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Are glaciers growing or shrinking?

The skeptic argument...

Gore claims that Himalayan glaciers are shrinking and global warming is to blame. Yet the September 2006 issue of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate reported, "Glaciers are growing in the Himalayan Mountains, confounding global warming alarmists who recently claimed the glaciers were shrinking and that global warming was to blame." (source: James Taylor)

What the science says...

A common skeptic tactic is citing studies out of context to misrepresent their significance. While globally, glaciers are shrinking, there are isolated cases where glaciers are growing. These anomalies are seized upon as proof against global warming.

Himalayan glaciers "confounding global warming alarmists"

The American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate never said "...confounding global warming alarmists..." - that's a quote from the Heartland Institute website written by... James Taylor. He's actually quoting himself and attributing it to the AMS!

To put the Himalayas in context, the original study Conflicting Signals of Climatic Change in the Upper Indus Basin (Fowler 2006) is not refuting global warming but observing anomalous behaviour in a particular region, the Karakoram mountains. This region has shown short term glacial growth in contrast to the long term, widespread glacial retreat throughout the rest of the Himalayas. The reason for the Karakoram growth is feedback processes associated with monsoon season. Overall, Himalayan glaciers are retreating - satellite measurements have observed "an overall deglaciation of 21%" from 1962 to 2007.

The growing Whitney glacier on Mount Shasta, California

Another region gaining attention is the Californian Whitney glacier on Mount Shasta which has grown 30% over the last 50 years. The reason Mount Shasta is bucking the trend is explained by scientist Erik White: "Mount Shasta is right at the very northern end of areas influenced by El Nino and were at the southern end of areas affected by La Nina. So between the two we get to see the benefits of that which means more snow and rain in this area."

This is confirmed by another study A precipitation-dominated, mid-latitude glacier system: Mount Shasta, California (Howat 2007). Howat concludes that while temperature is often a dominant factor on glacier volume changes, in the case of Mount Shasta, precipitation dominates. However, they predict that the warming temperature trend will become more dominant resulting in near total loss of Mount Shasta’s glaciers by the end of the twenty-first century.

The Californian Academy of Science boast its the only ice river in the world larger today than in 1890. In essence, the Karakoram and Whitney glaciers are the exceptions that proves the rule.

Are many glaciers growing?

The World Glacier Monitoring Service tracks mass balance for a sample of glaciers around the world. The following table shows the glacier mass balance over 2002 and 2003 (negative values indicate shrinkage):

glacemb.jpg

While there is a small percentage of growing glaciers, the overwhelming majority are shrinking. And more importantly, the shrinking trend is increasing (eg - 77% in 2002, 94% in 2003).

Global trends in glacier shrinkage

Globally, glaciers are shrinking in area and thickness and the melt rate has accelerated dramatically since the mid-1990s. The National Snow and Ice Data Center have calculated global change in glacier volume - their results show glaciers are shrinking at an alarming rate.

Global Glacier Mass Balance (Volume Change)
Figure 2: Annual change in global glacier thickness (left axis, meters of water equivalent, m/yr) and cumulative value (right axis, m), based on surface area-weighted mass balance observations. Dates of major volcanic eruptions are shown, since stratospheric aerosols have a cooling effect on climate. Red arrow highlights volume rate change (source: NSIDC) .

A study on Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent (SCE) over the period 1972–2006 (Déry 2007) has found significant declines in SCE during spring over North America and Eurasia. It also found an enhanced snow-albedo feedback over northern latitudes that acts to reinforce initial warming. Eg - as the snow melts, the ground and sea absorbs more warmth from the sun, acting as a positive feedback.

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Comments

Comments 1 to 4:

  1. Re: "Himalayan glaciers confounding global warming alarmists"

    Isn't there a smog cover over the Himalayas from new industry in India and china acting as a sunscreen?
  2. John
    This is a strange claim: Global warming causing California glacier to grow (Wednesday, July 9, 2008)
    "the seven glaciers on Shasta, part of the Cascade mountains in northern California, seem to be benefiting from the warming ocean"
  3. Can the list of increasing glaciers be subdivided, by explanations, in a meaningful way?

    I. WARMER POLAR SEAS GW EXPLANATION

    The increased snowfall in central Greenland and Antarctica is due to the increased evaporation from the warmer polar seas around them.
    Could this same reason apply to western Norway (Briksdal Glacier) and the west coast of South New Zealand (Franz Josef Glacier, Fox Glacier)?

    "But Salinger said New Zealand glaciers were boosted by extremely high rainfall, with more than 10m a year falling west of the Southern Alps' main divide.
    "Most glaciers, except for some in parts of Norway, were in areas of lower rainfall and were affected more quickly by rising temperatures." Taipei Times

    And PIO XI Glacier(Chile) , and Perito Moreno Glacier(Argentina), are even further south...

    Iam making my argument despite the following article...which goes into greater detail.
    I am referring to the higher temperatures after several decades of GW. And simply extending the analogy: IF warmer seas lead to increased snowfall on Greenland and Antarctica, THEN...

    "RECENT GLACIER ADVANCES IN NORWAY AND NEW ZEALAND...
    "Norway and New Zealand both experienced recent advances, commencing in the early 1980's and ceasing around 2000, which were more extensive than any other since the end of the Little Ice Age. Common to both countries, the positive glacier balances are associated with an increase in the strength of westerly atmospheric circulation which brought increased precipitation..."
    Norway=f(North Atlantic Oscillation)
    New Zealand=f(Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation,
    El Nino/Southern Oscillation)


    II. MISCELLANEOUS GW EXPLANATIONS

    The Karakorum Mountains are mentioned above.


    ???Alaska's increasing coastal glaciers???

    "...Hubbard Glacier is the largest of eight calving glaciers in Alaska that are currently increasing in total mass and advancing. All of these glaciers calve into the sea, are at the heads of long fiords, have undergone retreats during the last 1,000 years, calve over relatively shallow submarine moraines, and have unusually small ablation areas compared to their accumulation areas."
    "...were retreating throughout the Little Ice Age (AD1350 or 1450 to AD 1900) when most glaciers were growing." Jan 2003

    Icy Bay glaciers, Alaska: "puzzled by the glaciers' advance because all three glaciers moved forward at the same time, possibly because of a high snowfall year in the upper reaches of the glaciers, or rainfall down low, that could lubricate the glacier's sliding surface, the bedrock beneath them." June, 2007
    (January 2007 was the warmest globally, I believe,
    so the La Nina hasn't started yet.)

    Icy Bay is located near the Hubbard Glacier, on the Gulf of Alaska.
    Note that all eleven of these increasing glaciers are located on the coast. I couldn't find an Alaskan map locating its glaciers. But Google Earth suggests that the largest glaciers are on the coast, and behind it; in an arc around the Gulf of Alaska.
    Winter Land and Ocean Surface Temperature trend maps seem to indicate cooler water near the Gulf of Alaska, but warmer water way out in the north Pacific.
    NOAA Wind Direction vectors for January pass thru the warm Pacific area, and head toward this coast.
    Could the increasing Alaskan glaciers be attributed to Global Warming via the warmer waters in the north Pacific?


    III. OTHER (NON-GW) EXPLANATIONS

    Mount Shasta is mentioned above.
    The Mount Shasta explanation would also cover two small glaciers nearby in the Trinity Alps.

    "Since 1980, there has been an advance of more than 55% of the 625 mountain glaciers under observation by the World Glacier Monitoring Group in Zurich..."
    A skepticalscience listing on this page, it is from a 2007-12-23 dated website. Obviously, '1980' seems pretty irrelevant. And,from the table above, 7% are increasing.

    "Crater Glacier" is inside the Mount St. Helens crater.
    "Shadowed by the crater walls and fed by heavy snowfall and repeated snow avalanches, it grew rapidly..."
    This sounds like a special case, to me...a 'shadow' glacier.
    "In addition, since 2004, new glaciers have formed on the crater wall above Crater Glacier, feeding rock and ice onto its surface below."

    "Very high-elevation Mont Blanc glaciated areas not affected by the 20th century climate change..."
    "...the mass balance of the glaciers is strongly controlled by precipitation, not temperature."


    This list is from a skeptic website that, among many other things, lists articles about 'GROWING' glaciers.
    I have not included the more recent, post La Nina, situations.

    z4.invisionfree.com/Popular_Technology/index.php?showtopic=2050-884k-
  4. ........SKEPTIC SOURCES


    My focus above was on increasing glaciers that were referred to by skeptics. I got them from an endless skeptic bibliography...that's split up into a hundred subdivisions.

    z4.invisionfree.com/Popular_Technology/
    index.php?showtopic=2050

    GW skepticism being what it is, the counter argument was often also there, in the same article. In addition, there'd be some "google words", on which to continue.


    The other skeptic source I know about is also subdivided; and includes some text, with a literature review.

    appinsys.com/globalwarming/

    A neophyte believer blogger's first source would likely be a skeptical argument website, like skeptical science.com. Is appinsys the first source for a neophyte skeptic blogger?
    It would be useful to know where the other blogger is getting his information. For example, I've always been amazed at skeptics' ability to produce weather related fatality statistics. When I've never seen any. Until...


    There's no hope for the cynical skeptic, who'll cherrypick anything anywhere. And the gullible skeptic can probably be reached only on his own entry level conspiracies. But I think the more open-minded ('skeptical') skeptic would eventually see through this disjointed collection of counter arguments...that don't add up to a realistic whole.


    Are there any other useful skeptic sources?

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