The Last Frost

So Called "Myth" #9: Receding glaciers and the calving of ice shelves are proof of global warming.

Their Argument In It's Entirety: "Glaciers have been receding and growing cyclically for hundreds of years. Recent glacier melting is a consequence of coming out of the very cool period of the Little Ice Age. Ice shelves have been breaking off for centuries. Scientists know of at least 33 periods of glaciers growing and then retreating. It’s normal. Besides, glacier's health is dependent as much on precipitation as on temperature." [The Full Friends of Science Myth Page]

The Truth: The child in me just wants to write, "ice melting isn't due to warming? You idiots?!" but I'll elaborate a bit more for fairness.

A trip over the articulate folks at RealClimate.org revealed an article about the very recent retreat of tropical glaciers, of which Mt. Kilimanjaro is included. That these tropical glaciers lie right in the path of our planet's most intense solar radiation and yet continue to exist is amazing and a testament to our planets stability but before I get off the point heres an excerpt. 

"The widespread retreat is all the more notable because tropical mountain glaciers are old. They have survived thousands of years of natural climate fluctuations, only to dwindle at a time when other climate indicators — notably surface temperature — are showing the imprint of human influence on climate. Quelccaya is at least 1500 years old, Dasuopo is 9000 years old, and Huascaran has seen 19000 years. A date for the ultimate demise of these glaciers has not been fixed, but the Northern Ice Field on Kilimanjaro may be gone in as little as twenty years, after having survived the past 11,000 years." [RealClimate.org, 2005]

Nothing in our naturally variable Earth has been able to melt the tropical glacier on Mt. Kilimanjaro for 11,000 years, yet we may do it in as little as 250. Are these glaciers our planet's canary in the coal mine?

Common misconceptions about global warming – [Friends of Science]

Digg It | Hugg It |  Email This Post | Report this post

Possibly Related Posts:

This entry was posted on Friday, January 5th, 2007 at 1:04 am and is filed under Bullshit, Climate Change, Conservation, Politics, Pollution, Rants, Science, Weather. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.