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• Do growing glaciers disprove global warming?

Are glaciers growing or shrinking?

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):

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.

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.