Oh, Look At This Happy Horseshit (CNN.Con Says Kilimanjaro's Snow Loss NOT Due To Global Warming

[Dinger]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/06/12/climate.kilimanjaro.reut/index.html
"Study: Kilimanjaro's shrinking snow not sign of warming
POSTED: 12:34 p.m. EDT, June 12, 2007

• Researchers: Global warming has little to do with the decline of Kilimanjaro's ice
• Kilimanjaro's decline in ice has been going on for more than a century
• Shrinking occurred two decades before any conclusive evidence of warming
• They attribute the decline to the shape of the ice and decreased snowfall. .. "

[villager]

1. "Nothing is true, and everything is permitted"

As Mick Jagger said in "Performance..."

[maxsolomon]

5. that saying precedes mr. jagger

i first heard it from william s. burroughs, quoting hassan i saba, the leader of the assassins. i have no idea if that's true or fiction.

[villager]

18. well, I don't doubt your provenance. Unless nothing is true?

;-)

[Fridays Child]

2. Not global warming, just decreased snowfall...

...and fluctuating Indian Ocean weather patterns. Of course those things have NOTHING to do with global warming. /sarcasm

[november3rd]

3. It was an early warning sign

The melting on Kilimajaro that predated our discovery of the conclusive evidence for global warming was simply an early symptom which we didn't know how to detect at that time.

It's surprising the world is learning about global warming at all when you think of the efforts the enemies of truth have made to smother the science with their money blankets.

[karlrschneider]

6. Here's a weird quote from the piece:

"The researchers attributed the ice decline to complex interacting factors, including the vertical shape of the ice's edge, which allows it to shrink but not expand."


So just how the hell did it get there to begin with???
:eyes:

[karlrschneider]

4. The wreck was caused by a wheel coming off the truck.

Some investigators believe the pothole that broke the axle had nothing to do with it.
:eyes:

[Vincardog]

7. Some investigators (Paid BIG $ TO)believe the pothole that broke the axle had nothing to do with it.

[karlrschneider]

16. Or wasn't really there at all...

:eyes:

[Vincardog]

17. "Some People Say" there is no pothole at all.

[LSK]

8. this study brought to you with a generous donation from Exxon Mobile

:grr:

[gravity]

9. You don't have to blame every phenomenon on global warming

The scientists could be right or wrong in their analysis, but it doesn't mean that global warming is false, it could just mean that it's not the cause in this one case.

[kimmylavin]

10. More than a century?

You mean, like, 100 years ago?
When coal plants were belching smoke into the air, and we hadn't yet even begun to think of the effect of our actions on the environment?

[RestoreGore]

11. I believe a climate scientist before CNN...

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/05/tropical-glacier-retreat/

4. ENTER THE SKEPTICS

When the interesting and thought-provoking work of emerged from the machinery of the skeptics' disinformation operation, it had mutated beyond all recognition. The reports put out by the Heartland Institute (here and here) are typical. The first of these, which came out under the banner "Global Warming Fears Melting," is headed by a quote from Patrick Michaels starting, "Kilimanjaro turns out to be just another snow job ..." and goes downhill from there. All subtlety, tentativeness, context and opposing evidence has been lost. The study is presented as a broadside on one of the central tenets of global warming, in a fashion echoing skeptics' coverage of the "hockey stick" issue. Even when the work is quoted directly, it is quoted without the context needed to make sense of the claims. Notably, the quote "Mölg and Hardy (2004) show that mass loss on the summit horizontal glacier surfaces is mainly due to sublimation (i.e. turbulent latent heat flux) and is little affected by air temperature through the turbulent sensible heat flux." is intended to give the impression that air temperature can make no difference, whereas we have seen that the results of are compatible with several ways in which air temperature can affect ablation.

The skeptics' press, especially as echoed in Crichton's State of Fear states that the Kilimanjaro retreat can have nothing to do with anthropogenic global warming, because it began in the 1880's, before any appreciable CO2 response is expected. The error in this reasoning was discussed in the previous section. This situation here is reminiscent of the ubiquitous "Little Ice Age" problem. It is a fact of life for attribution studies that the climate changes associated with the end of the Little Ice Age overlap with the beginning of the era of industrial warming. Thus, a graph will always give the superficial impression that the present trends are just a continuation of something that began before human influences were much in the picture, leading one into the fallacy that the causes of the beginning of the trend are the same as those responsible for its continuation.

The Heartland Institute's propagation of the notion that the Kilimanjaro glacier retreat has been proved to be due to deforestation is even more egregious. They quote "an article published in Nature" by Betsy Mason ("African ice under wraps," Nature, 24 November, 2003) which contains the statement "Although it's tempting to blame the ice loss on global warming, researchers think that deforestation of the mountain's foothills is the more likely culprit." Elsewhere, Heartland refers to this as a "study." The "study" is in reality no scientific study at all, but a news piece devoted almost entirely to Euan Nesbit's proposal to save the Kilimanjaro glacier by wrapping it in a giant tarp. The article never says who the "experts" are, nor does it quote any scientific studies supporting the claim. The Mason news article is what Crichton quotes as "peer reviewed research" proving that it is deforestation, not global warming, which is causing the Kilimanjaro glaciers to retreat. (George Monbiot's article in The Guardian documents a similar case of systematic misrepresentation of glacier data by skeptics.)

snip

"We have a mere 2.5 years of actual field measurements from Kilimanjaro glaciers, unlike many other regions, so our understanding of their relationship with climate and the volcano is just beginning to develop", Dr. Douglas R. Hardy, a geologist at the University of Massachusetts and an author of the paper, wrote by e-mail. "Using these preliminary findings to refute or even question global warming borders on the absurd." In short, Kilimanjaro may be a photogenic spokesmountain "no matter what the climatic agenda" but it is far from ideal as a laboratory for detecting human-driven warming. The debate over it obscures the nearly universal agreement among glacier and climate experts that glaciers are retreating all over the world, probably as a result of the greenhouse-gas buildup. "These climate skeptics are making generalizations not only to the rest of the tropics but the rest of the world" Dr. Hardy said. "And, in fact, global warming may be part of the whole picture on Kilimanjaro, too."

[Sabriel]

12. I'm sure it's from climbers leaving with souvenir snow

...and dumping it in the oceans to make them rise.

[Matsubara]

13. That's because scientists say the same thing.

That doesn't mean warming isn't happening, but most of the warming has been closer to the poles, not in the tropics. Temps have not changed significantly at that latitude or at that altitude. There was a Reuters story about it yesterday.

The story is being used by people like Drudge to imply that warming isn't real or not a problem, but the article does not say that. It deals only with the reason for Kilimanjaro's snowcap loss, and it does acknowledge warming as a factor in glacier loss on temperate mountains.

[Toots]

14. • Kilimanjaro's decline in ice has been going on for more than a century

Hasn't man been burning fossil fuel for over a century as well. Warming has been going on since the "wurm" or the last ice age about five thousand years ago. It is the rapid acceleration of that warming that has caused so much concern. Does it really matter if man caused it or not. If man can help slow or aleviate the major causes then should some capitalist get rich on fixing our problems? I don't understand the Conservatives lack of vision on this issue. There are big bucks to be made. Everybody is going green and they should get with the program..

[shadowknows69]

15. The Gods are angry?

Big K decided she wanted a better tan this year?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. I see no reason to dismiss this out of hand.

One should always be careful about using anecdotal evidence in the global warming debate.