields," he explained. "Researchers can now access data on this remote Earth region in its totality, allowing them to draw conclusions about the whole system, rather than just focusing on changes on a few glaciers studied from the ground or by aircraft.”
Rignot said scientists are particularly interested in studying how climate interacts with glaciers because it may be a good barometer of how the large ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica will respond to future climate change. "We know the Antarctic peninsula has been warming for the past four decades, with ice shelves disappearing rapidly and glaciers behind them speeding up and raising sea level," he noted. "Our Patagonia research is providing unique insights into how these larger ice masses may evolve over time in a warmer climate," he said.
The Northern Patagonia Icefield in Chile and the Southern Patagonia Icefield in Chile and Argentina, cover 13,000 and 4,200 square kilometers (5,019 and 1,622 square miles), respectively. The region, spanning the Andes mountain range, is sparsely inhabited, with rough terrain and poor weather, restricting ground access by scientists. Precipitation in the region ranges from 2 to 11 meters (6.6 to 36 feet) of water equivalent per year, a snow equivalent of up to 30 meters (98.4 feet) a year. The icefields discharge ice and meltwater to the ocean on the west side and to lakes on the east side, via rapidly flowing glaciers. The fronts of most of these glaciers have been retreating over the past half- century or more.
The study benefited from ground experiments led jointly by Centro de Estudios Cientificos; Universidad de Chile; University of Washington, Seattle; and University of Alaska, Fairbanks, with funding by NASA, Fondecyt (Chilean National Science Foundation) and the National Science Foundation International Program.
The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, and the German and Italian space agencies. Information about the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission is available at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.
[Edited 23 times, lastly by Sore Throat on 12-18-2003] |
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Sore Throat
Joined: 01 Sep 2000
Posts: 1802
Location: x |
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Thu Dec 18, 2003 8:32 am
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http://www.evworld.com/databases/shownews.cfm?pageid=news011202-01
NY Times OpEd: Shrinking Glaciers
New York Times editorial critical of Bush administration's attitude towards global warming.
Source: New York Times
[Dec 01, 2002]
Every so often a report comes out of a remote part of the world that is so shocking it makes us sit bolt upright and start thinking hard about global warming. Now it is news from the Bolivian Andes, where glaciers more than three miles above sea level are retreating with alarming speed, creating the threat of potentially disastrous water shortages.
According to a story last week by The Times's Juan Forero, the glacier on Chacaltaya Mountain, which claims the world's highest ski slope, has been shriveling so fast that scientists predict its disappearance in 10 years. Chacaltaya Mountain is hardly alone. Shrinking glaciers are a worldwide phenomenon. Great slices of snow and ice are disappearing in places from the Austrian Alps to Glacier National Park in Montana, where the number of glaciers has declined from 150 a century ago to 35 today. In 30 years, there may be none in the park at all.
The tropical glaciers of the Andes seem to be retreating more quickly than any others. Some scientists have warned of a calamity in the making because countries like Bolivia and Peru depend on glaciers and the rain and snow that fall in the mountains for drinking water, for irrigating fields and for generating electricity.
There appear to be two reasons for the crisis. One is a series of unseasonably dry years attributed to El Niño, the name given to the weather pattern generated by warm Pacific currents off the South American coast. El Niño has occurred with abnormal frequency in the last 20 years. The other is climate change. In Bolivia, the average temperature has risen by 1 degree Celsius in the last century, mirroring changes in some other parts of the world. That may not seem like much, but it is enough to cause environmental havoc.
This unsettling news could have a bright side if it persuaded the Bush administration to pay more attention to the global warming issue. A report early last month from 18 leading scientists, published in the journal Science, called for a concentrated national effort — equal to the Apollo moon landing project — to develop energy sources other than fossil fuels. Most scientists now believe that the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil has contributed heavily to the warming trend.
But just two weeks later, the Bush administration called for further research into the causes of global warming.
Given the degree of consensus on the issue, the research project looks like just one more excuse for inaction from a president who shocked the world early in his tenure by reneging on a campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas, and by renouncing the Kyoto agreement on global climate change.
But in view of the sobering news from places like the Andes, it is hard to imagine that Mr. Bush can sustain his casual attitude much longer.
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Sore Throat
Joined: 01 Sep 2000
Posts: 1802
Location: x |
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Thu Dec 18, 2003 9:47 am
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We have all noted how SEÑOR Eduardo Ferreyra has backtracked from his repeated reference to the World Glacier Monitoring Service indicating that 65% of the world's glaciers are advancing.
When challenged on this he backs off, and says it was Fred Singer who claimed such an analysis of the WGMS data.
SEÑOR Ferreyra states: "I said: Fred Singer says that, according to available data (as the one I just provided for your information) it is clear that 65% of glaciers are advancing or in stable condition."
Well, well, well...
Let's just look at what the World Glacier Monitoring Service actually says about its own data:
http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/
From Glacier Mass Balance Bulletin No. 6 (1998-1999) latest available
"Present and past glacier fluctuations indeed provide important information on ranges of natural variability and rates of change with respect to long-term energy fluxes at the earth's surface. The spectacular loss in length, area and volume of mountain glaciers during the 2oth century is a major reflection of the fact that rapid secular change in the energy balance of the earth's surface is taking place on a global scale. The characteristic rate of this change (on average a few decimeters ice depth loss per year or a few W/m2 for the corresponding change of latent heat) is broadly consistent with the estimated radiative forcing and changes in sensible heat as calculated with numerical climate models. The beginning of this rapid secular glacial retreat tendency was probably little affected by human activity. The observed evolution may, however, contain an expanding element of anthropogenic influence: recent shrinking of glaciers now coincides for the first time with a man-induced climate forcing which could be responsible for a large part of the additional energy flux causing the observed melt rate. Glacier fluctuations, reconstructed for historical and Holocene time periods from direct measurements, old paintings, written sources or moraines, indicate that glacier extent in many mountain regions may have varied over past centuries and millennia within a range defined by the extremes of the maximum of the Little Ice Age advance and today's reduced stage, respectively. However,the situation now appears to be evolving at a high and accelerating rate towards,or even beyond, the "warm" limit of natural Holocene variability.
So let me ask you...is the World Glacier Monitoring Service saying this because they believe that 65% of the world's glaciers are advancing?
If you belive that, you believe SEÑOR Eduardo Ferreyra and apparently Fred Singer...
...and I would encourage you to read this again, and think for yourself.
These WGMS data are what SEÑOR Ferreyra hangs his hat on...and his conclusion is simply inconsistent with their report.
[Edited 4 times, lastly by Sore Throat on 12-18-2003] |
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