- #1
Andre
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Global warming and "glaciers melting"
In another thread I promised to go over all the alarming climate features like glaciers melting, sea levels rising etc, I think that was actually off topic over there so I start a fresh one.
About the glaciers and ice sheets; yes, most glaciers are receding currently as the press can’t stop pointing out continuously. Is this catastrophic and/or alarming?
Some glaciers are advancing though. It’s about a 70-30 ratio. Glacial behavior in the current epoch of the Holocene (as of 10,000 14C BP or 11,600 Cal BP) has been scrutinized. Just for checking a few refs out of several dozens:
Douglass D.C. et al (2005) Evidence of early Holocene glacial advances on southern South America from cosmogenic surface-exposure dating, Geology March 2005 p.p. 237-240.
Mayewski et al (2004) Holocene climate variability Quaternary Research V62 p243-255
Porter (2000) The onset of Neoglaciation in the Southern Hemisphere, Journal of Quaternary Science v. 15 p395-408
Despite the general idea that the Holocene was a general warm period, those refs show that there was a considerable variation in glacial developments on a global scale. Distinct mostly global glacial growing eras have been identified from significant moraine remains that have been dated from ~8800-8000 BP, 6000-5200 BP, 5200-4800 BP, 4200-3400BP, 1400-1100BP (600-900AD) and 400-100BP (1600-1900AD). The last period is well known as the Little Ice Age, despite the attempts to kill it (MBH99). Glaciers have receded considerably after all those periods. Crops were growing on Southern Greenland around 1000 AD, the reason why this now almost fully glaciated island got its name ‘Greenland’ in the first place. No wonder that this period was called the “Medieval Warming Period”.
So what do we see now? Just another deglaciation event on a global scale after just another one of those periods of massive glacial advances, that Little Ice Age. But that’s not what the 3th Assessment report of IPCC likes to tell us. So you have to do with the selective information that the ice sheets and glaciers are melting. Full stop. Considering though, that it happens all the time, I fail to see neither a reason for an anthropogenic cause nor any alarming catastrophe ahead.
In another thread I promised to go over all the alarming climate features like glaciers melting, sea levels rising etc, I think that was actually off topic over there so I start a fresh one.
About the glaciers and ice sheets; yes, most glaciers are receding currently as the press can’t stop pointing out continuously. Is this catastrophic and/or alarming?
Some glaciers are advancing though. It’s about a 70-30 ratio. Glacial behavior in the current epoch of the Holocene (as of 10,000 14C BP or 11,600 Cal BP) has been scrutinized. Just for checking a few refs out of several dozens:
Douglass D.C. et al (2005) Evidence of early Holocene glacial advances on southern South America from cosmogenic surface-exposure dating, Geology March 2005 p.p. 237-240.
Mayewski et al (2004) Holocene climate variability Quaternary Research V62 p243-255
Porter (2000) The onset of Neoglaciation in the Southern Hemisphere, Journal of Quaternary Science v. 15 p395-408
Despite the general idea that the Holocene was a general warm period, those refs show that there was a considerable variation in glacial developments on a global scale. Distinct mostly global glacial growing eras have been identified from significant moraine remains that have been dated from ~8800-8000 BP, 6000-5200 BP, 5200-4800 BP, 4200-3400BP, 1400-1100BP (600-900AD) and 400-100BP (1600-1900AD). The last period is well known as the Little Ice Age, despite the attempts to kill it (MBH99). Glaciers have receded considerably after all those periods. Crops were growing on Southern Greenland around 1000 AD, the reason why this now almost fully glaciated island got its name ‘Greenland’ in the first place. No wonder that this period was called the “Medieval Warming Period”.
So what do we see now? Just another deglaciation event on a global scale after just another one of those periods of massive glacial advances, that Little Ice Age. But that’s not what the 3th Assessment report of IPCC likes to tell us. So you have to do with the selective information that the ice sheets and glaciers are melting. Full stop. Considering though, that it happens all the time, I fail to see neither a reason for an anthropogenic cause nor any alarming catastrophe ahead.
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