In places, these changes began as early as the middle of the 18th century.

It appears that this settles it !

Glacier melt was impressive even prior to increases in CO2 ........ so, it looks like they are confirming that CO2 related warming was NOT the cause !

Maybe there are other causes which affect warming, other than AGW?

I hear that some radicals are now considering natural causes ........how progressive! ! !

I don t know, it is getting harder and harder to worry about glaciers melting and then run around saying, woe is me, woe is me, not the glaciers melting!!!; when the economy is tanking, my 401k retirement fund has lost half its value, my stock has gone under water, and the governments current economic actions and the predicted presidential election results will probably lead us into a depression next year. And I had to turn on the heater, and I am already cold, and I won’t see a hot day now until next May. Oh, no, I’m whining, I’m turning into a lib@@@@!

But wait, there s more, here is some good news for global warming but not too good for people who like jobs and live in homes, but then again, we don’t count. Thank goodness for Nobel Prize winning scientists.

http://www.reuters.com/article/GlobalEnvironment08/idUSTRE4966A220081007

*A slowdown in the world economy may give the planet a breather from the excessively high carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions responsible for climate change, a Nobel Prize winning scientist said on Tuesday.”

*"It's a cruel thing to say ... but if we are looking at a slowdown in the economy, there will be less fossil fuels burning, so for the climate it could be an advantage," Crutzen told Reuters in an interview.*

*"We could have a much slower increase of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere ... people will start saving (on energy use) ... but things may get worse if there is less money available for research and that would be serious."*

Whew, I feel so much better.

We are at the very end of the present 11,500 year old interglacial warmup period. I would hope glaciers contiue their melting. This is what they ought to be doing right now.

Glaciers represent only 0.29% of the total inventory of the world's ice. The Arctic ice cap represents 0.10%, Greenland 9.8% and Antarctica at 89.81%. Some glaciers are melting. However, others are growing. It is the ones that are growing that you should be worried to death about.

In 1992, "Glacier Girl" a WWII P-38 abandoned in Greenland after an emergency landing by The Lost Squadron was recovered - under 268 feet of ice. The edges of Greenland may be melting from warmer temperatures at the edges, but the fact is: the mass balance of ice on Greenland and Antarctica is growing. England, having grown so tired of replacing its scientific stations at the South Pole which keep getting buried under ice, have a new station coming on line that will be on skiis so it can be dragged around and kept on top of the ice.

The Weather Channel should be keenly aware of the extended cold that has been gripping the northern tier of states and countries around the world last fall, this winter, this spring and even this summer. We are heading into a period of pronounced global cooling whether Al Gore likes it or not. The politically-driven manmade global warming myth is being slowly replaced with the Sun spot-less global cooling reality that is already upon us. Live with it!

Well, its quite obvious they are receding because of global warming. However, the ones that are advancing are doing so because of global warming.....

You know, the press release, and I presume the book by proxy, make the grand assumption that the retreat of the glacier is the unusual or drastic event.

Could it be that the glaciers were in the "wrong" place when they were extended farther?

What we need is a picture from the 1600's. Maybe the AGW crowd can work on that to really prove their collective point.

And no, time analysis of moraine debris is not an accurate or viable proxy point that can be used instead of a cold hard picture.

Psst...wink, wink on the picture, just don't tell the AGWers, they'll be researching that for us.

So Brett how can we explain this phenomenom
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Prediction Artic ice 2009 = increased anomaly

Reply: What do you mean? All I see is a graph of actual sea ice extent over the past 7 years.

It is really too bad we don't have photos from 1850, 1800, 1750, 1700, etc all the way back to the beginning of the Medieval Warm Period.

I wonder what would be considered "signifigant" if we had a complete picture that showed us the advancement and retreat of glaciers over a couple periods of warming and cooling, just in the last 1,000 years would do.

But it seems that we are forced to use only the period that immediately followed the end of the little ice age to determine whether this warming is "signifigant" or not.

Of course it is signifigant, but alarming? Perhaps to those who can only focus on the last 30 years and only see back to 150 years.

Can anyone tell me why a warm period would not be expected following a known cool period?

This reminds me of a childhood friend who moved to Atlanta from Miami back in the early 70's. He moved in late summer and had never seen hardwoods go dormant for the winter and thought they were all dying. He was alarmed, but that was from a lack of history in the region.

You know that 15,000 years ago Alaska, and a good portion of North America was completely covered by glaciers! They're nearly all gone now. Who'd think a period known as an interglacial would see retreating glaciers?

Quite amazing.

Steve

Yep. and has the world come to and end as a result of this? Oh, by the by. More good news for the rest of the nation:

http://www.accuweather.com/news-top-headline.asp?partner=accuweather

But then again, it's cooling due to the warming. And all backdoor weather, and all mans fault. Yada yada yada. I can hardly wait! This coupled with this horrid election ..Oh, Oh,....Prozac on stand by....

DENY DENY DENY THE GLO-BULL WARMING LIE!!!!!!

I guess the glacier is melting because global temps are getting colder, right?

What wast that quote again...
"It's the Climate, Stupid."

Direct Climate Action Now!

A little off topic but interesting what affects the Arctic:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2008/10/07/arctic-quake.html

*A slowdown in the world economy may give the planet a breather from the excessively high carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions responsible for climate change, a Nobel Prize winning scientist said on Tuesday.”

*"It's a cruel thing to say ... but if we are looking at a slowdown in the economy, there will be less fossil fuels burning, so for the climate it could be an advantage," Crutzen told Reuters in an interview.*

REPLY: Yep. And people like Mark, BT (where ever he is), Andrew, et.al. buy into this PUKE and lay the blame for all that goes wrong as a result at the feet of those who oppose it. Is it any wonder this country is in the direction that it's in?

Glaciers have been retreating for the last 22,000 years. That is why they call it an "interglacial."

Most of the glacial loss in Glacier Bay happened before 1890, so clearly it is GWB's fault - like everything else in the world.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/12/1217_alaskaglaciers.html

Dennis Hlinka: Do you ever get the feeling that people don't understand the concept of rapid climate change, or that the rise in CO2 causes a rise in temperatures.
Does anyone on this blog know or understand what a carbon sink is and why.
"Keeling was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He graduated with a major in chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1948 and earned a chemistry PhD from Northwestern University in 1954. He was a postdoctoral fellow in geochemistry at the California Institute of Technology until he joined Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1956, and was appointed professor of oceanography there in 1968.
Dr Keeling's research shows that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has grown from 315 parts per million (ppm) in 1958 to 380 (ppm) in 2005 with increases correlated to fossil fuel emissions". How many scientists in how many disciplines will it take, for skeptics to realize, that Global Warming is real. Even if you can't bring yourself to this understanding, do you understand that we have little oil left, and we need an American change towards sustainable energy. Just wait for the gas lines in your neighborhood, and for the world to keep warming, as this will be your future now. The Earth has an energy budget, and the amount of energy from the Sun, or cosmic rays, is too small to cause this heating. Only when heat cannot escape, will you see the temps go up! Read the Article above, and make up some other reason that makes no sense.
KIPP

paulm recently directed us to an article on ellesmere island. during the course of the article ther was a line that went as follows

in total five ice shelves of ellesmer island lost 23 percent of their ice 214 sq km during
this years short arctic summer

lets see ellesmere island is approximately 196,235 sq km with a jagged coasline comprised of many inlets and coves so 214 sq km just doesnt seem that significant

this years short arctic summer-did i miss something this year was the arctic summer not its normal length or something and if it had been the ice melt would have been greater than 2007 see how article writers can make 2=2+5

mary after reading your post i would not want to be a tree right now with the money crisis and the price of oil the tree may become an endangered species-more soot to help kipp reach his five year goal of an ice free arctic

Mary,

Exactly... like there is nothing else to worry about.

Q: How can we slow the effects of a hoaxed man made climate "crisis"?

A: Start an economic crisis.

Glaciers are retreating ehh? What's new?

Haven't the glaciers been slowly melting since the end of the last ice age? During that 10,000 year period, they have sometimes retreated quickly (Medieval warm period) and at times more slowly (Little ice age). Some are even growing despite the global warming alarmists' need to point the finger at any change on our planet as being man's fault.

Keep in mind with any new pronouncement: They always preface it with "Since records began..." It is only recently that we started 'monitoring' Alaskan glaciers. Anytime you point the microscope of scientific study at any item you are merely looking at a snapshot. In other words: Don't panic. If the glaciers were growing, we'd be harangued about global cooling. The MSM loves a crisis. So much so they tend to make them up or improperly inflate them.

anybody who believes that humans can do anything to change climate is an absolute m%#$^%^$

AHHH!! Don't worry about it guys this is just part of the cycle. Lets drill for more oil under those glaciers now!!

D.Caldwell;Sorry if you find my posts annoying or redundant. The problem is that most people on this blog do not understand basic science. Your complacency is not my problem. We are in an economic meltdown, partially because of our addiction to foreign oil. We need renewable sources of energy. We just payoff our enemies so they won't shoot at us. Why didn't Bush start to go Nuclear, or use electric vehicles eight years ago. They were here in the nineties, only to be destroyed as Detroit and Arabia had a hidden agenda. Isn't it about time to crawl from under that rock and fight for the truth? Now that we have five percent of the oil, why not use sustainables. Americans can do great things when they are called upon to do them. We can stop sending so much carbon into the Atmosphere as carbon sinks are not infinite. I can extrapolate about all of the weather scenarios, but they are pretty deterministic at this time. The only consistent anomaly that you will not face, is Global Warming? KIPP

Kipp,
Steady big fella.
You’re eloquent elucidation of Dr. Keeling’s Curriculum Vitae is impressive. I could never besmirch a fellow alumnus of the University of Illinois but observation is still not causation. However the fact that humans are probably increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere still does not prove that CO2 is the cause of global warming. Again, I find that you are mixing fact with supposition.
To say observation equals causation is just not rational science any more than saying “Since 98% of heroin addicts drank milk as children therefore: Milk causes heroin addiction.”
You are doing the same thing.
To bolster your argument you say, “See my first statement is true so the correlation I give you must be true too.
Kipp, you have to be smarter than that. Just because one statement is true the other must follow. Science just doesn’t work that way and neither does carbon dioxide.
Show the science and prove your point. If you want to spin a yarn using facts followed by fiction I implore you to become a politician. They know how to obfuscate facts and fiction into a Nobel Prize

KIPP - "Dennis Hlinka: Do you ever get the feeling that people don't understand the concept of rapid climate change, or that the rise in CO2 causes a rise in temperatures.

Kipp I can understand rapid climate change, you know like the sun dimming and the earth cooling.

The second sentance has yet to be proven.

"Yep. And people like Mark, BT (where ever he is), Andrew, et.al. buy into this PUKE and lay the blame for all that goes wrong as a result at the feet of those who oppose it. Is it any wonder this country is in the direction that it's in?"

Leave it to good ol' Rich, Mary and Oiznop to injerject their misguided political beliefs into what is supposed to be a discussion about glacial retreat. Of course, when I take the bait and actually reply to these, I'm the one that gets blamed for interjecting politics. Reply: Not just you Mark.

As far as the "predicted presidential outcome," Mary, usually, when a philosophy not only fails, but causes the poor predictament that we're currently in, common sense dictates that a different philosophy must be applied. Hence, that's why you have the "predicted presidential outcome."

Like I said in an earlier thread, trickle-down voodoo economics might be better than carbon taxes or cap & trade and reducing CO2 emissions.

The warmest period, with significant glacier retreat was during the Holocene Climatic Optimum, over 7000 years ago. Since then the glaciers were all, on average, advancing up until about 1850 CE with anthropogenic emissions of CO2 brought the concentratiion up to 288 ppm, as high as during the peak of the Eemian interglacial. At that time glaciers in the Swiss alps stopped advancing and began retreating. This agrees, it seems, with this study from Alaska. By 1958 CE, with concentrations of 315 ppm, the Swiss glaciers were retreating, on average, about 4 m/y.

For direct confirmaion than it is now warmer in Alaska than at any time in the past 7000 years, see

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=914542
http://www.physorg.com/news112982907.html

Also, there is nothing in this article which states why the authors believe the glaciers are retreating. Deniers, in their usual spastic fervor, jump the gun and make assumptions which fit their political leanings. This is simply a report which documents an observation and provides evidence backing up this assertion.

We had a little ice age a few hundred year ago. Therefore all warming happening at the moment must be due to a recovery of the little ice age and cannot be due to any other cause.

Reply: This article (book) does not focus on the causes, it just makes an observation of glaciers in Alaska and the fact that 99% of the large glaciers are retreating. Nothing to argue there.

Kipp: As usual, you have your facts wrong. Most skeptics don't disagree that there has been warming since the LIA. We just don't see evidence that more than a small amount of the warming was caused by CO2. As to your assertion that, "we have little oil left", we actually have over one trillion barrels of proven reserves (per DOE) or twice that much if you believe USGS. At current rates of consumption we will not run out for many years even if we never find another drop. The doomsayers have been predicting that we would hit a peak for many years but we keep finding more. So relax, good old human ingenuity in the form of private enterprise will find an alternative long before we run out and they will do it without the heavy hand of government. All the government ever does is misallocate resources and slow down the whole process. Do you really want the poiticians and bureaucrats involved in anything as vital to our well-being as cheap and reliable fuel?

Charles S. Opalek, PE,

I Agree,

Hehehehe, I was noticing the same thing. Also its very senseless to say "The Earth is warming Significanly!, say goodbye o pegunins and Polar Bears." when we on have 107years of reliable information of temperature records in ONLY this country! HA! And I get a real kick out of when they carbon date the ice when the following happens to screw with the so called "observations" A.)the earths continental plates has moved in the past 100,000 years,B.) There have been numerous meteors, volcanic erruptions, Gamera Bursts, and numerous climate changes to mess with the "man-made temperature rise". This is natural! News Flash! There have been periods of time(millions and billions of years back) where the earth has been 25 degrees celcius warmer than it is now by NATURAL CAUSES.
We wont become extinct from Global warming! When the earth gets tired of us humans it will shake us off like a bunch of fleas just like 99.9% of the other species that have gone before us!

Thanks,
Dylan Federico-14years old- NOLA

Leopold and Loub:
My five year plan is that all skeptics will read the fourth IPCC assessment. Then you might understand what to argue against.
If the Arctic is not ice free in five years, it will look like the inside of a snickers bar.I did say ice free in the summer. Can't wait to put up a couple of McDonalds up there, and show the tourists where the Polar Bear used to be. At least will have another place to destroy, so look at the bright side. KIPP

Brett:re the ice graph quoted above...http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Notice that 2008 (red line) is the fastest rate of increase ever (last seven years). and is much more ice that 07 they (AGW'ers) predicted 08 would be worse. So even if glaciars "appear" are retreating due to theorical AGW how can we explain this rapid increase in Arctic ice? my pu8nt is that 2009 anomaly will go above normal but lets wait n see...

Reply: I would say due to changing wind patterns and changes in the short term weather pattern up there. The key is to focus on the melt season and right now we are out of that season. Most of my posts between now and March will be focusing on the Antarctic sea ice.

NSIDC predicted that the North Pole might be ice free this summer. How did they do?
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_daily_extent.png

Reply: Yes, they said it might be this year, but they also said that it might be several years. Also, the focus is on the melt season, not the freeze-up.

Arctic ice has recovered nearly back to 2005/2006 levels.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png

"The sky is falling"
- Chicken Licken

Global warming is continuing to destroy Alaska, at -13C (8 F) in Fairbanks. Scary to think how hot the winter might be.

http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/PAFA/2008/10/9/MonthlyHistory.html

The problem with the AGW alarmist claims of rapid warming from increased CO2 is that it takes twice as much CO2 to get the same amount of warming as the previous doubling - in other words the effect of increasing CO2 is logarithmic and not linear.

For example, if the first doubling of CO2 gets you an additional 2 C of warming, each additional doubling will only get you that same additional amount of warming.

If you look at each doubling in CO2 -1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024,2048,4096 - you can see that we are already in that part of the curve where it takes very large increases in CO2 to get any warming at all and the vast majority of rapid warming from additional CO2 has already occurred before we even reached the pre-industrial level of approximately 280 ppm.

a while ago i was in austria on a glacier and it amazing to see how much it has melted even in the last 10 years.

Kipp Alpert: "Do you ever get the feeling that people don't understand the concept of rapid climate change, or that the rise in CO2 causes a rise in temperatures."

Yes, some will not ever agree with these concepts. I have accepted that. Even when history has shown that nature has gone through violent climate changes in the past after reaching some critical threshold, they are not persuaded that us humans will ever be able to create those conditions that can trigger that violent climate change. The fact is that could contribute only a small 1-2% of the actual change and let nature take over the remaining 98% of the change, the end result is still the same. The point is we really don't know how close we are to that next trigger.

On this site I have presented scientific and physical data of those observed changes. I have offered several chances for many on the skeptical side to provide us with actual numbers of the percentage contribution of these natural sources so that we can then totally eliminate the possibility of unnatural sources of the observed change. I have yet to receive a firm confirmation of the total natural contributions of those changes because, as they say, there is just too much uncertainty in the data due to the complex nature of the feedback mechanisms.

My whole point is that if you cannot define, with any certainty (and scientifically proven data) of the actual amount of natural contributions to the observed changes, how can you be so sure that the uncertainties in the data are not being caused by other things such as influences from other unnatural sources? Unless you are able to define the actual amount of these natural contributions, you cannot eliminate the possibility of the other possible contributions.

That is unless you have preconceived conclusions that eliminate those possibilities. As "AGW is not Science" has recently said: "a REAL scientific study is one that doesn't START with the CONCLUSION and then try to piece together the so-called "evidence" no matter how speculative". The skeptics need to use that definition of scientific proof as their guide as well.

Mark:

You are absolutely right.

The press release says nothing about causation and us skeptics jumped all over it.

I suppose, at least speaking for myself, I simply took this as yet another example of attempting to show the severity of warming, thereby colloquially proving the AGW stance. Which I tend to disagree with.

Good job pointing that out.

I still would like KIPP (being a photographer) to dig up some photos of these areas from the 15th century so we can gain a better understanding of the situation.

The problem is that most people on this blog do not understand basic science.

I sincerely hope that you place yourself pretty high on that list of most people :) One area that you can certainly mature in is the area of Correlation & Causation.

Gas Laws and Thermodynamics are a couple more.

We need renewable sources of energy.

We have renewable sources of energy, they just aren't good enough to supply our demands.

Why didn't Bush start to go Nuclear, or use electric vehicles eight years ago. They were here in the nineties, only to be destroyed as Detroit and Arabia had a hidden agenda.

Perhaps Bush could/should be pushing Nuclear, but without even one experiment that shows CO2's contribution to GW, why?

Detroit and Arabia did not kill the electric car or Nuclear energy :)

Americans can do great things when they are called upon to do them.

You think you could find one that believes in AGW that would defend AGW in public debate or better yet prove AGW because of CO2?

I can extrapolate about all of the weather scenarios, but they are pretty deterministic at this time.

Kipp, can you expand on the above sentence. However, extrapolating about all the weather scenarios seems like a great deal of work!

Instead, can you extrapolate about ONE weather scenario and then show how it is deterministic at this time?

Thanks,

Steve

As part of the Arctic meltdown, ice is back to 2006 levels.

http://eva.nersc.no/vhost/arctic-roos.org/doc/observations/images/ssmi_ice_ext.png

Pete,

It's worse than that. Gavin at realclimate tells me this morning that CO2 sensitivity for the next 380ppm is much lower than the first 380ppm.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/10/adapting-in-amsterdam/

-----------------
Question for Gavin. I attended a lecture a few weeks ago by IPCC lead author David Randall. He said that doubling CO2 would cause (without feedbacks) an increase in absolute temperature of 0.5%.

By contrast, Wikipedia says that 25% of the greenhouse effect is caused by CO2. Obviously both can�t be true. Is it 25% or 0.5%?

[Response: 0.5% of 288K is 1.4K which is close to the no-feedback estimate of 2xCO2. But this is a statement about climate sensitivity - not what the current GHE is. Wikipedia might not be exactly right (I estimate CO2 causes closer to 20% of current LW trapping - with water vapour as 50%, clouds at 25%, ozone and others make up the rest), but it is a completely different question. Because the forcing of CO2 is nonlinear, you wouldn�t expect taking away all CO2 to be the same as doubling it (the former is much larger than the latter). - gavin]

Pete | October 9, 2008 10:22 AM --- But the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has been going up approximately exponentially. So the global warming effect has been going up approximately linearly:

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.html

Mark wrote:
"Also, there is nothing in this article which states why the authors believe the glaciers are retreating. Deniers, in their usual spastic fervor, jump the gun and make assumptions which fit their political leanings."

Mark, no matter the topic, the alarmists never fail to include retreating glaciers as part of their "proof" of AGW. Maybe you're seeing a reaction to that rather than just this article.

Kipp,

Well, I read the IPCC 4th report, and it fits right in with their mission statement:

The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.

They are finding what they are looking for in their mission statement. The only

My whole point is that if you cannot define, with any certainty (and scientifically proven data) of the actual amount of natural contributions to the observed changes, how can you be so sure that the uncertainties in the data are not being caused by other things such as influences from other unnatural sources? Unless you are able to define the actual amount of these natural contributions, you cannot eliminate the possibility of the other possible contributions.

AGW has the same problem. Looking at the IPCC 4th report, the ONLY natural influence on the climate is the Sun? Somehow I think nature has a bit more to say than that. How arrogant to think that humans have THAT much infulence on the climate.

Steve M.: "AGW has the same problem. Looking at the IPCC 4th report, the ONLY natural influence on the climate is the Sun? Somehow I think nature has a bit more to say than that. How arrogant to think that humans have THAT much influence on the climate."

OK Steve, and I ask again, if the sun's influence has been negatively correlated with the increase in SST's for the past 30 years, then where is the other portion of the natural contribution coming from? The ocean's can only be heated by direct sunlight or through conduction with a warming atmosphere.

With the negative influence of the sun, then some other natural forces would have to produce an even larger percentage contribution to account for the recorded temperature rises. So are you saying that there are stronger natural heat energy sources then the sun and if so what are they?

I do not want your guess/assumptions that there are, but I would like some REAL (As AGW is not Science says) scientific proof what they are and by how much. The only arrogance is yours if you cannot provide at least some numbers to back up your claims.

Dennis Hlinka: You are persistent with that question about SST gaining heat while the solar contribution is nil, or something to that effect. You apparently didn't like my answer a few weeks ago, so you asked a similar question of AGW is not Science on the October 6 thread, and have now asked Steve M a similar question. While it is not my intent to provide you with the magic numbers you seem so insistent about, I will provide you with a source that reinforces my earlier reply to you.

I stumbled across a paper recently "Sources of global warming in upper ocean temperature during El Nino", by White et al, 2001. The abstract closes with, "Thus global warming and cooling during Earth's internal mode of interannual climate variability arise from fluctuations in the global hydrological balance, not the global radiation balance. Since it occurs in the absence of extraterrestrial and anthropogenic forcing, global warming on decadal, Interdecadal, and centennial period scales may also occur in association with Earth's internal modes of climate variability on those scales." And the Discussion and Conclusions ends with, "Yet, the fact remains that global warming and cooling occurs on interannual period scales in the relative absence of any known extraterrestrial and anthropogenic forcing on these scales. This may come as a surprise to many readers. It suggests that global warming and cooling on decadal, interdecadal, and centennial period scales can also occur in the absence of extraterrestrial and anthropogenic forcing."

You didn't like my original reply. Maybe reading that paper will help satisfy your question.

Hmmm, no change in solar irradiance and no change in other forcings, yet global SST and LST will rise and fall on annual, decadal, interdecadal, and centennial bases. How could that be?

Sigh, the problem with climate science these days is that the books can't keep up with the weather, PDO shifts, etc.

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/555283.html says in part

"In general, the weather this summer was the worst I have seen in at least 20 years."

Never before in the history of a research project dating back to 1946 had the Juneau Icefield witnessed the kind of snow buildup that came this year. It was similar on a lot of other glaciers too.

"It's been a long time on most glaciers where they've actually had positive mass balance," Molnia said.

Note - Molnia is the author of the book covered here. I bet he wishes he had time for an epilog!

When I look at these pictures, I notice the barren landscape in all except the most recent. They were all taken in August, only the 2004 image shows any green. "Note the dense vegetation that has developed." The melting ice allows more plant life, more areas to support wildlife - so why are melting glaciers a bad thing? For those who believe that CO2 is the problem, wouldn't more plants be good for the environment.