Amazing Photo Of Glacial Retreat, Glacier, Bay NP Alaska, 1941 - 2004

[hatrack]

SAN FRANCISCO — "People picked up their newspapers on thousands of doorsteps of this city today and saw two pictures of Glacier Bay on the front page, under the headline, “Alaska’s retreating glaciers seen as evidence Earth is warming.”

One photo provided by glaciologist Bruce Molnia showed Muir Glacier in 1941. Molnia compared it to a photo he took in 2004 that shows Muir Glacier’s retreat out of the picture in 60 years. About 15 national reporters attended a press conference on the disappearing glaciers and other changes in Alaska’s landscape at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting in San Francisco, which this year attracted more than 11,000 scientists. Joining Molnia on the podium were Matt Nolan of UAF’s Water and Environmental Research Center and Ken Tape of the Geophysical Institute. Nolan showed his photos of shrinking McCall Glacier in the Brooks Range and Tape showed photos of how the Arctic has gotten shrubbier from the 1940s to the present. Reporters scribbled notes as they looked at the images, which show how quickly the north has warmed in the last century, especially the last 50 years.

“When you put pictures in front of somebody, you don’t have to say anything,” said Molnia, who works for USGS in Reston, Virginia, but has a home in Fairbanks. Molnia spent the summer of 2004 traveling to Glacier Bay and Kenai Fiords, trying to find the exact spots where earlier photographers captured glaciers on film. Sometimes finding the cairns (rock piles) of glaciologists who took photographs from the spots decades earlier, Molnia snapped new photos, including the color photo of Muir and Riggs glaciers that appeared on the front page of the December 17, 2004 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle and accompanied a story about Alaska’s melting glaciers by David Perlman.

Nolan showed his photo comparison of McCall Glacier that features a photo taken by glaciologist Austin Post in 1958 along with a photo Nolan snapped with his pocket-size digital camera in 2003."

EDIT

http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF17/1731.html

[Maestro]

1. Amazing!

But even more amazing is how people will still deny global warming whether natural or man-made.

[mhr]

2. The Fundies Would Say That This Is Just More Evidence

For the Rapture.

[Name removed]

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[Maestro]

4. Unfortunately

Even though this is in Alaska, on the other side around Greenland and Northern Canada, all of this freshwater is going to affect the Gulf Stream conveyer belt that brings warmer waters to the Northern Altantic which in turn warms Europe. When this stops we can welcome another Ice Age.

[Name removed]

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[hatrack]

7. "The greenhouse effect reflecting the sun's rays from earth" - Huh?

Please explain.

Oh, and feel free to cite some of "the scientists" who were warning us back in the 1970s.

[Name removed]

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[hatrack]

11. You didn't answer my question

How does the greenhouse effect cause increased reflection of solar radiation from the planet's surface, thus causing the planet's surface to cool?

I'm looking forward to your explanation. Really, it should be fascinating.

[struggle4progress]

21. The difficulty of producing really credible climate models ...

... includes the difficulty associated with global albedo, which is presumably determined by the polar ice sheets as well as general cloud cover.

It is not entirely clear what impact changes in global circulation would have on the ice sheets and cloud cover, but this issue must be addressed in calculation of the total heat budget.

If I remember, some folks were actually making noise in the late 60s or early 70s about the possibility of a new Ice Age, based on albedo arguments.

And some people continue to argue that, as a result of instabilities in the system, global warming might actually lead to a new ice age.

Unfortunately, since the 1960s, people have become aware that a number of models exhibit such chaotic behavior that small errors in initial data ultimately result in huge errors in model predictions. If I understand correctly, it is now known, for example, that at least one common weather model simply cannot produce accurate results more than two weeks into the future, in the following precise sense: it is possible to show rigorously that the errors in initial data are amplified by a factor of ten thousand over a period of two weeks, so that it is just impossible to produce the sufficiently accurate initial data needed to make longer term predictions. It is entirely believable, although probably difficult to prove, that climate models are subject to similar instabilities. So all kinds of things may be possible.

[hatrack]

12. Btw, citing the Global Climate Coalition doesn't boost your credibility

nt

[Name removed]

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[hatrack]

14. No, I'm just waiting for you to answer my question

From your post: " . . . the scientists were telling us all we were a decade away from another ice age because of the green house (sic) effect reflecting the sun's rays from earth."

Please explain how the greenhouse effect causes the sun's rays to reflect from the earth and (as implied in your statement) causes cooling.

[Name removed]

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[hatrack]

17. Increased humidity is NOT the greenhouse effect

And, by the way, the Newsweek article you cite mentions absolutely nothing about increased water vapor causing cooling.

[Name removed]

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[hatrack]

20. You don't even know what the greenhouse effect is

Or if you do, you haven't managed to state it clearly in even one of your posts. Instead, you've dragged in some link from the Global Climate Coalition :eyes: from a 30-year old Newsweek to show that "the scientists" are wrong.

Do you think that our understanding of meteorology and climatology has declined in the last 30 years? Do you think that the global data-gathering net, both orbital and at the surface of the planet, is worse than it was back then? Do you think that computer models' accuracy has degenerated since 1975? If so, then you have my sympathy, but at least if these assertions were true, at least your arguments would have, oh, at least half a leg to stand on.

Or are you shocked, shocked that "the scientists" have been wrong? Well whoop-dee-doo. Let me issue you a ticket for the Clue Bus - scientists have been wrong in the past, and will be wrong in the future. However, the scientific concensus always moves on to incorporate new data and produces a better picture of the world after doing so. And the scientific concensus overwhelmingly supports the theory that human activity and increased GHGs are rapidly altering the planet's weather & climate patterns.

What you're doing is displaying a wilful and deliberate ignorance of decades of climate research, and thousands of reports from thousands of locations all over the planet stretching back for some 20 years. All these reports and studies and data provide a picture of indicators - temperature readings, frost dates, phenology inputs, species distribution, sea ice thickness, glacial retreat rates, rainfall, extreme weather events, atmospheric GHG content - which show that things are going haywire rapidly.

And against the flood of evidence, you boldly clutch your 1975 Newsweek article as proof that "the scientists" were wrong. Yeah, whatever.

Lots of luck connecting with reality in the years ahead, and have a nice day.

[Maestro]

16. Geee

Could it be that the scientists were just a little off on their predictions. It doesn't make the fact that the Earth is warming at alarming rates any more false. The amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere especially around Antartica is alarming. Something is going to happen unless we pay more attention to the Earth and the climate changes that are ocurring. Anyhow science is evolving and its hypothesis I believe are more accurate than was in the 70's.

Check this out:



Temperatures are rising so just because in the 70's you demonstrating about global cooling how do you object to this fact.

Also, check out: Global warming is true

[Name removed]

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[Desertrose]

8. fiasco in the 70's?

Only fiasco is that we didn't pay attention long enough and are now back to the big gashoggy SUV's....


Why can't people connect global warming with ice age.....as stated above...melting ice changes ocean "rivers" which changes temperature of climate which changes tempertaure/weather/climate of LAND which adds up to colder N latitudes which equals most of Europe & N America.

Hello...its not that hard to get to.....

and why would anyone want to take a chance if all it requires is for us to take care of the environment & the earth's resources??? Doesn't anyone understand or CARE about the notion of BALANCE??
:eyes:

Great photos BTW- I was amazed how fast the shrubs/trees grew up...which only helps warm things even more, right??

[ramapo]

10. See Alaska before it melts

I've never been there and I already feel like it's too late. I had a chance to go in the mid-70s and passed it by figuring I'd get there soon. Well along comes a job, and kids, and a house. Now the place is turning into a bog.

These pictures are sobering documentation of what's happening to our world. Nobody much cares as long as they can have their SUV. When the seawater comes into Manhatten or New Orleans, then people will realize that Jimmy Carter was right.

[aden_nak]

5. Ah, but that's not good solid hard evidence, you see.

Only an independant study by a trustworthy environmental champion like Chevron could possibly provide such evidence, usually in the form of a small table with lots of big numbers on it.

/slapcountry