MaxedOutMama
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Look It Up
Update:
Opinion Times has a post up discussing the entire series of pictures at the BBC, from which the Drudge Report posted the one I address below. I recommend reading Opinion Times as well. Jim says:
End Update
Drudge Report had a photo up of a composite of a glacial boundary in 1928 and again in 2004. The same photo has been around for a while, but I found it here with a Google image search. This is the Brisbane Mail Courier's helpful classroom instruction page. Note the caption "Upsala Glacier in Patagonia, Argentina in 1928 and January 2004. Show the decrease in size due to rising temperatures and climate change."
From there I went hunting for studies of this glacier, and found this site, Hokudai University's Low Temperature Patagonia page.
If you scroll down you will find abstracts of various articles published in different journals in which they discuss this glacier and others close to it. Some are stable, some (like Upsala) have retreated, and some have advanced during the study period. They believe that what has largely caused the dramatic change in this glacier is that outflow has been blocked (in part due to rise in bedrock), causing the ice at this terminus not to refresh itself:
Pictures such as the one above don't have anything to say about global temperatures, just as pictures of the rapid advance of Pio XI don't say anything about global temperatures falling.
As for the contention that the world is changing, all one can do is laugh. Yes, it is, and it always has. The concept of a steady-state climate was scientifically debunked generations ago. Anyone who produces such pictures and believes that they are evidence of anything is demonstrating either their intent to deceive the gullible (in which category I hope you, dear reader, don't belong) or is deceiving himself. It is quite sad that children are being propagandized in schools with this crap.
Greenpeace is a propaganda organization that long ago abandoned any pretensions to scientific authority, and our press has the work ethic of, well, the Egyptian National Research Center. If we permit this sort of thing to go unchallenged, how are we different than Egypt?
Opinion Times has a post up discussing the entire series of pictures at the BBC, from which the Drudge Report posted the one I address below. I recommend reading Opinion Times as well. Jim says:
Until sufficient answers are given, the photos are at best interesting comparisons of geophysical change and at worst mere anecdotal "evidence" of man's destruction of nature intended to support the socialist agenda most environmental organizations propose governments adopt.He's right - these photos are being used to make emotional arguments, not scientific ones. The problem with the "socialist agenda" he cites is that if we aren't careful we will lose the economic strength to deal with climate variability. It takes a strong healthy economy to be able to afford to be environmentally conscious. Most of China and India have been deforested due to human population pressures and subsistence farming. It's my guess that that change alone has more effect on global climate than the current impact of the portion of CO2 increases related to industrial activity.
End Update
Drudge Report had a photo up of a composite of a glacial boundary in 1928 and again in 2004. The same photo has been around for a while, but I found it here with a Google image search. This is the Brisbane Mail Courier's helpful classroom instruction page. Note the caption "Upsala Glacier in Patagonia, Argentina in 1928 and January 2004. Show the decrease in size due to rising temperatures and climate change."
From there I went hunting for studies of this glacier, and found this site, Hokudai University's Low Temperature Patagonia page.
If you scroll down you will find abstracts of various articles published in different journals in which they discuss this glacier and others close to it. Some are stable, some (like Upsala) have retreated, and some have advanced during the study period. They believe that what has largely caused the dramatic change in this glacier is that outflow has been blocked (in part due to rise in bedrock), causing the ice at this terminus not to refresh itself:
In the ablation area of Glaciar Perito Moreno, 50 km south of Glaciar Upsala, ablation rates were measured during 110 d in summer 1993-94, and air temperature was continuously recorded throughout 1994. Using a degree-day method with temperature data at the nearest meteorological station, Calafate, annual ablation during the last 30 years was estimated to fluctuate from about 12 +- 2 m/a to 16 +- 2 m/a in ice thickness, with a mean of 14 +- 2 m/a. Thus, the temperature anomaly alone cannot elucidate the thinning of 11 m/a at Glaciar Upsala. As a possible mechanism of the ice-thinning, it is suggested that the considerable retreat due to calving may have resulted in reduction of longitudinal compressive stress exerted from bedrock rises and islands near the glacier front, causing a considerable decrease in the emergence flow. Thus, the ice may have thinned at a rate close to the annual ablation rate.Here's another quote from an abstract discussing the different behavior of the various glaciers in this area:
These include the four largest outlet glaciers of the icefield, Pio XI, Viedma, Upsala and O'Higgins, and three medium to small glaciers, Ameghino, Perito Moreno and Tyndall, where we conducted field work since 1990. Of these, Pio XI Glacier, the largest in South America, showed a net advance, gaining a total area of 4.38 km2. Two Radarsat images taken in January and April 1997 revealed a surge-like very rapid glacier advance. O'Higgins Glacier, which retreated more than 14 km during 1945-86, stagnated between 1986 and 1997. Two Radarsat images taken in January and May 1997 for Upsala Glacier, the third largest, revealed that the proglacial lake was choked with icebergs, indicating very active calving in a short period of time and a large scale retreat at the western half of the glacier, during which it lost an area of 2.71 km2. Such large scale retreats accompanied by choking icebergs were observed in 1981-82, 1990-93 and 1993-95.I don't want to be pedantic about this, but when the temperature is falling, conditions can cause a glacier to retreat, and when the temperature is rising conditions can cause a glacier to advance. All glacial boundaries are marked by a melt/replenish cycle (ablation/flow). If a lot of precipitation (snow) is falling on the glaciers core, the glacier's boundaries may rapidly advance during a time of rising temperatures. If precipation on the glacier's core is low, the glacier may retreat during a time when of falling temperatures.
Pictures such as the one above don't have anything to say about global temperatures, just as pictures of the rapid advance of Pio XI don't say anything about global temperatures falling.
As for the contention that the world is changing, all one can do is laugh. Yes, it is, and it always has. The concept of a steady-state climate was scientifically debunked generations ago. Anyone who produces such pictures and believes that they are evidence of anything is demonstrating either their intent to deceive the gullible (in which category I hope you, dear reader, don't belong) or is deceiving himself. It is quite sad that children are being propagandized in schools with this crap.
Greenpeace is a propaganda organization that long ago abandoned any pretensions to scientific authority, and our press has the work ethic of, well, the Egyptian National Research Center. If we permit this sort of thing to go unchallenged, how are we different than Egypt?
