Himalayan glaciers not melting because of climate change, report finds

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Himalayan glaciers not melting because of climate change, report finds
The Daily Telegraph UK ^ | January 27, 2011 | Dean Nelson, New Delhi and Richard Alleyne



Himalayan glaciers are actually advancing rather than retreating, claims the first major study since a controversial UN report said they would be melted within quarter of a century.

Researchers have discovered that contrary to popular belief half of the ice flows in the Karakoram range of the mountains are actually growing rather than shrinking.

The discovery adds a new twist to the row over whether global warming is causing the world's highest mountain range to lose its ice cover.

It further challenges claims made in a 2007 report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the glaciers would be gone by 2035.

Although the head of the panel Dr Rajendra Pachauri later admitted the claim was an error gleaned from unchecked research, he maintained that global warming was melting the glaciers at "a rapid rate", threatening floods throughout north India.

The new study by scientists at the Universities of California and Potsdam has found that half of the glaciers in the Karakoram range, in the northwestern Himlaya, are in fact advancing and that global warming is not the deciding factor in whether a glacier survives or melts.

[snip]

"Our study shows that there is no uniform response of Himalayan glaciers to climate change and highlights the importance of debris cover for understanding glacier retreat, an effect that has so far been neglected in predictions of future water availability or global sea level," the authors concluded.........

(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...

Himalayan glaciers not melting because of climate change, report finds - Telegraph


1# OHC has decreased 1/3rd its rate from the 1990s
2# This. WTF?
:eek::eek::eek:
 
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I thought glacier experts had always said that glacier advance and retreat depended upon local conditions. not many glaciers are in areas were they actually melt, it is more whether they get enough snowfall to balance the losses. eg Kilamanjaro(sp) is evaporating not melting.
 
Two issues effect glaciers

1. average temperature

2. how much snow falls (or doesn't fall) on them.
 
mmm no this proves all the left wings wanted to do was scare us into global warming so the could win the house senate in 06 and presidency in 08... mmm i smell bullshit...look at the northeast right now they cant get out of snow there so much..and where is all this cold coming from ..mm greenland where there are how many glaciers?
 
A far more trustworthy and complete report on the glaciers of Asia.

USGS Professional Paper 1386-F: Satellite Image Atlas of Glaciers of the World -- Asia

This chapter is the ninth to be released in U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1386, Satellite Image Atlas of Glaciers of the World, a series of 11 chapters. In each of the geographic area chapters, remotely sensed images, primarily from the Landsat 1, 2, and 3 series of spacecraft, are used to analyze the specific glacierized region of our planet under consideration and to monitor glacier changes. Landsat images, acquired primarily during the middle to late 1970s and early 1980s, were used by an international team of glaciologists and other scientists to study various geographic regions and (or) to discuss related glaciological topics. In each glacierized geographic region, the present areal distribution of glaciers is compared, wherever possible, with historical information about their past extent. The atlas provides an accurate regional inventory of the areal extent of glacier ice on our planet during the 1970s as part of a growing international scientific effort to measure global environmental change on the Earth’s surface.
 
http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/p1386f/pdf/F5_India.pdf

Conclusions
Remote-sensing techniques are very useful for cataloguing changes in glaciers and understanding climate change phenomena. Time-series analysis suggests that the summer temperature at an elevation of 4,000 m ASL has increased in the last forty years in headwaters of the Chenab and Ganga Rivers. Increased air temperatures have resulted in the shrinkage of the Chhota Shigri Glacier by about 12 percent in the last 13 years. In addition, 12 percent shrinkage of the main stem of the Gangotri Glacier has occurred in the last 16 years. This implies a rapid rate of shrinkage of many of the glaciers in the Himalaya in recent years. From model results, it was determined that, for an increase of +3 °C air temperature, the ELA will move upward about 400 m, and the AAR of the Chhota Shigri and Gangotri Glaciers will decrease from 0.4 to about 0.10 and 0.15, respectively. The model thus suggests that, if there is an increase of +3 °C air temperature during the summer, 80 to 90 percent of the surface area of Chhota Shigri and Gangotri Glaciers will be in the ablation area and therefore in the process of melting. This will further increase the meltwater discharges, rapid shrinkage, and rapid snout recession already seen at the end of the last century. Increases in the size and number of glacier lakes in the Himalaya clearly reflect the increasing influence of global climatic changes in the region.
 
http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/p1386f/pdf/F5_India.pdf

Conclusions
Remote-sensing techniques are very useful for cataloguing changes in glaciers and understanding climate change phenomena. Time-series analysis suggests that the summer temperature at an elevation of 4,000 m ASL has increased in the last forty years in headwaters of the Chenab and Ganga Rivers. Increased air temperatures have resulted in the shrinkage of the Chhota Shigri Glacier by about 12 percent in the last 13 years. In addition, 12 percent shrinkage of the main stem of the Gangotri Glacier has occurred in the last 16 years. This implies a rapid rate of shrinkage of many of the glaciers in the Himalaya in recent years. From model results, it was determined that, for an increase of +3 °C air temperature, the ELA will move upward about 400 m, and the AAR of the Chhota Shigri and Gangotri Glaciers will decrease from 0.4 to about 0.10 and 0.15, respectively. The model thus suggests that, if there is an increase of +3 °C air temperature during the summer, 80 to 90 percent of the surface area of Chhota Shigri and Gangotri Glaciers will be in the ablation area and therefore in the process of melting. This will further increase the meltwater discharges, rapid shrinkage, and rapid snout recession already seen at the end of the last century. Increases in the size and number of glacier lakes in the Himalaya clearly reflect the increasing influence of global climatic changes in the region.



cherry picked faux..............
 
Anyway...........meh on the glacier crap. Here's the giant main headline on DRUDGE right now.............


SNOWIEST JAN IN NYC HISTORY!


Since perception is 95% reality, imagine the typical New Yorker hearing some k00k talk about glacier retreat today after shoveling snow for 9 hours!!:fu::fu::fu::fu::fu:
 
Anyway...........meh on the glacier crap. Here's the giant main headline on DRUDGE right now.............


SNOWIEST JAN IN NYC HISTORY!


Since perception is 95% reality, imagine the typical New Yorker hearing some k00k talk about glacier retreat today after shoveling snow for 9 hours!!:fu::fu::fu::fu::fu:

Lucky fucking bastards!

Answer me this; how many below average snow years has NY seen in the last 35 years?

Talk about cherry picking...
 
Anyway...........meh on the glacier crap. Here's the giant main headline on DRUDGE right now.............


SNOWIEST JAN IN NYC HISTORY!


Since perception is 95% reality, imagine the typical New Yorker hearing some k00k talk about glacier retreat today after shoveling snow for 9 hours!!:fu::fu::fu::fu::fu:

So? And that is important in what way?
 

Greenland ice sheet is safer than scientists previously thought | Environment | The Guardian

Shepherd said most of the Greenland ice cap was on land and not in contact with the sea, unlike the west Antarctic ice sheet. That ice sheet contains enough water to push up sea level by six metres if it all melted.

He said the next scientific question to answer was whether warmer oceans would erode the edges of ice caps, causing them to fall rapidly into the ocean. "The real threat now is from the oceans melting the west Antarctic ice sheet, which is 3km-4km thick, of which 1km-2km is below sea level."

Shepherd said his work was helping to reduce uncertainties about the consequences of climate change. Asked if he thought his work suggested the wider risks of global warming could be discounted, he said: "Not at all."
 

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