Posted on 11/30/2005 11:48:49 AM PST by WmCraven_Wk
Watch out, Al Gore. The glaciers will get you! With that appended note, my friend, retired field geologist Jack Sauers, forwarded to me a report that should have been a lead item in every newspaper in the world. It was the news that the best-measured glacier in North America, the Nisqually on Mount Rainier, has been growing since 1931.
The significance of the fact, immediately grasped by any competent climatologist, is that glacial advance is an early warning sign of Northern Hemisphere chilling of the sort that can bring on an Ice Age. The last Little Ice Age continued from about 1400 to 1850. It was followed by a period of slight warming. There are a growing number of signs that we may be descending into another Little Ice Ageall the mountains of global warming propaganda aside.
Our current understanding of the long-term climate cycles shows that for the past 800,000 years, periods of approximately 100,000 years duration, called Ice Ages, have been interrupted by periods of approximately 10,000 years, known as Interglacials. (We are now about 10,500 years into the present Interglacial.)
What Causes Ice Ages These cycles are not mere statistical correlations, as some Wall Street prognosticator working at the modern PC version of a ouija board might spin out. They are determined, with great scientific precision, to correlate with long-term, cyclical changes in the Earths orbital relationship to the Sun. Three fundamental orbital relationships are involved, each of which contributes to the amount of sunlight received in high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. When these cycles combine to reduce the incoming solar radiation (insolation) during summer months, over a number of years, the ice sheets which permanently cover Greenland, parts of Alaska, northern Canada, Scandinavia, and elsewhere, begin to advance.
At a certain point, the growth process becomes self-feeding, partly because the high reflectivity of ice and snow reduces the local temperature, partly for reasons that are not fully understood. The glaciers thicken and expand until they become continental ice sheets, one to two miles thick, creeping ever southward. Geological evidence shows that in the last Ice Age, the southern boundary of the continental ice sheet, known as a terminal moraine, stretched down the center of Long Island, through New York City, across New Jersey and Pennsylvania to Southern Illinois and Missouri, then up the Plains States through Montana and Washington State. All of this real estate was buried under one to two miles of ice.
Geologically and climatologically speaking, we are due for another such glacial advance. It might not happen in our lifetimes, but radical shifts in the climate of northern regions can take place suddenly, and in some places may already be taking place.
How to Look at Global Warming A very important thing to understand in interpreting all the swill that issues daily from the Global Warming mill (really the anti-industry, anti-population lobby, headed and pumped with money by the Royal Consort Prince Philip, and former Nazi Party member Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands), is that the onset of an Ice Age is not marked by global cooling. In fact, the very same astronomical conditions which cause a cooling at high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, produce the opposite effect in the Southern Hemisphere, where there is much more ocean to absorb and retain the incoming solar radiation. Thus the global average temperature does not tell us anything of importance.
The geological requirements for an Ice Age are the presence of a large landmass around the Polar Circle and extending southward. A look at the globe, or world map, shows that those conditions exist in the Northern Hemisphere, but not in the Southern. Therefore, the important thing to look at is the climate conditions in northern and far northern regions. Some of the indicators:
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. (From 1926 to 1960, some 70-95% of these glaciers were in retreat.)
A comparison of the U.S. Department of Agricultures 1965 and 1990 Plant Hardiness Zone Maps, shows a southward change of one zone, or 10°F, between 1965 and 1990.
Careful measurements of the oxygen isotope ratios in German oaks, which are rigorously calibrated to temperature data, show a 1°C temperature decline from 1350 to 1800 (the lowpoint of the Little Ice Age). Temperature thereafter increased by 1°C from 1800 to 1930, and has been declining since then.
From weather stations in the Alps, and in the Nordic countries, we find the temperature decline since 1930 is also 1°C.
Satellite measurements have shown growth in the height and breadth of the huge Greenland ice sheet, the largest in the Northern Hemisphere
On Nisqually That brings us to the Nisqually glacier, up on the 14,410-foot Mount Rainier, near Tacoma, Wash. Just 85 feet shy of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48 states, Mount Rainier has 26 glaciers, and is the largest single peak system in the United States.
In 1931, fearful that the receding glacier would provide insufficient runoff for their newly completed hydroelectric facility, Tacoma City Light began careful measurements of the glacier. Since the mid-1800s, the glacier had receded about 1 kilometer. Annual to semi-annual measurements, continued by the U.S. Geological Survey and private contractors for the National Park Service, provide the longest continuous series of glacier measurements in North America.
The details are described in a report by government specialists, which appeared in the September 2000 issue of Washington Geology:
The greatest thickening during the period of measurement occurred between 1931 and 1945, when the glacier thickened by about 50% near 2,800 meters of altitude. This and subsequent thickenings during the mid-1970s to mid-1980s produced waves that advanced its terminus. Glacier thinning occured during intervening periods. Between 1994 and 1997, the glacier thickened by 17 meters at 2,800-m altitude, indicating probable glacier advance during the first decade of the 21st century.
Thats the story from Mount Rainier. Retired geologist Sauers, who has been observing conditions in the Cascade Mountains of western Washington for a lifetime, says Im preparing for an Ice Age. Perhaps we all should.
No U don't, they're hiding in downtown Clearwater, Flori-DUH?
and extending southward.
The one thing we must consider is that the total mass of the earth and its atmosphere can neither gain nor lose in its magnitude with the posssible exception of aggregate matter from meteorite strikes, any wobbles in our orbit are imbalances in the manner that a unbalanced wheel on your car might set up an oscillation and thus become noticeable.
The big problem I have with global warming is that it is universally advertised as being deleterious over the long haul; but for whom?
In many cases the Terminal Moraine of the glaciers is right next to the Watchungs, but the Watchungs themselves are volcanic basalts, so I'm really picking nits I guess.
There are a wide variety of well known, regular periodic wobbles in the orbit of the earth known as the Milankovitch cycles; the axis of the earth wobbles up and down, wobbles around in a circle, and the shape of the orbit changes slightly; this ends up changing the amount of solar heating the Northern Hemisphere gets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
It's clear the combination of the above is a major cause of glacial periods and interglacials, but the fit isn't perfect and the whole issue is pretty complex.
Based on them it should still be quite a while before the next Ice Age, according to a lot of people.
Gosh, I hope so.......haven't been able to use my iceboat in years!
That's not "probably" or "likely." The earth can be in only one of two conditions at any time --- either warming or cooling. Contrary to the junk science claims of the leftist propaganda mob, steady state climate conditions have never been the case.
I'll going to send this article to my wife's step-brother who's a GW proponent and a Professor of Climatology at U-CAL and get his take.
More particularly, technologically advanced modern societies.
The bottom line is this, which bears repeating:
... A very important thing to understand in interpreting all the swill that issues daily from the Global Warming mill (really the anti-industry, anti-population lobby, headed and pumped with money by the Royal Consort Prince Philip, and former Nazi Party member Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands), is that the ...
Jack who?
I would think that Mountain glaciers like Nisqually would be more effected by precipitation amounts than temperature. At that altitude and latitude it's always cold enough to snow.
LOL!
Sorry - Jack Sauers, the guy first mentioned in the article. He used to send in articles to some mag called "Cycles" or something. (I'll try to rembember to google it later). He was a very interesting old-timer - a character in the true sense!
I am betting on at least a little Ice Age, which will become irrefutable, within my own lifetime. As a skier, I tend to watch things like onset of freezing temperatures and snowfall patterns. I've had some really great seasons the past few years. This year was somewhat an outlier with a slightly late start but now the storm door is open and the Siberian Express is running full tilt.
Global warming is real. The world should face that reality and act accordingly.
We live at 1000ft., how will that effect us?
But, back to the real argument, is the partial pressure of CO2 a leading indicator of the average temperature? No one has proven that it is. But the Environazis don't want to debate that point.
I really, REALLY don't want to be instantly frozen while sitting on the toilet. So undignified.
Global warming is real. The world should face that reality and act accordingly.
The issue is not whether or not climate changes, but whether mankind has a substantive role in it.
Global warming and cooling is a function of one's time frame and little else beyond natural effects and certainly not a factor of CO2 concentration as is implied by the current crop of global warming alarmists.
Global Surface Temperature and Atmospheric CO2 over Geologic Time Late Carboniferous to Early Permian time (315 mya -- 270 mya) is the only time period in the last 600 million years when both atmospheric CO2 and temperatures were as low as they are today (Quaternary Period ). Temperature after C.R. Scotese
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- "(1) correlation does not prove causation, (2) cause must precede effect, and (3) when attempting to evaluate claims of causal relationships between different parameters, it is important to have as much data as possible in order to weed out spurious correlations.
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Consider, for example, the study of Fischer et al. (1999), who examined trends of atmospheric CO2 and air temperature derived from Antarctic ice core data that extended back in time a quarter of a million years. Over this extended period, the three most dramatic warming events experienced on earth were those associated with the terminations of the last three ice ages; and for each of these climatic transitions, earth's air temperature rose well in advance of any increase in atmospheric CO2. In fact, the air's CO2 content did not begin to rise until 400 to 1,000 years after the planet began to warm. Such findings have been corroborated by Mudelsee (2001), who examined the leads/lags of atmospheric CO2 concentration and air temperature over an even longer time period, finding that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration lagged behind variations in air temperature by 1,300 to 5,000 years over the past 420,000 years."[ see also: Indermuhle et al. (2000), Monnin et al. (2001), Yokoyama et al. (2000), Clark and Mix (2000) ]
- "Other studies periodically demonstrate a complete uncoupling of CO2 and temperature "
[see: Petit et al. (1999), Staufer et al. (1998), Cheddadi et al., (1998), Raymo et al., 1998, Pagani et al. (1999), Pearson and Palmer (1999), Pearson and Palmer, (2000) ]
- "Considered in their entirety, these several results present a truly chaotic picture with respect to any possible effect that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration may have on global temperature. Clearly, atmospheric CO2 is not the all-important driver of global climate change the climate alarmists make it out to be."
Global warming and global dioxide emission and concentration:
a Granger causality analysis
- "We find, in opposition to previous studies, that there is no evidence of Granger causality from global carbon dioxide emission to global surface temperature. Further, we could not find robust empirical evidence for the causal nexus from global carbon dioxide concentration to global surface temperature."
"Carbon dioxide, the main culprit in the alleged greenhouse-gas warming, is not a "driver" of climate change at all. Indeed, in earlier research Jan Veizer, of the University of Ottawa and one of the co-authors of the GSA Today article, established that rather than forcing climate change, CO2 levels actually lag behind climatic temperatures, suggesting that global warming may cause carbon dioxide rather than the other way around."
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"Veizer and Shaviv's greatest contribution is their time scale. They have examined the relationship of cosmic rays, solar activity and CO2, and climate change going back through thousands of major and minor coolings and warmings. They found a strong -- very strong -- correlation between cosmic rays, solar activity and climate change, but almost none between carbon dioxide and global temperature increases."
Climatic temperature is predominantly driven by Solar heating/cooling arising from variation of solar radiance, due to variations in distance from the Sun, and Solar radiance,
Global Warming on Triton (Neptune's moon)
plus variations in Earth's orbital alignment with mean solar system plane and geophysical events affecting planetary albedo.
Ice Ages & Astronomical Causes Origin of the 100 kyr Glacial Cycle Figure 1-1 Global warming Figure 1-2 Climate of the last 2400 years Figure 1-3 Climate of the last 12,000 years Figure 1-4 Climate of the last 100,000 years Figure 1-5 Climate for the last 420 kyr, from Vostok ice |
It's clear the combination of the above is a major cause of glacial periods and interglacials, but the fit isn't perfect and the whole issue is pretty complex.
Actually there is a much better fit with regard Earth's variation with Earth's orbital inclination (with a nearly precise 100kyr periodicity in phase with iceage onsets.) The data indicate a much stronger relationship than that demonstrable with the "Milankovitch cycles" that depend on orbital eccentricity as opposed to inclination.
Spectrum of 100-kyr glacial cycle: Orbital inclination, not eccentricity Origin of the 100 kyr Glacial Cycle
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http://newton.ex.ac.uk/aip/physnews.252.html#1
INTERPLANETARY DUST PARTICLES (IDPs) are deposited on the Earth at the rate of about 10,000 tons per year. Does this have any effect on climate? Scientists at Caltech have found that ancient samples of helium-3 (coming mostly from IDPs) in oceanic sediments exhibit a 100,000-year periodicity. The researchers assert that their data, taken along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, support a recently enunciated idea that Earth's orbital inclination varies with a 100-kyr period; this notion in turn had been broached as an explanation for a similar periodicity in the succession of ice ages. (K.A. Farley and D.B. Patterson, Nature, 7 December 1995.)
Farley & Patterson 1998, http://www.elsevier.com/gej-ng/10/20/36/33/37/32/abstract.html
Farley http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~farley/
Farley http://www.elsevier.nl/gej-ng/10/18/23/54/21/49/abstract.html
http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/pr96/dec96/noaa96-78.html
ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE DURING LAST GLACIAL PERIOD COULD BE TIED TO DUST-INDUCED REGIONAL WARMING
Preliminary new evidence suggests that periodic increases in atmospheric dust concentrations during the glacial periods of the last 100,000 years may have resulted in significant regional warming, and that this warming may have triggered the abrupt climatic changes observed in paleoclimate records, according to a scientist at the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Current scientific thinking is that the dust concentrations contributed to global cooling.
Buy both. Seasons, and weather, change. It's actually a constant.
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