It looks like Mother Nature just hasn't gotten the word from the global warming alarmists. Instead of warming up and shrinking the Alaskan glaciers, just the opposite is now happening as explained in this report in the Anchorage Daily News:
Two hundred years of glacial shrinkage in Alaska, and then came the winter and summer of 2007-2008.
Unusually large amounts of winter snow were followed by unusually chill temperatures in June, July and August.
"In mid-June, I was surprised to see snow still at sea level in Prince William Sound," said U.S. Geological Survey glaciologist Bruce Molnia. "On the Juneau Icefield, there was still 20 feet of new snow on the surface of the Taku Glacier in late July. At Bering Glacier, a landslide I am studying, located at about 1,500 feet elevation, did not become snow free until early August.
"In general, the weather this summer was the worst I have seen in at least 20 years."
Never before in the history of a research project dating back to 1946 had the Juneau Icefield witnessed the kind of snow buildup that came this year. It was similar on a lot of other glaciers too.
You mean we don't have to toss billions of dollars at a global warming problem that doesn't exist? I guess that is why the North Pole didn't become ice free as predicted by many in the MSM earlier this year. At least this article is honest in that you can't take a few years of either warming or cooling and extrapolate a long term trend from that:
Does it mean anything?
Nobody knows. Climate is constantly shifting. And even if the past year was a signal of a changing future, Molnia said, it would still take decades to make itself noticeable in Alaska's glaciers.
Rivers of ice flow slowly. Hundreds of feet of snow would have to accumulate at higher elevations to create enough pressure to stall the current glacial retreat and start a new advance. Even if the glaciers started growing today, Molnia said, it might take up to 100 years for them to start steadily rolling back down into the valleys they've abandoned.
"It's different time scales," he said. "We're just starting to understand."
As strange it might seem, Alaska's glaciers could appear to be shrinking for some time while secretly growing. Molnia said there are a few glaciers in the state now where constant snow accumulations at higher elevations are causing them to thicken even as their lower reaches follow the pattern of retreat fueled by the global warming of recent decades.
Al Gore, please take note. You might have to give rebates on those carbon credits you've been flacking.
—P.J. Gladnick is a freelance writer and creator of the DUmmie FUnnies blog.
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Comments Policy
I guess.....
October 19, 2008 - 18:19 ET by BEGRUNTit's "selective" warming now huh? I guess it goes on only where the moonbats live.
"If a man does his best, what else is there"?
General George S. Patton Jr.
This is what happens...
October 19, 2008 - 19:25 ET by JWFThe Global Warming alarmism is 20 years now. What started as a flawed computer model morphed from a typical media driven doom story into a political movement.
The earth's climate is too big for us to predict or control. Three fourths of the planet is water, and we can do nothing about the sun which has a HUGE influence. Don't forget, try walking out at 3 AM and then come back at 3 PM. See the difference? That is the sun. Absolutely nothing we can do to change it.
Now mother nature is not cooperating with the alarmists. They did not get their message out hard enough and fast enough to have a big influence on the rest of us and now their doom movement is finally facing the momentum of mother nature herself. They might want to look up the word cycle next time.
Sincerely,
a Veteran of a 1000 psychic wars.
Calling AlGore
October 19, 2008 - 18:47 ET by Cape ConservativeCalling AlGore - the Nobel prize-winning 'global climatologist' - yoohoo, Al, where are you????? Come out, come out, wherever you are ;-)
Ice cream
October 19, 2008 - 18:54 ET by FoolicanI thought Al Gore said the real melting would only start in 2017. Now it's been bumped back to 2108?
That's some major "feedback."
And yet CO2 emissions just keep going up, according to Gore. Objectively, that should mean that warming processes should accelerate and intensify, not be pushed back.
an inconvenient truth
October 19, 2008 - 19:09 ET by 2birdsPolicy note: Switch terminology to "climate change" to emcompass unforseen events that don't support narrative. Continue until summer.
It's falling apart.
October 19, 2008 - 19:10 ET by pbthinkerLiving in Florida, I can remember Al Gore's predictions about hurricanes. That theory has been torn apart, even to the extent that, if there is global warming, it will probably mean less severe hurricanes.
Now the glaciers are coming back, the North Pole isn't melting and Gore's theory is falling apart. In the meantime, we have the rest of the world's media reporting the facts about this subject and the syncophant American media won't report squat. If the Democrats believe it, it must be true, so why report it?
They've got 2 years before all their credibility is shot, I hope they enjoy the run they had. We don't need a constitution to protect these dorks, they didn't understand their responsibilities, under the constitution, so what good is a free press, especially when you have Obama and his minions trying to squelch all dissenting opinion. Hell, with out media, there isn't enough dissent out there to hide in.
Democrats: Stuck on Stupid since 2000.
With the rest of the world
October 20, 2008 - 08:26 ET by danboWith the rest of the world starting to turn on the insanity of AGW, and no warming in 8-10 years. They're desperate. They have to get all the stupid laws set in to claim they did something when the world continues to cool.
We have a quiet sun, and the PDO shifted to cool.
Limited Disclosure: I used to belong to the Sierra Club untill they went crazier. Worse of all, I was bribed by Exxon with free New Orleans Saints glasses with fill ups in the 70's.
Clinate Change
October 19, 2008 - 19:13 ET by NortoNow is doesn't matter which way the thermometer swings, the libs can jump on any anti-capitalist mantra.
I live on the Kenai
October 19, 2008 - 19:30 ET by KevpotI live on the Kenai Peninsula and it only got above 70 twice this summer. The coldest summer since record keeping began. Yes, they are now using the term 'climate change' instead of 'warming', so they can say that the carbon being emitted somehow makes the planet both colder and hotter at the same time. Then you have idiots like Joy Behar who think tsunamis are the result of global warming. Where the stupidity ends I do not know.
Attributing CO2 to cooling
October 19, 2008 - 19:33 ET by FoolicanAttributing CO2 to cooling temperatures is utter stupidity, and if it WERE true, the greenhouse gas theory would be destroyed. Greenhouse gases are supposed to TRAP sunlight, not screw up the temperature balance of the planet as is being implied by the neonomers.
I wonder if the sun has anything to do with ...
October 19, 2008 - 20:14 ET by Jaykeglobal cooling. The sun is blank (no sunspots). We may be in what is called a Maunder Minimum and we may be in for a very cold and snowy winter.
http://spaceweather....
Watch for Algore to be very invisible this winter.
Watch for Algore to be very
October 19, 2008 - 20:32 ET by MichelleCWatch for Algore to be very invisible this winter.
We can certainly hope for that kind of change!
Republicans believe every day is the 4th of July. Democrats believe every day is April 15th ~ Ronald Reagan
Editorial: The Great Global Warming Hoax?
October 19, 2008 - 20:26 ET by spiffEditorial: The Great Global Warming Hoax?
Editor's Introductory Note: Our planet has been slowly warming since last emerging from the "Little Ice Age" of the 17th century, often associated with the Maunder Minimum. Before that came the "Medieval Warm Period", in which temperatures were about the same as they are today. Both of these climate phenomena are known to have occurred in the Northern Hemisphere, but several hundred years prior to the present, the majority of the Southern Hemisphere was primarily populated by indigenous peoples, where science and scientific observation was limited to non-existent. Thus we can not say that these periods were necessarily "global".
14,000 words (and pictures for our liberal friends)
http://www.middlebur...
Vote NO on Arizona Proposition 202
It's not what they say it is!
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Wrong measuring tool?
October 20, 2008 - 12:16 ET by young_schoolWhether it is measuring microns with a yardstick or measuring miles with a micrometer, these clowns can and will find a way to make money on this. After all, when they can back up any claim with any ridiculous study/statistics, and the media is behind them, who is gonna prove them wrong and how?
Young School