Glaciers  by Roger King  

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Alaska
3. Antarctica
4. Arctic
5. Greenland
6. Russian Glaciers
7. Miscellaneous

Introduction

Polar Research Group in the Department of Atmospheric Science at the University of Illinois

Is the earth warming?  Yes, of course, its been warming since the Little Ice Age.   To listen to Al Gore and the media one would expect all the glaciers of the world to be melting and therefore the sea levels are drastically rising.  First, you need to understand that most glaciers are never measured.   There are about 160,000 glaciers around the world. Most have never been visited or measured by man. The great majority of these glaciers are growing, not melting.

Global warming may not affect sea levels, study finds   by EPW Blog   January 11, 2008   The most pessimistic predictions of sea level rises as ice sheets are melted by global warming may have to be scaled back as a result of an extraordinary discovery that ice persisted when the Earth was much hotter than today. Scientists have discovered that glaciers survived for hundreds of thousands of years during an extraordinary era when crocodiles roamed the Arctic and the tropical Atlantic Ocean was as warm as human blood  

Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979  by Michael Asher  January 1, 2009  Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.  ...

The data is being reported by the University of Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.

Here Comes The Sun at IBD Editorials December 15, 2009   Scientists at Zurich's Federal Institute of Technology have found that solar activity caused Alpine glaciers to melt in the 1940s at rates faster than today's pace, even though it's warmer now.

The study found that the sun in the 1940s was 8% stronger than average and far more powerful than it is today. It also concluded that solar activity was weaker from the 1950s to the 1980s, an era in which the glaciers advanced.

Alaska

Icy Bay glaciers get up and go by Ned Rozell  June 27, 2007  Alaska’s Icy Bay  - The main glaciers in Icy Bay crept forward up to one-third of a mile sometime between August 2006 and June 2007.  ...   At least three glaciers in Icy Bay have advanced in one year, said Chris Larsen, a scientist at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, studying the ever-changing landscape of the area.  

Antarctica

Antarctic ice is growing, not melting away by Greg Roberts  April 18, 2009   ICE is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap.

The results of ice-core drilling and sea ice monitoring indicate there is no large-scale melting of ice over most of Antarctica, although experts are concerned at ice losses on the continent's western coast.

Antarctica has 90 per cent of the Earth's ice and 80 per cent of its fresh water, The Australian reports. Extensive melting of Antarctic ice sheets would be required to raise sea levels substantially, and ice is melting in parts of west Antarctica. The destabilisation of the Wilkins ice shelf generated international headlines this month.

However, the picture is very different in east Antarctica, which includes the territory claimed by Australia.

East Antarctica is four times the size of west Antarctica and parts of it are cooling. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research report prepared for last week's meeting of Antarctic Treaty nations in Washington noted the South Pole had shown "significant cooling in recent decades".

It´s time to pray for global warming  measurements of Antarctic ice now show that its accumulation is up 5 percent since 1980.

Public Disservice: Melting Myths by Patrick J. Michaels July 26, 2006    In Antarctica, for the last few decades, average temperatures across the continent have been going down. Snowfall has increased, resulting in more continental ice. In fact, every modern computer simulation of 21st century climate has Antarctica continuing to accrete ice.

The ice sheets on Antarctica haven't melted for millions of years   Link

“Huge Antarctic ice-sheet disintegrates” on SPPI    March 26, 2008

The scare: “A 13,680-square-kilometer (5,282-square-mile) ice shelf, part of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, has begun to collapse because of rapid climate change in the fast-warming Antarctic Peninsula.

The truth: The Wilkins Ice Shelf, like many of the ice shelves surrounding the Antarctic Peninsula, was not there in the mediaeval warm period, and may also have been absent in the Roman warm period and in the 2000-year-long Holocene Climate Optimum, when global temperatures were considerably higher than they are today.  ...   Media reports usually fail to admit that the Antarctic Peninsula represents just 2% of the total Antarctic land mass, and a still smaller proportion of its ice mass. The seven ice shelves that have already disintegrated on the Atlantic Peninsula represent a combined area 1/55 the size of Texas.  The ice-shelf disintegration is nothing new. Very large icebergs break away from Antarctica all the time, to be replaced again in colder times. Whaling ships’ logs provide some of the earliest climate data available on Antarctica: in those logs, very large icebergs hundreds of miles long have been recorded in previous centuries. ...   The media are also usually silent about the fact that there has been more sea ice in the Antarctic recently than at any previous time since satellite records were first kept 30 years ago:  Antarctic sea-ice extent is now at record levels. The trend, in keeping with the general cooling of Antarctica over the past half-century, is generally upward.    

What climate changes does Antarctica predict? by Nikolai Osokin for RIA Novosti 05/17/2007  Antarctica contains 90% of the world's ice on its area of 12 million square kilometers. Its ice cover is also the world's biggest fresh water reserve with 24 million cubic kilometers of ice. In addition, Antarctica has big reserves of mineral reserves and colossal amounts of biological species in its waters.   

More Ice Than Ever  by Patrick J. Michaels  February 06, 2008   At present, the coverage of ice surrounding Antarctica is almost exactly two million square miles above where it is historically supposed to be at this time of year (emphasis added). It's farther above normal than it has ever been for any month in climatologic records. Around now, because it's summer down there and the ice is headed towards its annual low point, there should be about seven million square miles of it. That means, as data in University of Illinois' web publication Cryosphere Today shows, that there is nearly 30% more ice down in Antarctica than usual for this time of the year.   

Antarctica Grows Thicker !   May 19, 2005  According to a new study published in the online edition of Science, the East Antarctic Ice Sheet gained about 45 billion tons of ice between 1992 and 2003. The ice sheets are
several kilometers thick in places, and contain about 90% of the world's ice.

Using data from the European Space Agency's radar satellites ERS-1 and ERS-2, a research team from the University of Missouri , Columbia , measured changes in altitude over about
70% of Antarctica's interior. East Antarctica thickened at an average rate of about 1.8 centimeters per year over the time period studied, the researchers discovered.

The region comprises about 75% of Antarctica 's total land area and about 85% of the
total ice volume. The area in question covers more than 2.75 million square miles - roughly
the same size as the United States.  

Climate Change: Breaking the "Political Consensus"  by Andrew G. Marshall   August 7, 2008   In 2007, a new study revealed that as icebergs break off from Antarctica, “some as large as a dozen miles across – are having a major impact on the ecology of the ocean around them, serving as ‘hotspots’ for ocean life, with thriving communities of seabirds above and a web of phytoplankton, krill, and fish below,” and that the icebergs “can serve as a route for carbon dioxide drawdown” as it sinks into the sea.    

Arctic

Arctic Sea Ice Extent Update: still growing at Whats Up With That 4/2/2010  The April 1st National Snow and Ice Data Center Arctic Sea Ice Extent plot continues its unusual upwards trend and is almost intersecting the “normal” line. Given the slope of the current trend it seems highly likely it will intersect the normal line with the April 2nd plot.

The mini ice age starts here By David Rose  January 10, 2009  According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this.

Media Credibility, Not Ice Caps, In Meltdown  by Peter C Glover  February 23, 2008  During October and November 2008 the extent of Arctic ice was 28.7 percent greater than during the same period in 2007. According to data published by the International Arctic Research Center (IARC/JAXA) October 2008 saw "the fastest ever growth" of Arctic Sea ice since records began.  ...

The media has also made much of the potential opening of the Northwest Passage. But it rarely mentions that similar weather patterns prevailed in the 1930s when two boats, the Nascopie and Aklavik, famously met up in the Passage in 1937. In October 2008, a study by Ohio University confirmed that current Arctic warming patterns mimic those in the 1920s-1940s.   ...

It´s time to pray for global warming   the University of Illinois´ Arctic Climate Research Center released conclusive satellite photos showing that Arctic ice is back to 1979 levels.

Arctic Ice Concentration for May 1980 and May 2008  at the Global Warming Hoax June 13, 2008   Satellites first started taking measurements of sea ice in 1979-1980. After 28 years of warming Arctic sea today is where it was when measurements started.  ...  Note that the total is 10.9 million square kilometers for both years. All the while CO2 levels have gone up.  

Arctic Ice Concentration for May 1980 and May 2008  

 

      Link
From the National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado

Whatever Happened to Global Warming?  by Deroy Murdockthe December 13, 2008  National Snow and Ice Data Center has found that the extent of Arctic sea ice has expanded by 13.2 percent over last year. This 270,000 square-mile growth in Arctic sea ice is just slightly larger than Texas’s 268,820 square miles.

Are Volcanoes Melting Arctic?  by Investor's Business Daily   June 30, 2008  a research team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) has uncovered evidence of massive undersea volcanic eruptions deep beneath the ice-covered surface of the Arctic Ocean. "Explosive volatile discharge has clearly been a widespread, and ongoing, process," according to the WHOI team.

The WHOI researchers found that evidence of a series of strong quakes and eruptions as big as the one that buried the ancient city of Pompeii took place in 1999 along the Gakkel Ridge, an underwater mountain range snaking 1,100 miles from the northern tip of Greenland to Siberia.   ...  

Sohn says the large volumes of CO2 gas that belched out of the undersea volcanoes likely contributed to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.  ... 

Scientists at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory have put together a chart showing Arctic ice relatively stable until a precipitous decline began in 1999 — the very year the Arctic eruptions started.    

Global Warming? New Data Shows Ice Is Back  by Phil Brennan  February 19, 2008  ...  according to reports from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that reveal that almost all the allegedly “lost” ice has come back. A NOAA report shows that ice levels which had shrunk from 5 million square miles in January 2007 to just 1.5 million square miles in October, are almost back to their original levels.    Link

Public Disservice: Melting Myths by Patrick J. Michaels July 26, 2006 The Arctic cap loses ice in the summer, but no one bothers to mention that we only began collecting data on it in 1979, at the end of the second-coldest period in the Arctic in a century. The ice had to be abnormally expanded then. It's also floating ice, and melting it and doesn't change sea level at all.  

What about the Poles? by Dennis Avery   November 13, 2007   The Arctic was also warm in the 1920s; the Russians say it happens every 70 years or so.  ...  Ice caps don’t melt from the surface down, they melt only at the edges. Once the edges are melted, further ice loss depends on the uphill weight of the ice built up over previous centuries. The ice flows--reluctantly because it’s so cold--on the warmer ice at its base, with the upper, brittle ice carried downhill by its own weight. When a chunk of ice reaches the edge of the cap it falls off--and the AP writes a news story. That’s neither melting nor collapse.     

Theory On Thin Ice  by Investor's Business Daily  November 15, 2007   From 2002 to 2006, scientists and researchers from NASA and the University of Washington's Polar Science Center at the Applied Physics Laboratory observed a meaningful ongoing reversal in Arctic Ocean circulation.  ...  The cause is atmospheric circulation changes that vary in decade-long periods.  "Our study confirms many changes seen in upper Arctic Ocean circulation in the 1990s were mostly decadal in nature, rather than trends caused by global warming," said the University of Washington's James Morison.  Pat Michaels an environmental scientist said "it's common knowledge in the scientific community that there has been no net change in Arctic temperatures in the last 70 years."    

NASA Sees Arctic Ocean Circulation Do an About-Face   by Joshua Hill  Friday, November 16, 2007  The team monitored the circulation of the Arctic Ocean between the years 2002 and 2006, and found a 10-millibar decrease in water pressure at the bottom of the ocean, underneath the North Pole. Such a decrease is equal to removing the weight of 10 centimeters of water from the ocean.  Such a decrease, in conjunction with the distribution suggested that the Arctic Ocean had reversed its direction, from the counterclockwise pattern it was known for in the 1990s to the clockwise pattern from before the 90s. ...  During the strong counterclockwise phase that occurred during the 1990s, the Arctic climate began to shift. Many scientists pinned this to the effects of manmade global warming, however some of the changes are now being rethought.   

Greenland

An excellent collection of research papers on Greenland can be viewed at Latest Scientific Studies Refute Fears of Greenland Melt  by Marc Morano at the Inhofe EPW Press Blog on July 30, 2007   Some of those papers are listed below.

New Study Finds Greenland Ice Melt ‘not changing’ or ‘dropping’   by EPW Blog at CFP   July 4, 2008  a new Dutch study of 17 years of satellite measurements of ice movement in western Greenland concludes that the speedup of the ice is a transient summertime phenomenon, with the overall yearly movement of the grinding glaciers not changing, and actually dropping slightly in some places, when measured over longer time spans.   

Public Disservice: Melting Myths by Patrick J. Michaels July 26, 2006   For all the headlines about loss of ice in Greenland, which does contribute to rising sea levels, the mean temperature there was much higher from 1910 through 1940. Between then and the late 1990s, temperatures in southern Greenland — the region where ice is melting — declined sharply.

Oscar And The Grouch by Inventor's Business Daily  February 26, 2007   Greenland is supposed to be melting, but it was warmer when Eric the Red brought settlers to the appropriately named place in 986. The climate there supported the Viking way of life based upon cattle, hay, grain and herring for about 300 years, predating the Industrial Revolution, the sport utility vehicle and the stretch limousine.   By 1100, a colony of 3,000 was thriving there. Then came the Little Ice Age, and by 1400, average temperatures had dropped by about 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit and the advancing glaciers doomed the Viking colony in Greenland.   

What about the Poles? by Dennis Avery   November 13, 2007  The Greenland ice cap is 2-3 kilometers deep and much of its ice lies inside a basin that won’t slide off.  Its undisturbed ice dates back at least 105,000 years.  The temperatures over the ice are well below freezing, at about -30 degrees C in the north, and -20 degrees C in the south.     

Too Much Ice: Polar Bears Starving  in Not by Fire but by Ice  February 16, 2008  Svend Erik Hendriksen, a certified weather observer in the Kangerlussuaq Greenland MET Office, who is responsible for all the weather observations at Kangerlussuaq Airport (near to Sisimiut), says that the cause is too much sea ice: "Several polar bears located (at least 6) close to Sisimiut town on the West coast ...Too much sea ice, so they are very hungry  

Deep freeze in western Greenland in Not by Fire but by Ice  February 15, 2008   Minus 30 degrees Celsius. That's how cold it's been in large parts of western Greenland. At the same time, Denmark's Meteorological Institute states that the ice between Canada and southwest Greenland right now has reached its greatest extent in 15 years.  'Satellite pictures show that the ice expansion has extended farther south this year. On the eastern coast it hasn't been colder than normal, but there has been a good amount of snow.'   

Earth’s Heat adds to Climate Change to melt Greenland Ice  by OnTheWeb  December 14, 2007  Scientists have discovered what they think may be another reason why Greenland ‘s ice is melting: a thin spot in Earth’s crust is enabling underground magma to heat the ice.  They have found at least one “hotspot” in the northeast corner of Greenland—just below a site where an ice stream was recently discovered.  The researchers don’t yet know how warm the hotspot is. But if it is warm enough to melt the ice above it even a little, it could be lubricating the base of the ice sheet and enabling the ice to slide more rapidly out to sea.     

Greenland cools as world warms by Jonathan Amos  March 11, 2003  Studies of historical meteorological data show that temperatures in this northern polar region have been falling. Over the last 40 or 50 years there has been  "statistically significant cooling, particularly in south-western coastal Greenland. Sea-surface temperatures in the Labrador Sea also fell. The studies were made by Dr. Edward Hanna, from the University of Plymouth, UK, and Dr. John Cappelen, of the Danish Meteorological Institute, and presented in the Journal of Geophysical Review Letters. BBC News. 11 March 2003.

Study: Glacier melting can be variable at Breitbart.com Feb 13 2007  A U.S. study suggests two of Greenland’s largest glaciers are melting at variable rates and not at an increasing trend.  The study, led by Ian Howat, a researcher with the University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Center and the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory, shows the glaciers shrank dramatically and dumped twice as much ice into the sea during a period of less than a year between 2004 and 2005.   

Latest Scientific Studies Refute Fears of Greenland Melt  by Marc Morano July 30, 2007  A July 6, 2007 study published in the journal Science about Greenland by an international team of scientists found DNA "evidence that suggests the frozen shield covering the immense island survived the Earth's last period of global warming," according to a Boston Globe article. (6-6-07) According to the article, the study indicates "Greenland's ice may be less susceptible to the massive meltdown predicted by computer models of climate change, the main author (Eske Willerslev, professor of evolutionary biology at University of Copenhagen) said in an interview. "This may have implications for how the ice sheets respond to global warming. They may withstand rising temperatures," Willerslev said. The article explained, "The discovery of organic matter in ice dating from half –a-million years ago offers evidence that the Greenland ice sheet remained frozen even during the Earth's last 'interglacial period' – some 120,000 years ago – when average temperatures were 9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than they are now." Willerslev addressed scary computer model predictions of a massive Greenland melt. "[The study] suggests a problem with [computer] models" that predict melting ice from Greenland could drown cities and destroy civilizations, Willerslev said. The study found "Greenland really was green, before Ice Age glaciers enshrouded vast swaths of the Northern Hemisphere…somewhere between 450,000 and 800,000 years ago," according to the article.    

Latest Scientific Studies Refute Fears of Greenland Melt  by EPW Blog  July 31, 2007   Vikings arrived in Greenland around 1000 A.D. and found it to be habitable settlement that they farmed for hundreds of years. A 2003 Harvard University study found the Earth was warmer than today during the Medieval Warm Period from about 800 to 1300 A.D. without modern SUV's or man-made CO2 emissions. The Vikings abandoned Greenland when the Little Ice Age took hold.  

Proof on Ice: Southern Greenland Was Once Green; Earth Warmer  by David Biello  July 5, 2007    In 1981 researchers removed a long tube of ice from the center of a glacier in southern Greenland at a site known as Dye 3.   ...  DNA extracted from the previously ignored dirty bottom has revealed that Greenland was not only green, it boasted boreal forests like those found in Canada and Scandinavia today.  Biologist Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen and an international team of colleagues discovered DNA from alder, spruce, pine and yew trees at the glacier's base as well as insects ranging from butterflies to spiders. This is the "first evidence for a forested southern Greenland," Willerslev says. And based on the tree species found, Greenland must have been warmer than 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=proof-on-ice-southern-greenland-green-earth-warmerdegrees Celsius) in summer and never colder than one degree F (–17 degrees C) in winter, much warmer than present conditions.   

Greenland Temperature Trends – Summary  Used temperature measurements from two Greenland Ice Sheet boreholes to reconstruct the surface temperature history of the ice sheet over the past 50,000 years.  The data revealed that:    

1. During the Last Glacial Maximum approximately 25,000 years ago were 23 ± 2 °C colder than at present.
2. During the Holocene Climatic Optimum of 4,000 to 7,000 years ago they rose to a maximum of 2.5°C warmer than at present. 
3.  During the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were also documented in the record, with temperatures 1C warmer and 0.5-0.7C colder than at present, respectively
4. After the end of the Little Ice Age, they report that "temperatures reached a maximum around 1930," but that they "have decreased during the last decades."

Greenland Again  by Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, Fellow of the AMS  July 2008  Greenland actually was warmer in the 1930s and 1940s than it has been in recent decades. For the period from the 1960s to the 1990s, temperatures actually declined significantly as the Atlantic went through its multidecadal cold mode. The temperature changes up and down the last few centuries were closely related to these multidecadal ocean cycles.  

Russian Glaciers

Glaciers are growing around the world, including the United States  On September 20, 2002, a huge 22-million ton piece of the gigantic Maili Glacier broke loose and crashed down a steep gorge into the village of Kami killing more than 150 people and injuring hundreds more. The 500-foot wall of ice had been growing for six years. The Maili Glacier is just one of several glaciers in the North Caucasus Mountains that have been EXPANDING at an alarming rate. Other towns in the region have been partially buried by these advancing walls of ice. One local scientist in southern Russia said, "we may be seeing the beginning of a new great ice age!!!" (Thanks to climatologist Cliff Harris and meteorologist Randy Mann for this info.)   Link

Miscellaneous Glaciers

World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown at the TimesOnline January 17, 2009  A WARNING that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it.

Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC's 2007 report.

It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was "speculation" and was not supported by any formal research. If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research. The IPCC was set up precisely to ensure that world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change.

Experts question theory on global warming Not by Fire but by Ice  Some glacial experts have questioned the alarmists theory on global warming leading to shrinkage of Himalayan glaciers. VK Raina, a leading glaciologist and former ADG of GSI is one among them.  He feels that the research on Indian glaciers is negligible. Nothing but the remote sensing data forms the basis of these alarmists observations and not on-the-spot research.  Raina told the Hindustan Times that out of 9,575 glaciers in India, research has been conducted only on about 50. Nearly 200 years data has shown that nothing abnormal has occurred in any of these glaciers.

Here's a (partial) list of the specific glaciers that are growing:  in Not By Fire but by Ice     February 28, 2008    Link  Link

Norway

1. Alfotbreen Glacier
2. Briksdal glacier
3. Briksdalsbreen Glacier
4. Nigardsbreen Glacier
5. Hardangerjøkulen Glacier
6. Hansebreen Glacier
7. Jostefonn Glacier
8. Engabreen glacier (The Engabreen glacier is the second largest glacier in Norway. It is a part (a glacial tongue) of the Svartisen glacier, which has steadily increased in mass since the 1960s when heavier winter precipitation set in.)

Canada

1. Helm Glacier
2. Place Glacier

France

1. Mt. Blanc

Ecuador

1. Antizana 15 Alpha Glacier

Switzerland

1. Silvretta Glacier

Kirghiztan

1. Abramov

Russia

1. Maali Glacier
    

Greenland

1. Greenland Glacier
    

New Zealand

1. All 48 glaciers in the Southern Alps have grown during the past year.  The growth is at the head of the glaciers, high in the mountains, where they gained more ice than they lost.

South America

1. Argentina's Perito Moreno Glacier (the largest glacier in Patagonia) 
2. Chile's Pio XI Glacier (the largest glacier in the southern hemisphere) is also growing.
    

United States

1. Colorado
2. Washington (Mount St. Helens, Mt. Rainier, Nisqually Glacier and Mt. Shuksan)
3. California (Mount Shasta)
4. Montana - Glaciers in Montana's Glacier Park on the verge of growing 
5. Alaska (Mt. McKinley and Hubbard).