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New Photos Show 'Devastating' Ice Loss On Everest
Simmeh writes "The BBC reports on new photos of the Himalayas taken from exactly the same position as ones from 1929 and compares the ice coverage. The Asia Society, which did the groundwork, are quoted as saying, 'If the present rate of melting continues, many of these glaciers will be severely diminished by the middle of this century.' I guess the previous claim wasn't too unrealistic."
Let me ask something slightly different. Is bacteria actually capable of changing the properties of something as huge as man? Oh wait, thats very different, my bad!
So we have a few photographs and the conclusion that the ice loss is devastating--despite no investigation as to whether the photographs were taken during the same day of the year nor as to what the internal variability is. But still, the editors immediately jump to the ice loss is devastating and that the mid-century prediction of the AR4 is right after all.
Nonsense, the glaciers are monitored very closely and the loss-rates are calculated to be very slow. The AR4 prediction was, of course, the center of a big scandal because it was basically a fabrication, whereas the actual science is deep and gives several hundred years.
Not scared? Maybe you should be.
According to our models, yes we are so capable. Don't just use your intuitions - "common sense" is often wrong. There are people who study these things - go to your local university and ask professors with knowledge in the relevant fields.
If we damage the environment, we *are* causing misery of mankind.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
When it comes to size you have to stop thinking about the Earth, 12,752km diameter, and think about the atmosphere, 90% within 50km of surface.
Could humans make an impact, yes. The CO2 increase since the start of the industrial revolution shows that.
Is that the main cause of climate change? That is what the real arguments are about.
If Humans are to blame is it too late to do anything? Don't know, don't care. Its been done.
Humanity will need to adapt to climate change or it'll die out, just like everything else on the planet.
Furthermore just as with most other Warmist alarm-filled propaganda, they give no hard data
As opposed to the climate change deniers who release 900 page reports reviewed by the elite of the world scientific community with only 1 or 2 mistakes in them ?
Hmm, actually, no. Its the "Warmists" who are releasing the hard data, its the deniers who are a lunatic propaganda followers with a "Flat earth society" culture.
Get a grip
"Denialists"? Are you talking about people that deny the Holocaust happened or objective, independent people that question whether man is to blame for "global warming"?
Denalism is by no means limited to Holocaust denial. Along with AIDS denialism, flat-earthism, tobacco denialism and AGW denialism, holocaust denial is merely a species of denialism. For it to be classified as denialism (as opposed to scepticism, for instance), it must involve the outright refusal to accept an empirically verifiable reality, as we can witness with both Holocaust or AGW denial.
Denialism also refers to a set of rhetorical strategies used to create the impression of uncertainty where none exists. Unsurprisingly perhaps, these bear a strong resemblance across the various species of denialism.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Since it's inevitable that this will devolve into a bunch of AGW/anti-AGW trolling, let's get our facts straight.
No one with any knowledge about the subject is disputing that climates change. The disputed points are that human-produced carbon dioxide is or is not a significant factor, that Al Gore does or does not have any clue what he's blabbing about, and that the green movement does or does not constitute anything more than lies and snake oil.
Anthropogenic or not, climate change is a serious issue which affects the future of our species. The people who support (or object to) AGW by chanting an entrenched position over and over, and the people selling us snake oil as a "fix" are NOT helping. In fact, they're probably selling the future of humanity off in order to make a quick buck off of people who get their science from Twitter and Fox News.
Slinging around words like "denialist" doesn't help a damn thing either. Have we forgotten Godwin's Law so quickly?
With that said, the "before and after" photo trick is extremely passe. It is good for gulling the public, but little more since you only have two data points and are doing absolutely nothing to control for any of numerous confounding factors. It doesn't tell you crap about local conditions (pollution? construction? traffic? did someone just set off dynamite as an anti-avalanche measure?). It doesn't tell you about shorter-term cycles of climate variation (what's normal? was it unusually heavy in the "before" photo? was there more or less pollution historically? what about solar cycles?). It doesn't tell you about the cause of the climate trend if any exists, and it absolutely does not tell you a single bloody thing about the global situation.
Nor is this "incontrovertible" proof all that clear. The saturation in the 1921 photo is such that it is very hard to compare the two photos directly; you would need to analyze each in detail including examining the depth in a given area, the seasonal and longer-term variations, the characteristics of the camera and film used in either photo...the list goes on. The "experts say" line is a bullshit maneuver pulled by journalists in order to make their craptastic statements of absolute truth seem like they have some authority behind them - in reality, it usually means that the journalist is aware that they don't have the means to back up what they're claiming. Three huzzahs for the terrible state of science journalism, eh? FUD and misinformation and more FUD is all you can expect.
why is it when I point to localised evidence of cooling as proof AGW is bullshit, AGW supporters give me a line about global temps being the only valid data. but when there's some local event like ice melting on a mountain, it's considered rockhard evidence by AGW supporters?!
Because you are trying to use anecdote in place of data. These people place anecdotes in the context of data.
i'll tell you why. it's because most of popular climate change "science" isn't worth the paper it's printed on, and it's agenda is run by hypocrites.
No. It's because you suffer from cognitive dissonance, and any evidence that clashes with your current world view merely reinforces it. In other words, you are walking case example of neuroscience at work.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
We have a lot more than a few photographs supporting this. The worldwide retreat of glaciers is well established and is know to acutely affect the Himalayas, potentially threatening water supplies for millions of people.
Also, can you provide some sort of reference for your claim that the photos were taken in different seasons? I find this unlikely, since the regularity of the Monsoon storms and lengthy acclimatization process tend to force Everest climbers to focus their efforts during the same season each year. There are exceptions, but it is unlikely that Breashears would have intentionally chosen to retrace the old expeditions steps for documentary purposes off season.
Finally, why focus on the erroneous report, when the correct prediction suggests dire consequences for millions of people who rely on the rivers fed by those glaciers. "Several hundred years" might seem like a long time, but it is a geological blink of an eye. We should be very concerned.
I've always thought it was more hubris. It takes quite a bit of arrogance to believe that humanity can change the Earth's climate that much, that fast.
So your line of thinking is: Because it is arrogant to believe humanity can affect the Earth's climate, the climate data, statistics or the statistical models incorporating the data must be wrong. Have I got you right?
Cool, science just got so much easier, no more nasty maths to deal with for a start. You don't even need to consider the actual volume of the troposphere, the concentration of various gases it contains, their change over time, the volume of CO2 release by fossil fuel use or any of that crazy empirical evidence stuff. We can just run science on a sense of moral outrage and gut feeling. Yeah!
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Glaciers are not snowfields, they show almost no seasonal change
I really don't know the answer to how much of climate change is man-made. I tend to think that it's possible we have had some impact, but I can't say to what degree. However, I do have a few thoughts on the matter:
Even if our impact on climate is minimal to none, we certainly do have impact on our habitats and environments. Even if we aren't creating a greenhouse effect, I think it's a very good idea to pursue renewable resources and cleaner living so that we can prevent discomfort, health problems, and harming ecosystems (that again might have long term and indirect impacts on us all). I may doubt that a household can shit enough on their lawn in order to make it uninhabitable, but I think they can make it unpleasant and unhealthy.
You say that it is hubris to suggest we could have an impact on the environment. I say it is hubris to think that we are so smart that we won't screw things up by accident. Not only that, it's in contradiction to history. By accident (or unintentional side-effects), we have created acid rain, we have brought many species to the verge of extinction (without even including those that may be victims of climate change), we have caused diseases and birth defects, we have ruined ecosystems, and we have many small areas uninhabitable. You question whether all the industry and waste of the world in modern times combined could have a negative impact on our environment by accident, when single industrial facilities in one city have been proven to be able to greatly harm local environments by accident.
There may be a question of whether we are doing it, but I honestly do not think there is any question of whether we could. I guarantee we could (if we tried), and it's in the realm of possibility that we might without even trying.
Man has split the atom, left our planet and returned, and mapped code of life. We have imagined strange and amazing things, and then have proven them to exist millions of light years away. We are currently researching ways to not only build artificial intelligence, but even recreating the spark of life itself, and the most incredible thing is that we've gotten to the point that those possibilities don't even seem absurd anymore! Man has done great and terrible things. We will very likely continue to do so.
I don't think you give man enough credit in what we accomplish, or how badly we can botch things.
Take a respected science publication. Take "Nature" if you wish. From 2008. Count how many of the reputable, scientific publications there have been contradicted since then. 3000 pages of science without mistakes, without errors are not 3000 pages of up-to-date science. Having just two mistakes in the report is actually incredible. I am sure we will find more, this is an ongoing work. Misquotes, honest but dumb errors, happen to very good scientists. Being a top scientist doesn't mean you don't make mistake, but that you correct them when they are pointed out, even if it means questioning your basic premises.
Does the errors about glaciers ice loss question the existence of climate change ? No. Was this ever considered ? Hell yes. Actually, when one reads the actual IPCC report, you would see that it is far from alarming. I used to be a "soft denier" when I discovered that much of my claims were already there. The rise is small and slow, the link to human activity is credible but a lot of uncertainty factors are underlined, the rise being a long term natural cycle is not ruled out, etc...
The warming is not an invention. First measures apparently were a bit too high and over-estimated the rise. They have been corrected since and a rise is still present. I pity climatologists. They are trying to do good science in a very heavy political context. That must be very hard.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
"It takes quite a bit of arrogance to believe that humanity can change the Earth's climate that much, that fast."
Earth's surface: 510,072,000 Km^2
Earth's population: 6,856,832,000
Mean earth surface per inhabitant: 0,074 Km^2/habitant, or, to give it in "real international standards units", about 13,7 football fields.
Do you really think it takes too much arrogance to imagine that a single man can alter 13,7 football fields within his lifetime through farming, mining, driving, building, etc.?
At least those will be equal opportunity changes since Mother Nature and the Universe don't discriminate when it comes time to bring the pain to those unworthy to survive.
You mean the poor farmer in Bangladesh will experience the same hardship from sea level rise than a Miami millionaire? One loses his livelihood and the other has to move his yacht pier up 3 feet - yes, that seems about the same.
More generally, rich people are generally much better isolated from any environmental changes, and also in a much better position to exploit them. Assume the Dutch have to rebuild their dikes - do you really think that most of the money spent will go to the guy who drives the backhoe?
Stephan
since you, the warmist, just mistook the deniers for the warmists...
Whoosh....
"That report" had a handful of factual errors in the WG2 section, dealing with the likely consequences of climate change, but no mistakes at all have been identified in the crucial WG1 section, where the veracity of anthropogenic global warming is firmly established. This despite it being one of the most closely-examined scientific reports of our time.
You are treating end results as fact without letting other scientists check your work.
Much of the WG1 data is in fact publicly available. I don't see any systematic analysis papers by reputable scientists challenging WG1's conclusions, only bloggers with an agenda presenting cherry-picked numbers and anecdotes as if they were somehow expecting to be taken seriously. Strangely enough, the thousands of climatologists who have systematically analysed climate data from a variety of unrelated sources and published their findings in peer-reviewed journals almost universally agree with WG1's conclusions. So on which side of the debate is the science fail, exactly?
Not sure why I'm bothering to respond, since your flamebait was modded as such early on this time. You did better when your rants were subjective opinions; it's not working out for you so well since you tried challenging the scientific conclusions of the nearly all the relevant experts on the planet.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
You are missing the point. This is not about saving the planet, it's about saving our own asses. Yes, the planet will continue rotating, and will still be here long after we're all dead. But, uh, we won't be here unless we make sure that the planet continues to be able to sustain human life.
The idea that we can't change our planet is defeatist bullshit. In the 80s, people thought that overpopulation would cause major world wars within a decade, that we would have revolutions in Europe, and that billions of people would die. It didn't happen. Why? Because of science. We managed to improve resource usage so much that we were able to sustain ever growing populations (and now we're seeing that at some point, human population stop growing naturally in developed nations without being constrained by a lack of resources, so there's a good chance that we might eventually reach a balance that doesn't involve billions of people dying due to a lack of resources).
Humanity is capable of doing awesome, great things, and there is no reason to believe that we can't solve this problem, if we accept that it is a problem and start actually taking it seriously before it is truly too late.
Of course, since the crazies posting here think the Earth was sneezed out by the Argleblaster six thousand years ago, there is no arguing with them.
It seems to me that the more scientists learn about the Earth and our place in the Universe, the more the religious fundamentalists disbelieve them. Galileo is bloody lucky he didn't live in Alabama in the 21st century.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Do you really think it takes too much arrogance to imagine that the variations in radiation from a superheated ball of gas at 5505C (9941F) might, just possibly, have some bearing on the situation ?
Oh, so that's what the climate scientists have been missing all this time! They forgot about the sun! Silly them! When is your schedule free, so we can give you your Nobel Prize?
When you live in an area such as Stockholm where you see direct evidence of the most recent ice age and post-glacial rebound it makes you wonder just how much of this warming trend is anthropogenic. What percentage of the information here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age must we ignore in order to make our current interglacial period all our fault? How conceited do we have to be in order to come to the conclusion that we can: A) Determine the optimal level of glaciation and, B) Determine the means by which to stabilize the climate of the earth so as to maintain this level? Don't get me wrong, I commute by bike as often as possible, didn't have more than 2 kids, drive a car that gets over 30 mpg (and drive it less than 6000 miles a year), recycle as much as possible, purchase locally grown and ecologically produced food and in general, try to tread lightly. I think I do all of these things for the right reasons, but I'm not under the illusion that my doing so is going to prevent global warming or "save the earth".
The stupidity of your position is that you yourself have not studied the data in any detail. All you need to know is that the rate of change has not accelerated and all the evidence shows this is a long-term process that has been going on for centuries. That is, as the Environment Ministry in India has said, "none of our glaciers under monitoring are recording abnormal retreat". Nobody is arguing that some of them aren't retreating (some of them are also growing), but as usual for you alarmists any change that contradicts your hypothesis is "weather", whereas any that supports it is "climate".
Okay let's see you "go first". Become an early adopter of the post-AGW lifestyle.
First thing : dump your computer, your car, your tv, your telephone. There's just no way that we can have personal computers, cars, or even normal phones (pray you get to keep your cell phone, and forget about smartphones) using only renewable resources. Not going to happen.
Oh and obviously the human population will have to be decimated, even if you do actually give those things up. Forget about birth control, which only has effect after 60 years or-so, assuming you can enforce it globally (assuming, to be blunt, that every nation on earth is prepared to kill "unapproved" babies), which is "too late". So who do we kill ?
Mind you, we'll need to lose somewhere between 60% and 90% of all humans alive. Who do we start with ? To keep in the theme of this thread, perhaps the Jews ? Of course atheists, christians, muslims, hindus and buddhists, even slashdotters won't be far behind. This 60% merely makes "living renewably" an attainable goal, btw, it does not, at all, guarantee we actually do accomplish it.
There are 2 things we can do :
1) attempt to stop climate change
2) ignore it, adapt to changing circumstances, and grow
EVERY species that has chosen option 1, and every human civilization that has done so (according to Jared Diamond) is ...
extinct
(and one can easily name dozens of species and civilizations that have attempted to preserve their environment ... all extinct)
It does not work.
Of course, when there is a climate conference, there is a solar eclipse generated by the amount of private planes converging. So we all know what the politicians and scientists (everyone who goes to such conferences) want ...
Of course, we "have science" so we can do anything, right ? (of course, half of those extinct civilizations did have science too, most had quite extensive agricultural and climatic knowledge. It didn't save them. Why would it save us ?)
Please can we take the belief terminology and appeals to authority out of the debate? If you believe in global warming, then you are an idiot. If you believe in anything because the majority of scientists do, then you are an idiot.
There is a large body of (reviewable) evidence in support of various hypotheses under the global warming umbrella, and a lot of ad hominem attacks against it. That means that it's sensible to accept these hypotheses as provisionally valid and, until any contradictory evidence is presented, a reasonable base for policy decisions. It doesn't mean that you have to believe in any given hypothesis. If you're emotionally invested in a hypothesis, you aren't doing science, you're doing religion.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
These are some pretty big straw men "OeLeWaPpErKe".
Your scare tactics aren't going to make scientists out of AGW deniers. Nor is the decision of a single person going to make much difference fighting climate change. But there are systemic changes that could be made right now without displacing millions or causing you to give up your iPhone.
And maybe you don't realize how easy it is for those of us that live in big cities to give up our cars or at least to think about what it would take for us to spend fewer of our waking hours behind the wheel. Nor do you appear to understand how much of a benefit it would be for you to give up your TV. It might keep you off of Fox News long enough for you to be deprogrammed.
Are you saying that giving up Science would help us avoid extinction? Now you're scaring me.
Please name the civilizations that have become extinct after attempting to prevent climate change due to profligate use of fossil fuels.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Are you trying to breed "ecological concern" out of the species in favor of "religious fundamentalism that doesn't believe in birth control and doesn't give a crap about the planet?" Because that's what happening when you have less kids.
I wasn't aware that ecological concern was a genetic trait. I also wasn't aware that religious people "don't give a crap about the planet". I suppose the term "stewards of the Earth" comes from the UFO-origins crowd.
According to the Wikipedia cite, it is known that it occurred in Europe and the North Atlantic, but the evidence for the rest of the world is inconclusive. Your other cite is a website that is home to AGW propagandists, while it bases its viewpoints on scientific evidence, it also dismisses out of hand any scientific evidence that does not support AGW and it promotes greater government regulation. Climate scientists who support AGW would go a long way towards improving their credibility if they would stop promoting "solutions" and stick to declaring what they perceive to be happening.
One of the interesting things about the medieval warm period (even if it was localized to Europe and the North Atlantic) and the little ice age (which the concensus agrees was global) that followed is that storms in the North Atlantic were more mild during the warm period and more violent during the little ice age which followed, which is exactly the opposite of what the AGW Alarmists tell us should be the case.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
No one is proposing that we change our lifestyle by dumping our computers, our cars, our TVs, our telephones. The plan is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by phasing out fossil fuels. This will be done by improving energy efficiency, developing nuclear power more, and increasing energy from renewable sources. No one has said we need to get all energy from renewable sources or stop burning all fossil fuels altogether. Nice strawman!
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.