Alaska Glacier Thaws, Ancient Forest Emerges

WebProNews ^ | Sept 21, 2013 | By Erika Watts

[Islander7]

News that will no doubt spark global warming debates, an ancient forest floor has surfaced thanks to an Alaska glacier thawing. According to Live Science, trees in the forest are at least 1,000 years old.

Stumps and logs coming from the thawing glacier were first noticed 50 years ago, but the forest has begun to emerge only recently. Scientists from University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau noticed more trees popping up while studying the thawing Mendenhall Glacier. Many of the trees on the Alaska glacier, which is a 36.8-square-mile river of ice flowing into a lake near Juneau, are reportedly upright.

[SunkenCiv]

According to Live Science, trees in the forest are at least 1,000 years old. Stumps and logs coming from the thawing glacier were first noticed 50 years ago...

Thanks Islander7:

The researcher feels comfortable putting the forest at 1,000 years old, and some trees have tested even older. The oldest tree Connor has found on the Mendenhall Glacier is around 2,350 years old.

IOW, 1000 years ago the climate there was warm enough for live trees to grow, without glacial cover. This evidence (like all the other evidence) confirms that the climate is 100 percent natural, 100 percent of the time.

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[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Islander7.

[musicman]

"Of course, that means we have to kill billions
and impoverish the rest to keep the Earth
from warming again....."

[vetvetdoug]

There should be some really unique wood available if the forest is of any size. The tight grains and unique woods make for some great guitars, knife handles, furniture, and specialty items. I'd like to have knife handles that are thousands of years old to go with the ones that are made from Woolly Mammoths.

[MeshugeMikey]

I cant wait to see more photographs of the New Growth!!

Trees take in carbon ....dioxide...and release...oxygen as I remember.

[volunbeer]

All the Global warming crap aside, this is a fascinating story and I would agree the wood could be extraordinary if preserved.

[Fred Nerks]

Swiss Glaciers Expose Earlier Warm Periods

Receding glaciers in the Swiss Alps are exposing evidence of earlier warm Holocene periods. Researchers are discovering that green forests once existed under the ice and that the Alps were mostly greener than today. New findings obtained by a Swiss glaciologist cast more doubt on today’s global warming hypotheses.

The following is a summary essay of the report that appeared in the Swiss news journal Die Weltwoche by Alex Reichmuth

SIGNS OF EARLIER CLIMATE CHANGES.(in german)

Christian Schlüchter, Professor of Geology, and his team of researchers are studying remnants of ancient trees and peat that have been exposed by melting glaciers high in the Swiss Alps. At first sight, these pieces of wood may not look spectacular, but they are up to 10,000 years old and have a story to tell.

These tree remnants include complete tree trunks that were scraped and twisted by the massive ice sheets that once covered them. Over time these chunks of wood were transported by the glaciers partway down the Alps, and it was not exactly sure from what elevation they originated. But the wood chunks and peat prove one thing: Today, where one now only finds bare rock and gravel, and even where there is still ice, trees once grew there thousands of years ago.

DITTO IN ENGLISH

[dainbramaged]

We lived about two miles from the Mendenhall Glacier for over 20 years. In fact, our back yard gully/bank was part of the 1763 terminal moraine which meanders across the Mendenhall Valley. The huge boulders left behind can be of impressive size.

[Rebelbase]

"The tight grains and unique woods make for some great guitars, knife handles, furniture, and specialty items. "

NEW 32,000 YEAR OLD BASS

The NS-30K BC utilized what is believed to be the oldest wood ever used in the construction of a musical instrument.

Obtained by Spector from logs discovered buried 40 feet deep in a sand quarry in Georgia, USA,the wood is perfectly preserved, due to the sterile nature of the sand and the natural decay resistance of the cypress wood itself.

Using carbon 14 testing techniques, samples of the wood were examined by Beta Analytics, in Miami, to check for radioactive decay in the small amount of carbon that is present in all living organisms. This wood was dated as 31,970 years old, plus or minus 570 years.

Wooly Mammoth ivory for the 12th fret inlay.

http://www.spectorworld.com/wspector.htm

[nascarnation]

That’s awesome
Just had my first visit to Alaska 2 weeks ago.
It’s just amazing.

[Nam Vet]

I really wonder what those damned Neanderthals were doing to cause the destruction of the wonderful forests! OOPS!! Wrong time span ---- silly me! The early Native Americans were the culprits!!! Typical patriarchal society. They MUST have been those damned Conservatives, up to their usual no good!

Nam Vet

[PapaBear3625]

The researcher feels comfortable putting the forest at 1,000 years old, and some trees have tested even older.

Right about the time of the Medieval Warm Period. The one the climate activists claim was just a local European phenomenon.

[Fred Nerks]

Optical illusion: From afar it looks as if nothing has changed, but look a little closer and ti becomes clear this glacier has been coated in a hundreds of white blankets. Researchers go to great lengths every summer to cover the ice in an effort to slow the melting process caused by global warming

MILES OF BLANKETS. LINK

The Rhone Glacier in Switzerland has been retreating for 150 years, but new research shows that it was smaller than it is toady 11,500 years ago. Scientists warn however that these fluctuations were without man's influence showing how sensitive glaciers are to small climate changes

OBVIOUSLY, YOU CAN'T CURE STUPID.

[Tigerized]

So, maybe we can get our scientists to proclaim the warmer temperatures of 1000 years ago as “normal”, and get the rabid greenies to do everything possible to INCREASE the carbon footprint?

Brrr, I feel a chill coming on. Time to fire up the BBQ!

[Berosus]

That would be the “Little Ice Age.” Before that, from 800 to 1200 A.D., we have a time called the “Medieval Warming Period,” when average temperatures were higher than they are today.

[BenLurkin]

If it wasn’t for global warming, Chicago would still be under a mile of ice.

[usconservative]

I have pictures of the Mendenhall Glacier from my and my better half's Alaska trip just this past July.

What the article DOES NOT SAY is that Glaciers are either stable, in retreat or advancing. Stable means they aren't "moving" or thawing. "Retreat" means the glacier is pulling back and shrinking. "Advancing" means the glacier is growing and moving forward.

I do not recall the rate that we were told the Mendenhall Glacier was retreating however it didn't sound like a substantial amount compared to the other glaciers we saw in Glacier National Park or College Fjord.

What it *should* mean, is that Alaska was WARMER during another period prior to the glacier ADVANCING (and now retreating.)

Any Alaska Freepers on here that might have more info or correct what I put above please weigh in......

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

It’s truly frightening that the selfish, excessive consumption and especially the burning of fossil fuels by Americans is so damaging that it can go back and cause global warming even a millennium ago.

We are...that evil.

(I hope I don’t need a /sarc tag.)

[Fred Nerks]

Photograph of the exposed roots and lower trunk of a tree that has recently eroded out of its entraining glacial sediment, Muir Inlet, Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska. The top of the tree was sheared off by an advance of Muir Glacier ~ 8,000 years ago.

The study of tree rings and subfossil wood to provide information about the glacial and climatic history of an area.

source

Photograph of several exposed tree trunks, recently eroded out of glacial-lacustrine sediment, south of the eastern margin of Bering Glacier, Alaska. The slab of wood that was cut from the tree in the foreground will have its rings analyzed and will have samples of individual rings radiocarbon dated. The tree was sheared off by an advance of Being Glacier ~ 1,500 years ago. Photograph by Austin Post. Bering Glacier flows through Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park

[brityank]

Please ask him this:

Can anybody point me to the Yearly Adjustment that is used on any Maritime Charts that shows the change in Sea Level over the past centuries?

Thank you.