Posted on 05/12/2009 1:13:57 AM PDT by neverdem
We actively manage the second half of the rain cycle, controlling the flow of most fresh water that hits land. We couldn't sustain 7 billion people on Earth without this technology. The next step is the actively manage the first half of the cycle, by helping mother nature create more clouds when it suits. Clouds are a key regulator of climate. The day will come when we will prevent the next ice age. We will also someday protect the Earth from major meteor impacts. The days of a wild Earth are coming to an end.
...that makes sense. I don’t know, perhaps this rate of advancement is not that unusual, but the headline certainly proclaimed it as such. Perhaps there’s a spring or undergound watersource that has eroded the foundations?
I thought so too, but perhaps this is an anomoly. Perhaps there is some condition under the ice that is forcing it’s rapid advancement. Pure speculation of course. I really have no idea.
Glacial Ice is a natural “COLD FUSION” reactor, that is why these glaciers are warming up the earth!
Most of the tracked glaciers in the world are expanding.
How fast is the typical rate of advancement? Hard to know how fast 7 feet is if I don’t know what it was usually before.
“...I would have thought such rapid terminal advancement as this would be evidence of the Glacier melting...moving rapidly over meltwater.”
A larger glacier forming behind it is pushing it!
No glacier is stationary, they all continually move.
Although your points are well taken, I have to disagree with you on this one. I can't imagine man ever having the capability to "tame" our planet.
bttt
Set the time displayed to 365 days. You will easily see that one year ago the glacier was at 610, and it is now at 520- 90 feet more advanced. However, it has advanced only 20 feet in the last 30 days.
If you look two years ago, you see that it was at 540, but then rapidly “advanced” to 450 about two months later but then “calved” back to 540 or so.
That is as far back as the data lets us go this way. However, it appears that by mid-July each year, it is quite safe to say the glacier will be receding.
When advancing, though, looking at the topography, I suspect that as the glacier advances, the river erodes it back ever more strongly- scouring it, in addition to stressing it and possibly encouraging calving.
In order to close the gap, I believe it is going to require much more powerful advance than the current year. If, for example, the glacier were advancing at a rate of 7ft per day at this time of the year, instead of less than 1ft/d (and this weren’t due to calving as 2 yrs ago), I can see that may be a sufficiently powerful advance to close the gap. If that occurred, losing the “scouring” could arguably change the whole character of the system so as to allow it to remain closed. That won’t happen this year.
However, this would be interesting to remember to check out on an annual basis in April or so.
Well, gee, I guess gravity is involved. But how is gravity to blame for the ice flowing faster? Are the mountains growing really fast? Is the gravitational force increasing in the area?
Interesting. The site, http://www.glacierresearch.com, has been closed down.
Although The One and AlGore are working on that.
Then you have a very feeble imagination. However the time is not yet. Maybe it could have been if Nixon and those who followed had not put a big monkey wrench into the space program, just as The One is about to put an even bigger one in.
Once a geology prof told me that ‘ice is plastic’. Didn’t mean a thing at the time, but I remembered.
I just opened the site. You may have to allow an exception for the security certificate.
However, there may yet be a conspiracy as there seem to be UFOs hovering over the glacier in some of the photos.
The slope is greater if it’s the area I’m thinking of.
18,000+ ft. down to sea level
Where's the sarcasm tag? NASA lost its way long, long ago. I'm all for continued space exploration, but to think that man can "tame" Earth is pure folly.
I have visited the glacier since 2001 and have pictures of it for every year, I will look at them, when I get back to the motel.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.