The US is warmer than it was in 1984. I don't think it is a surprise that the glaciers might recede. However, was the temperature increase due to CO2 or was it a natural cycle of warming? It's cooler now than it was a year ago, 3 years ago, 5 years ago and 10 years ago. How can this be if CO2 is the driver?

Reply: It's just a nice picture of the mountain. The date is meaningless.

The implication of the title "The Lone Exception" that Mt Shasta's glaciers are the only ones in the whole world that are growing is categorically false and is beneath you.

Reply: According to this story, Shasta's glaciers are the only ones (not counting the shaded crater of St. Helens) that are know to be growing in the U.S.

From the article........
He said Shasta's seven glaciers are the only ones scientists have identified as getting larger, with the exception of a small glacier in the shaded crater of Washington state's Mount St. Helens.

The Mt. Shasta story is quite interesting in that it reminds us that glacial retreat and expansion is a function of both local temperature and precipitation. Another interesting fact that is not mentioned is Dr. Thompson has a very poor track record archiving his data and making it available for public consumption. Climate Audit has an entire reference link on their left navigation bar dedicated to Dr. Thompson. I emplore everyone to check it out at http://www.climateaudit.org/?cat=26 . Make you wonder what qualifies someone to be called a "glacier expert".

There is little doubt that glaciers in Glacier National Park and other places in the Northern Rockies will expand this summer, as in several other parts of the world.

Hopefully glaciers will not expand back to where they were 10,000 years ago before that annoying little rat in Ice Age started driving a Hummer. I doubt that the people in Wisconsin would be happy if their houses were plowed south to Iowa.

Always remember, the climate was perfect and stable before America messed it up.

I'm still trying to figure out who drew that arbitrary "normal" line. Who figured out what is normal, so they can claim it's either above or below normal?

According to Lonnie Thompson, a glacier expert from Ohio State, climate change is causing roughly 90% of the worlds mountain glaciers to shrink.

REPLY: Looks like "climate change" is causing the world'd mountain glaiciers to grow too!

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/07/09/shasta-glaciers.html

These people will stop at nothing to get their leftist agenda shoved down our throats, will they?

As for Mt. Shasta, looks pretty cold and snowy to me!

What a CROCK!

According to every glaciologist who has made it through their first week of class, 90% of the world's glaciers have been shrinking for the last 15,000 years.

To say that the Mount Shasta glaciers are the only ones growing in the continental U.S. is incorrect. The following glaciers are also growing:
Nisqually Glacier on Mount Ranier
Glaciers on Mount Shuksan in Washington State
Crater Glacier on Mount St. Helen's, which is now bigger than it was in 1980 when the glacier was almost completely destroyed by the eruption.

Reply: You may be right, I am just relating what the scientists said in the article. BTW, St. Helen's crater was mentioned, but that is a slightly different situation.

Very interesting Brett. Why wouldn't "global warming" increase precip on other moutains and make their glaciers grow larger? Something doesn't add up here...

Reply: Local weather patterns. The increase in precip. at Shasta was able to overcome the long-term warming, while farther north the % increase in precip was not as great, and not enought to overcome the long-term warming.

Anyway, a little off topic. I found this picture of how the capture cow gas. EVERYONE! You have to see this picture, it's completely pointless and I can only laugh at it. Poor cow...

Reply: Darren, that was my next light humored post! Tensions on this blog have been high lately and i think we all could use a laugh.

New evidence has emerged that a large plate of floating ice shelf attached to Antarctica is breaking up, in a troubling sign of global warming, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Thursday.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080710175751.a4ni0j9h&show_article=1

Must be all that -101F weather at Vostok melting the ice. Winters are brutally hot in Antarctica, and that long-term cooling trend is really killing them.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/antarctic_temps.AVH1982-2004.jpg

So, what this is showing us is that weather patterns have shifted precepitation further North.

There are more drought like conditions in central and southern California, but more rain and snow towards Oregon and Washington State.

This shift of precepitation is expected not just in the US, but in many areas.

It's not "just" global warming, but also climate change.

More precepitation (especially towars the poles) and more extreme precepitation and more drought conditions towards the equator. All part of a pattern and unfortunately, one that will continue as CO2 levels continue to rise with no end in sight.

"I doubt that the people in Wisconsin would be happy if their houses were plowed south to Iowa."

Yes, I do enjoy owning 75 acres without ice on it. Whatever natural forces allowed the ice to retreat so very long ago, I want to say this human has enjoyed every square inch and taken excellent care of that precious land. This example of what once was and was is today should give people that are afraid of global change a moment to pause and think that what is happening now has been happening since the very beginning and for the most part humans will not be able to turn back the clock nor will they be able to predict what will happen. This all boils down to some believing we have control over the climate which I find pretty hard to confirm. If that was so don't you think that climatologists this afternoon would have been able to control the twisters and straight line winds that tore through MN and my state this afternoon causing all sorts of damage.

It is a heavy burden to think that human beings are powerful enough to now have control over the climate.

For high level glaciers, those well above the freezing line, precipitation and winds are the biggest factor. Secondly, many of the glaciers in both NAmerica and Europe were quite young -that is they built up thier mass during the last LIA and have since receeded or disappeared altogether. Yet, there are others, like the Franz Josef Glacier in New Zealand, that have actually grown during the last decade.

I remember reading in a journal a few years ago about archeological teams found items in the Alpine morraines in Europe that dated back to the Roman Empire. THey found coins, pieces of metal and leather, etc... which indicated many of the pass through the Alps were free of ice at one time. During Roman Climate Minimum and through the LIA, these passes became closed due to glaciation and of course bad weather. Now, 2000 years later they are open again. But for how long?

The Lone Exception or the first of many glaciers that will start expanding?

What is the lag in time between temperature change and the size of a glacier anyway?

The retreat and expansion of the Mt. Shasta glacier has been driven more by the local precipitation patterns driven by the PDO. Here is a summary of various drought periods and the related snow pack effects on the Mt. Shasta:
http://www.siskiyous.edu/shasta/env/drought/index.htm

Reply: Thanks for the link Dennis.

While there has been a general 17% increase in precipitation over the last 110 years, back in the Fall of 1977, the glacier was essentially gone due to the lack of precipitation during the drought:
http://www.siskiyous.edu/shasta/env/drought/kg1977.jpg

The precipitation patterns are so inconsistent over northern California that any short-term pattern of glacial retreat or expansion cannot be used to develop any consistent long-term correlation with temperature. The current glacial expansion is due to the increase in precipitation/snowfall since the last big 1987-1992 drought.

The guy from OSU is a glacier expert, I have read articles outlining hie experience here in the local paper. And frankly put, he is right, climate change is making the glaciers shrink. He has said that multiple times.

The interesting part of the statement though is that he says "climate change" as an interchangeable word for "AGW". I should think though that anyone attempting to impress with their understanding of climate studies would use a different phraseology(sp). The hot button term "climate change" is meant to scare those who are more impressionable.

For those of us who have a grasp of the topic, we know the difference.

Because I'm like DUH! Of course it's climate change! How else is a glacier change if every thing in the local climate stays the same. Since we ALL, Brett mostly, know that our "climate" (read weather) changes all the time, what's the point of his comment other than to incite unjustified concern?

Those really are fantastic pictures. Look at the first, BIG imposing mountain, second, HUGE mountain covering the entire frame, and third, it's really just a little dot on the state of California.

Puts things in perspective if you ask me. Reply: Yea, you are right about that.

PH: "There is little doubt that glaciers in Glacier National Park and other places in the Northern Rockies will expand this summer, as in several other parts of the world."

One would only doubt that if one understood something about glacier gtowth. Keep makin' it all up, Patrick. That'll work for you right up until it doesn't.

WHAT! A growing glacier in this day in age, get out of here. How can this be? I mean it can't happen...Impossible, What is the cause,is the climate changing or is it just the weather, or is the weather causing the climate to change, wait climate and weather are not one in the same, maybe the weather is causing a pattern change and while some spots on earth warm others get colder..Thats it, the climate is changing, one spot warms as other spot cools as the earth has been doing for billions of years. Right now agwers there are spots on earth other than Mt. Shasta that are getting cooler and yes there are spots getting warmer, why do you only focus on the warmer parts?

dont worry Patrick.why could anybody blame America or any other country in the world.the facts are comming trough at last that this whole climate change thing has nothing to do with humans from anywhere in the world.it seems more to be comming from computer models that undergo constant tweaking from a fanatical influential core of loonies

This is a fable of the pot and the kettle for those who call me "black". Brett and others, I apologize for being off topic, though those of you who suggest I stay on topic should all do the same.

I finally had time to scroll through some of the previous entries and responses, and thought I should respond (you do not have more right than I do to an opinion).

Like many others who have been following science for years, and are concerned about political repression and its effect on science and solutions, etc., I looked at AccuWeather's "Global Warming" blog and thought this would be a good place to join. Before long, I found that there was a bias in the responses here, about 90% overall, sometimes more, sometimes less, in favor of those who would prefer to consign the science on global warming to the round file. The names came up every day, sometimes with multiple entries. At first, I tried looking up sources and finding references to support what I had to say, and listened to what others said. But over the years (I've changed my moniker twice, but have had this one for quite a while) I've taken a long hard look. I found that the internet and MSM have created a platform that allows an appearance of more doubt than really exists. I also found that well-funded organizations, using techniques initially explored by big tobacco, had worked to obscure and create doubt. I found a few legitimate scientists (Drs. Singer and Gray are my favorites), and lots of others promoting alternative points of view, and I found that scientists were working hard to respond to their questions and update their work. This very work was used to "prove" that they were wrong.

I chose to use my regular observation of world weather to show that one need not know the field to notice that things are getting more dangerous.

I also found that name-calling was being used to label the IPCC, Dr. Hansen, and Mr. Gore, and that the assertions about these people were mostly not true, though in some cases they were only exaggerated (example: a couple of Mr. Gore's many points needed correction; the hockey-stick has been confirmed (yell if you like, but it's true); the Brit school thing is well reported by the BBC and happened differently from the way it was represented by the skeptic community, for example).

Most non-posse people over the years have left in frustration as nothing appears to make headway. Dare anyone disagree consistently, they will be attacked. I try to provide an alternative voice not to those who have proven their bias, but for others who might feel isolated.

It is my understanding that we are now allowed only one link per post (Reply: You are allowed as many as you want, but sometimes the spam filter says otherwise. If your post did not get on then let me know and I will recover it from the junk file), and in any case I'm no longer going to go back and back, for example, to Senator Inhofe's well financed minority post to discover that "proves" me wrong. Here's my post of the day, take a look if your beliefs are strong enough to dare to look the scientific community in the face:

http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/

The BBC editors did an excellent job of collecting all the canards (global cooling, solar stuff) a while back. If you look around, you can find answers to all the hackneyed ideas used to fight the truth.

And as I have a life, I will continue in general (unlike now) to make the simplest and shortest possible statements of what I believe is true. Thanks for the compliment on how I pack in a lot. I'm not in it to waste my time on the choir!

The last data I saw reported for glacier retreat for Greenland was for 2006. I suspect that the cooling that's been recorded there during the last 2 years might result in stabilization or advance of Greenland's glaciers. For the year-to-date, the Summit weather station has averaged over 2 deg F lower that the same period in 2007.

Hi Patrick,

Maybe the Euro Space Agency are thinking that the ice must be less due to the extreme cold temperatures causing shrinkage, yeah shrinkage.

mrsund: how can it be warmer...

have a look at this post to see an interesting perspective on the analysis of this issue.

Anthropogenic Global Warming is it... Occurring

Patrick Henry:
There is little doubt that glaciers in Glacier National Park and other places in the Northern Rockies will expand this summer, as in several other parts of the world.

I doubt that! Want to bet?

Saly:
I'm still trying to figure out who drew that arbitrary "normal" line. Wh