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Mount Hood glaciers melting
AP/SignOnSandiego.com ^ | March 27, 2006

Posted on 03/27/2006 8:23:53 PM PST by quantim

PORTLAND, Ore. – The seven largest of Mount Hood's 11 glaciers have shrunk by an average of more than 30 percent since the beginning of the last century, according to calculations by a Portland State University graduate student.

Keith Jackson, who is part of a glacier research team financed by the National Science Foundation and NASA, estimates that Sandy Glacier, on Mount Hood's west slopes facing Portland, covers about 60 percent less ground than it did a century ago and Eliot Glacier has lost at least half of its ice in the last 100 years.

And scientists think glaciers might recede faster in the coming century because of warmer temperatures. Average low temperatures at Eliot Glacier have been above freezing during at least six of the last 12 years, more than any such period in the last 110 years, according to Oregon Climate Service calculations.

Scientists in the University of Washington's Climate Impacts Group predict the Northwest will warm nearly as much in the next 20 years as it has in the last 100, about a degree Fahrenheit.

“It's almost universal that all glaciers are retreating,” said Peter Clark, an Oregon State University professor who's an authority on glaciers. “The signs of retreat are dramatic and accelerating.”

It signals that “the cause of that change is overwhelming other factors,” he said. “The fingerprint of global warming is increasing on a global scale.”

Studies that show the glaciers receding do not surprise climbers of Mount Hood, who say they now skip certain routes to the summit because rocks and ice once locked solidly in place now break loose.

“Warming and the receding glaciers are very much affecting the recreation potential and the dangerousness of it on all sides of the mountain,” said Vera Dafoe, who has long led hikes on the mountain for the Mazamas. “It has changed enormously.”


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bushsfault; globalwarming; solaroutput
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“It's almost universal that all glaciers are retreating,”

What are these glaciers running from?  Besides France.
1 posted on 03/27/2006 8:23:56 PM PST by quantim
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To: quantim

cool

now is there any oil there can we drill for it bring on the pumps


2 posted on 03/27/2006 8:24:58 PM PST by Flavius (Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum)
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To: quantim

If France is retreating them someone must be on the advance...


3 posted on 03/27/2006 8:25:46 PM PST by Army Air Corps (Four fried chickens and a coke)
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To: quantim

I was at Mt Hood last July, there were snowboarders there.

I'm from the northeast.


Now THAT is a Frikken mountain!


4 posted on 03/27/2006 8:26:11 PM PST by Conservomax (There are no solutions, only trade-offs.)
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To: quantim
Obviously all the glaciers are running from George W. Bush.

After all, he is destroying them by not signing Kyoto.

And for those to dense to get this. Yes, I am being sarcastic.

5 posted on 03/27/2006 8:26:46 PM PST by COEXERJ145 (Real Leaders Base Their Decisions on Their Convictions. Wannabes Base Decisions on the Latest Poll.)
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To: quantim
Please read the book, State of Fear.

There are as many, if not more, glaciers expanding that are never mentioned.

6 posted on 03/27/2006 8:27:05 PM PST by llevrok (Drink your beer damnit !! There are people in Africa sober.)
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To: quantim

Mount St. Helens glacier (Crater Glacier) growing 50 feet per year. September 20, 2004 - “Today, the snow and ice in the crater is equal in volume to all of the pre-eruption glaciers on Mount St. Helens combined," says a brochure published by the US Forest Service.”

Located inside the volcanic crater formed during its 1980 eruption, America’s youngest glacier is also its fastest growing glacier. Scientists estimate that the thickness of the glacier has increased by nearly 50 feet per year. Not only is it growing thicker, it has been advancing as much as 135 feet per year.

Why is no one bothering to tell us about this?


7 posted on 03/27/2006 8:27:31 PM PST by kabar
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To: quantim

Funny. The last show on Mt. Hood I saw blamed the melting glaciers on activity in the magma chamber.


8 posted on 03/27/2006 8:27:32 PM PST by PzLdr ("The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am" - Darth Vader)
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To: quantim

There is nothing we can do. The world isn't going to flood. We will deal with problems as they develop.


9 posted on 03/27/2006 8:27:33 PM PST by CindyDawg
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To: quantim
Glaciers are growing around the world, including the United States
10 posted on 03/27/2006 8:28:50 PM PST by kabar
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To: quantim
Studies that show the glaciers receding do not surprise climbers of Mount Hood,
who say they now skip certain routes to the summit because rocks and ice once
locked solidly in place now break loose.


So I guess the scientists/grad. students and climbers are all going to
stop climbing on, poopin'/peein'/breathin' on mountains...thus slowing
the melting...
Oh, and to stop the burning of fossil fuels to get them to/from the mountains and
to make/ship all the food and goods they need to climb/explore.

I won't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
11 posted on 03/27/2006 8:30:00 PM PST by VOA
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To: Oorang

Ping for Cascade Peaks


12 posted on 03/27/2006 8:30:43 PM PST by steve86 (Acerbic by nature, not nurture)
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To: llevrok

Finished it, truly an inspiring book. Great story, and the FACTS explain a lot. You cannot read it and remain un-impressed by Crichton's intellect; and learn more than a little bit in the process as well.

Key bit of learning. Nature changes, it always has, it always will.


13 posted on 03/27/2006 8:32:03 PM PST by Hodar (With Rights, come Responsibilities. Don't assume one, without assuming the other.)
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To: kabar
says a brochure published by the US Forest Service

Got a URL for that?
If you do, please post.
Thanks in advance.
14 posted on 03/27/2006 8:32:09 PM PST by VOA
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To: Conservomax
I was at Mt Hood last July, there were snowboarders there.

Did you smell sulfur?  </grin>
15 posted on 03/27/2006 8:32:38 PM PST by quantim (A gullible public is the best friend of a weak politician.)
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To: quantim

Bush's fault?


16 posted on 03/27/2006 8:32:58 PM PST by miliantnutcase
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To: quantim

Ya think they can send us some of the melt water?


17 posted on 03/27/2006 8:33:42 PM PST by SouthTexas (There's a hot time in Gay Paris tonight.)
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To: quantim

Gee Iwonder if they investigated the fact that glaciers go through cycles of Melt down and Freeze up. They might have some history on it, would they say?

Ops4 God Bless America!


18 posted on 03/27/2006 8:34:33 PM PST by OPS4 (Ops4 God Bless America!)
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To: quantim

Uh, Mt Hood is a volcano. It can get warm when a volcano gets active.

"On clear, cold, windless days, a steam plume is often seen rising from the fumaroles. Visitors to Mount Hood frequently smell the "rotten egg" odor of the fumarole gas, whose composition indicates that magma lies a few miles below the summit."

"Twelve glaciers and named snowfields cover approximately 80 percent of the cone above the 2,100-meter level and contain about 0.35 cubic kilometers of ice. Most of the glaciers have remained roughly constant in size over the last few decades, after retreating from a neo-glacial maximum early in the 18th century. Modern glacier termini are at about 2,100 meters, but in the last major alpine glaciation (Fraser, about 29-10 thousand years ago) glaciers reached the 700-800 meter level. During this time, ice spread 15 kilometers from the summit area."
-- American Geophysical Union Field Trip Guidebook


19 posted on 03/27/2006 8:35:55 PM PST by hedgetrimmer ("I'm a millionaire thanks to the WTO and "free trade" system--Hu Jintao top 10 worst dictators)
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To: quantim

If Bush would just give some money to the UN, then the glaciers would not feel the need to run away anymore. But no, he does not care about the glaciers and just keeps on making them melt. It's just like him sending hurricanes into Democrat Party terrority to kill Black people.


20 posted on 03/27/2006 8:36:28 PM PST by Galveston Grl (Getting angry and abandoning power to the Democrats is not a choice.)
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