The Coming and Going of Glaciers: A New Alpine Melt Theory

The Alpine glaciers are shrinking, that much we know. But new research suggests that in the time of the Roman Empire, they were smaller than today. And 7,000 years ago they probably weren't around at all. A group of climatologists have come up with a controversial new theory on how the Alps must have looked over the ages.

The Morteratsch glacier in Switzerland has retreated by 1.5 km since 1900. Some scientists believe that glacial fluctuation could be a more normal development than previously thought.

He may not look like a revolutionary, but Ulrich Joerin, a wiry Swiss scientist in his late twenties, is part of a small group of climatologists who are in the process of radically changing the image of the Swiss mountain world. He and a colleague are standing in front of the Tschierva Glacier in Engadin, Switzerland at 2,200 meters (7,217 feet). "A few thousand years ago, there were no glaciers here at all," he says. "Back then we would have been standing in the middle of a forest." He digs into the ground with his mountain boot until something dark appears: an old tree trunk, covered in ice, polished by water and almost black with humidity. "And here is the proof," says Joerin.

The tree trunk in the ice is part of a huge climatic puzzle that Joerin is analyzing for his doctoral thesis for the Institute for Geological Science at the University of Bern. And he is coming to an astonishing conclusion. The fact that the Alpine glaciers are melting right now appears to be part of regular cycle in which snow and ice have been coming and going for thousands of years.

The glaciers, according to the new hypothesis, have shrunk down to almost nothing at least ten times since the last ice age 10,000 years ago. "At the time of the Roman Empire, for example, the glacier tongue was about 300 meters higher than today," says Joerin. Indeed, Hannibal probably never saw a single big chunk of ice when he was crossing the Alps with his army.

The most dramatic change in the landscape occurred some 7,000 years ago. At the time, the entire mountain range was practically glacier-free -- and probably not due to a lack of snow, but because the sun melted the ice. The timber line was higher then as well.

The scientists' conclusion puts the vanishing glaciers of the past 150 years into an entirely new context: "Over of the past 10,000 years, fifty percent of the time, the glaciers were smaller than today," Joerin states in an essay written together with his doctoral advisor Christian Schluechter. They call it the "Green Alps" theory.

Joerin admits his theory goes against conventional wisdom. "It is hard to imagine that the glaciers, as we know them, were not the norm in past millennia, but rather an exception," he says while he and his companions dig out the tree trunk with shovels, axes and bare hands.

Indeed, critics accuse him and his colleagues of relying on a thin and ambivalent layer of facts. The Green Alpinists respond to the argument their own way: with a large orange chain saw. Kurt Nicolussi, a slender man in his late 40s, slices a slab of wood as large as a wiener schnitzel out of the trunk and analyzes it. "At least 400 annual rings, well preserved, perhaps the best sample we have ever had," he declares proudly.

Nicolussi, professor for Alpine Research at the University of Innsbruck, Nicolussi is a dendrochronologist, something of a tree historian. He records the exact location of the find, carefully packs up the slab and labels it with a new name: "TSC-160" -- find number 160 of the Tschierva Glacier. Under the microscope, the thickness and the shape of the annual rings reveal a considerable amount of detail about the location and the climate conditions under which the tree grew. To date, he has collected and analyzed more than 400 chunks of wood.

Nicolussi's assessment of TSC-160: It comes from a stone pine (Pinus cembra) that lived at least 538 years. "This is not unusual, pines grow extremely slowly, but become quite old," the scientist explains. TSC-160 died approximately 6880 years ago, during the Neolithic Age, somewhere at the foot of Piz Bernina which is today covered with an impenetrable ice shield.

Somewhere along the line, the tree was buried by masses of ice and dragged into the valley where it remained until the glacier set it free again last summer -- a secret message from the Stone Age at a place thought to be covered in "eternal ice."

Although glacier experts like Hanspeter Holzhauser have been collecting remains of plants in the vicinity of glaciers for years, they only began systematically analyzing the finds about 13 years ago.

At first, he and his students collected over a thousand little chunks of wood and shreds of turf on their excursions along the glaciers, from the Engadin in the east to the Unterwallis in the west, from the Forno and Stei Glacier to the du Mont Mine Glacier. Finds include the remains of birch trees, willows, Norway spruce, pines, larch and a lot of the resilient Swiss stone pine.

There is a simple deduction that lends support to the Green Alp theory: The bits of trees that have been washed out of the glaciers must come from further up the mountain. And if trees grew up there, then the mountains could not have been covered by glaciers.

Schluechter sent over a hundred of the old bits of wood to a special laboratory for carbon dating. They discovered that the trees didn't grow up there continually, but rather within ten periods of time since the end of the last ice age.

"The history of the glacial cover apparently is more dynamic than had been assumed until now," says Schleuchter. According to this model, the glaciers were smallest about 7,000 years ago, largest during the "mini ice age" of 1650 to 1850. Since this last cold spell, the tongues of ice have been receding quickly -- for a paleo-climatologist 150 years are just a wink in time.

Schluechter knew that his theory would be a hard sell in professional circles, and he needed more samples to back it up. He came up with a trick to get help: He and doctoral candidate Joerin published an article in the the Swiss Alpine Association's members magazine. At the end they included a plea to "mountain guides, mountaineering schools and hut keepers, to register wood and turf finds. They promised that "Finders would get the next summit drink for free." The feedback was amazing: some 50 envelopes with tips and samples landed in the Institute's mailbox.

Some experts have greeted the Green Alp theory with great interest. They include Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who studied Schluechter's results. He too considers it possible that the Alpine glaciers used to be smaller than they are today.

But there are critics. Like Oetzi, the 5,300 year old Stone Age man whose body was found in the Oetz Valley Alps. After all, how could his corpse have remained intact if the ice receded again and again? The Green Alpinists argue that the fluctuation in the glacier level was subject to local influences and did not hold true for the entire Alps region.

Wilfried Haeberli of the Department of Geography at the University of Zurich is a more vocal critic. The extreme warm phases suggested by Schluechter's theory are not compatible with findings derived from ocean sediments, pollen analysis and ice cores. In fact, most climate data proves that since the Ice Age, it has never been warmer than it is today. How, one might ask, could the Alps have been free of glaciers in the Stone Age?

Joerin is quick to explain that he is not trying to explain away the effects of man-made warming of the past few years: "Our findings so far could also be seen as giving the exact opposite of a climatic all-clear," he says. "If we can prove that there were ancient forests where the glaciers are today, it means one thing in particular: that the climate can change more suddenly than we thought."

Up on the Tschierva Glacier the two scientists are especially keen on finding the answers to the most pressing questions of the day: How quickly did the climate change? How quickly did the balance of ice slip from a plus into a minus and back again? The carbon dating method they've been using is far too imprecise for this, which is why the scientists plan to compare their results to the analysis of the carbon rings. For that they need more samples like TSC-160.

Joerin spots the ideal specimen. "Up there, that is a prime example," he says, pointing to a tree trunk in the ice, deep and unreachable. The scientists will have to return at another time, but they have already set a date. By October the glacier will have receded another 50 meters, freeing the tree trunk for the chainsaw and the microscope.

This is ridiculous. There are no "cycles", global warming is caused by Republicans, and George Bush in particular.

In that case, global warming in the days of ancient Rome must have been caused by Cato the Younger, Marcus Cicero, and other champions of the Roman Republic.

The global warming on Mars would support your claim that it is the Sun.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/mars_snow_011206-1.html

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_ice-age_031208.html

They've found that our southern ice cap is growing. Ignore the hysterical conclusion that they've drawn from it or do what I do & laugh. I went to school in the 60's & 70's. Back then, the doom & gloom hysteria was all about a coming ice age. Course, all of that is now ancient history.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/world/epaper/2005/05/20/a17a_icecap_0520.html

Still, remember back to what they taught you when you were a child about the Earth's seasonal climate change. Did they tell you about tilt variations & wobbles, not to mention orbital oddities?

http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/050330_earth_tilt.html

If you read the material on the entire link, you will see how ice ages come about according to Felix. According to him and the data cited, ice ages are a natural occcurence and predictable. There is a point where gradually changing conditions reach critical mass and an ice age ensues. Felix believes that we are now experiencing ocean warming (vice global warming) due to increased underwater volcanic activity. Increase water temperatures release more CO2 into the atmosphere thereby increasing precipitation. When the increased rainfall turns to snow, a rapid onset of a new ice age is the result.

Current data seem to support Felix's contention. We have increased precipitation with 99% of the world's glaciers increasing in size, increased ocean warming caused by underwater volcanic activity, a decrease in ocean levels, magnetic pole reversal, and cooling temperatures.

I have read his book,Not by fire, but By Ice, and found Felix's arguments compelling and persuasive. Bascially, he is saying man has very little to do with climate change and we are not heading into a period of global warming, but rather, a new ice age.

he is saying man has very little to do with climate change and we are not heading into a period of global warming, but rather, a new ice age.

With that, I would concur 100%.

The dogma that the Earth is warming due to man's ecological sins would seem to be a religious belief.

magnetic pole reversal,

The electromagnet that is the Earth is currently losing its magnetic field at an accelerated rate... I just had an interesting thought come to mind when you posted your comment.

If the magnetic field is decreasing (observations around the world say it is) but the mechanism for its creation still exists, unchanged, WHERE is the energy that DID create and maintain the higher Gauss field now? It has to evince itself somewhere. Could it be in a different form (law of conservation of energy) in the form of a generalized heat??? Hmmmmmm.

Getting back to energy, all that ice requires lots of BTUs to form... the water must be brought into the atmosphere, transported to the poles or higher mountains to fall as precipitation and, so long as the local temperature in those areas stays below 32ºF, freeze, building up glaciers and ice caps.

If this is happening, then it requires either more heat or lower atmospheric pressure to evaporate water off the oceans and put it into the atmosphere to form water saturated clouds. If geology is any indicator, the ice forms fairly quickly, indicating large amounts of water being delivered fairly rapidly. "Global Warming" may be the mechanish that does indeed cause ice ages.

The problem with any global warming due to atmosphere changes is that it ignores something much bigger.

The oceans.

Worldwide, if you go below the thermocline, the water temp drops to about forty degrees.

The amount of "cold" there, (as opposed to me saying the amount of heat), vastly, vastly exceeds any effect of the atmosphere.

If this is happening, then it requires either more heat or lower atmospheric pressure to evaporate water off the oceans and put it into the atmosphere to form water saturated clouds.

It's not Global Warming, it's Ocean Warming

"Research shows that there was "a sudden and dramatic rise" in carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere at the dinosaur extinction of 65 million years ago. A recent report attributes the rise in CO2 levels to an asteroid impact. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2038599.stm"

"I disagree. I think today's rise in CO2 levels can be attributed to our warming oceans. After all, the oceans are known as a carbon dioxide "sink," especially when the water is cold."

"But as the water warms up, it releases CO2 into the atmosphere. This happens in much the same way that a warm bottle of home-brewed root beer will release CO2. And if you give that CO2 no way to escape, the bottle will explode."

"We've got it backwards. We've got cause and effect in reverse."

"The CO2 is not causing global warming. Instead, our warming oceans are releasing CO2 into the atmosphere."

"It's not global warming, it's ocean warming, and it's leading us into an ice age."

CO2 is a gas. CACO3 is a solid. Most of the CO2 in sea water is in the form of bicarbonate HCO3. Some of the important atmospheric gases found in seawater include: nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide (in the form of bicarbonate HCO3), argon, helium, and neon. Compared to the other atmospheric gases, the amount of carbon dioxide dissolved in saturated seawater is unusually large.

There is an exchange of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and the ocean’s surface. Carbon dioxide dissolves in the ocean and provides the source of carbon dioxide that plants and plankton living in the ocean rely on for photosynthesis. The amount of carbon dioxide the ocean can contain depends on the temperature of the water and on its saltiness (whether it is sea water or fresh water). Cold water can hold more carbon dioxide in solution than warm water. When carbon dioxide dissolves in water, it forms carbonic acid which makes the water acidic. In the lab we can test for the acidity caused by the presence of dissolved carbon dioxide using Universal Indicator, which turns yellow when the solution is acidic. This activity tests whether sea water or fresh water absorbs more carbon dioxide. Sea water can absorb more carbon dioxide than fresh water without having major environmental effects.

"Felix believes that we are now experiencing ocean warming (vice global warming) due to increased underwater volcanic activity. Increase water temperatures release more CO2 into the atmosphere thereby increasing precipitation. When the increased rainfall turns to snow, a rapid onset of a new ice age is the result."

The oceans aren't warming at depth. CO2 doesn't increase precipitation. And if it were to increase precipitation (through so-called greenhouse warming) the temperatures would be too high for the snow to stick around all summer.

That last feature is a necessity for glaciation through gradual causes.

Aye, that's the problem. Less energy (say, through a cloud of dust from a so-called supervolcano eruption) reaching the oceans will alter the hydrologic cycle. Precipitation depends on evaporation, and there's simply no way for a natural process to cloud over the land (to prevent melting of the snow that continues to fall) while not clouding over the oceans (in order to produce the precipitation).

On the third day he captured a Gallic town and provided the army from its stores with rations for two or three days.
Harassed by the daytime attentions of the Gauls from the heights and mistrusting the loyalty of his Gallic guides, Hannibal bivouacked on a large bare rock to cover the passage by night of his horses and pack animals in the gorge below.
Snow was falling on the summit of the pass, making the descent even more treacherous.
Upon the hardened ice of the previous year's fall, the soldiers and animals alike slid and foundered in the fresh snow.
A landslide blocked the narrow track, and the army was held up for one day while it was cleared. Finally on the 15th day, after a journey of five months from Cartagena, with 20,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry, and only a few of the original 38 elephants, Hannibal descended into Italy, having surmounted the difficulties of climate and terrain, the guerrilla tactics of inaccessible tribes, and the major difficulty of commanding a body of men diverse in race and language under conditions to which they were ill fitted. Hannibal was subsequently able to increase the size of his army to about 30,000 by recruiting Gauls.

Hannibal - Punic Wars

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