1. Ice cores from glaciers and ice caps provide a remarkable history of climate change extending back in some cases 800,000+ years (Antarctic ice).
2. The loss of glacial ice in the tropics is accelerating. The race is on to obtain and preserve cores from these areas. One of the figures presented by Lonnie derives from a recent paper by Cullen et al. (2013) who used photographs and three-dimensional visualization techniques to map the remarkable loss of ice on Mt. Kilimanjaro from 1912 to 2011.
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| Source: Cullen et al. (2013) |
3. 98% of the worlds glaciers are currently losing mass. Those on Papau New Guinea will likely be gone by the end of the decade. Roughly half of the glacial ice the the alps will be gone by 2040.
I first saw Lonnie speak 10 or 15 years ago. The changes he was documenting back then were impressive, but those described in this latest talk are jaw dropping. Change is underway and it is starting to pick up speed.
Lonnie also shared a remarkable story. A leader of more than 50 high altitude expeditions for scientific research, he was stricken with congestive heart failure. He is now a heart transplant recipient. Learn more about Lonnie's remarkable research and life in this New York Times article by Justin Gillis.
The last ice age lasted from approximately 110,000 to 12,000 years ago peaking around 20,000 years ago. We are still coming out of a ice age and glacial ice is still retreating due to natural climate change. The real question is if anthropogenic climate change is happening and if so what does Lonnie think is the cause?
ReplyDeleteThis answers your question: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2995507/
DeleteI just wrote Senator Ted Cruz and sent him the link to the paper above. :) Hope he reads it.
DeleteAs I suspected, he thinks "that warming is due largely to human activity". To say the warming is LARGELY due to human activity is very misleading. Climate change is LARGELY due to a set of natural harmonics that are associated to the solar system planetary motion, which is mostly determined by Jupiter and Saturn. A very small portion of the warming may be due to human activity.
DeleteHis opinion is overwhelmingly supported by thousands upon thousands of peer-reviewed scientific studies. Yours is supported by a couple of debunked studies, none of which can explain causation. And in terms of a very small portion coming from human activity, I don't know of any study that has shown that. The only one presenting misleading information is you.
DeleteAnd so people don't have to take my word for it, here is a nice explanation of why the planetary motion hypothesis is non-scientific: http://www.skepticalscience.com/loehle-scafetta-60-year-cycle.htm
DeleteWhat is different about the small percentage of glaciers that are gaining (or at least not losing) mass? Where are these located? Just curious about this.
ReplyDeleteThe glacier mass balance depends on a number of factors and the underlying mechanisms can vary from glacier to glacier. Factors that can result in glacier advance or growth of an individual glacier or a number of glaciers in a region include increased snowfall, dynamic instabilities, and regional climate variability. Good info at http://www.grid.unep.ch/glaciers/.
DeleteAlso, the latest (2009) numbers that I can find suggest 90% of the worlds glaciers are shrinking. I could have misheard the 98% noted in the post or Lonnie was citing more recent numbers. Nevertheless, the vast majority are shrinking.
This is off the specific topic, but related to global warming, and directly related to snow snobbery, the guiding theme of our existence. What we've been calling the "death ridge", but is also called r-4th, ridiculously resilient ridge redux, has been with us to greater or lessor extents the past four winters, hence Alta's cum snowfall these past 4 years has been less than 400 inches, maybe less than 300 this year.
ReplyDeleteJim I know you are going to say you don't know, but please speculate, in an educated fashion.
What has caused this ridge to persist? It is associated, at least the past two years, with warmer water in the East Pacific near the North American west coast. Correlation is not causation, we know; are the warm waters causing the ridge; is anthropogenic climate change causing the warm waters.
On its face, glacial retreat is not directly related to a warm East Pacific, but indirectly ...
Sorry for the off-narrow-topic query, but I've been wanting to ask you about this, maybe you can do a post on death ridge causes
I don't think we have this nailed down yet, but some interesting discussion is at http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2015/03/why-has-weather-been-so-unusual-past.html
DeleteToo bad the Timp glacier disappeared before we had current tech to document it. Or even the LCC glacier!
ReplyDelete