By Dr. John Happs ~
How often do the climate alarmists tell us that few glaciers still exist because of (imaginary) global warming and those that remain are rapidly melting away? Not surprisingly, the alarmists, particularly those from the media and vested interest groups, always point to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) computer model projections, referring to one in particular–the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP8.5.)
Even the political/ideological IPCC has sensibly branded RCP8.5 as “Highly Unlikely”
https://saltbushclub.com/2020/08/15/ipcc-rcp8-5-model/
So, what are the glacier numbers?
- There are more than 200,000 alpine/valley (land-based) glaciers and many others stemming from the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland.
- Glaciers have advanced, retreated and halted many times over the last 400,000 years being influenced not only by temperature but also by other factors, such as wind, precipitation, altitude, latitude, aspect, topography and slope angle.
Global temperature is often promoted, usually by naïve climate alarmists, as the only important input into glacier formation, growth and retreat yet, in very dry parts of Antarctica, where low temperatures are seemingly ideal for glacier growth, the small amount of net annual precipitation results in glaciers growing very slowly, or even diminishing in size.
Glaciers can also be influenced by sublimation or the transition of a substance directly from the solid to the gas phase. Glaciers can experience this process resulting in the “evaporation” of ice, exacerbated by wind action. Sublimation can be seen in the way that ice cubes left in the freezer will shrink over time.
More than 18,000 glaciers have been identified across 50 World Heritage sites but this represents less than 10% of the Earth’s glaciated area. The media, climate activists and vested interest groups like to argue that all glaciers are receding because global temperature is increasing. Not surprisingly, many glaciers have been retreating since we emerged from the Little Ice Age (1250-1850), a time when many farms and houses across Scandinavia were destroyed by advancing glaciers between the 14th and 19th centuries.
Frost fair on River Thames
The Little Ice Age was global, with frost fairs held on the frozen River Thames:
New Zealand’s Franz Josef glacier and the Mueller glacier grew to their maximum extent with records of a cooling climate in South America and other southern hemisphere locations. Triggers for this global cooling event are still debated with candidates including a decline in solar output, changes in atmospheric circulation, and volcanism.
https://interestingengineering.com/the-little-ice-age-what-happened-around-the-world
We might expect that glaciers and ice sheets would recede after the Little Ice Age yet we know that glaciers in many parts of the world are advancing, with glaciers growing in the Alps, North America, Patagonia, Antarctica, Alaska, the Himalayas, China, Iceland, Greenland, New Zealand, Norway, Antarctica and Greenland.
https://www.eh-resources.org/little-ice-age/
There has been no significant global warming over the last 30+ years, despite rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and more than 140 peer-reviewed, published papers testify to that:
Where glaciers reach the sea, the media, and some tour guides, like to promote the dramatic calving-glacier image as pointing to (imaginary) global warming but fail to point out (perhaps they don’t know) that a calving glacier is the sign of an advancing inland glacier and certainly not one that is about to disappear.
Mount Kilimanjaro
In his silly, but influential, 2005 movie “An Inconvenient Truth” Al Gore said:
“Within the decade, there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro.”
Mount Kilimanjaro is still covered in snow.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/25/yet-another-inconvenient-story-ignored-by-the-msm/
GLACIERS IN THE ALPS
Vernagtferner Glacier
The retreat of glaciers in the Alps slowed down until 1965 when some, mostly small glaciers which were nearly in equilibrium, showed advances. Since 1972, in some regions of the Alps, many glaciers, including larger ones in Italy, Austria and Switzerland have been advancing.
For instance, the Vernagtferner glacier in Austria is well known for its repeated advances in recent times and the advancing glacier has now obstructed the valley of Rofen forming an ice dam.
GLACIERS IN NORTH AMERICA
Nisqually Glacier, Mt. Rainier
There have been numerous fluctuations of the Nisqually Glacier on the southern slope of Mt. Rainier, Washington, including a period of increased glacial activity during recent years.
Examples of increased glacial activity over the last ten or fifteen years has emphasized the inadequacy of an over-simplified theory of synchronism in glacial behaviour in different parts of the world.
Glacier National Park, in north-western Montana, was virtually ice free 11,000 years ago and, since the Little Ice Age, the predicted loss of glacial ice in the park was claimed to be a visible manifestation of dangerous global warming. Signs were posted around the park, proclaiming that the glaciers would be gone by 2020 because of human-caused climate change.
The glaciers didn’t disappear but the signs did.
Glaciers will be gone by 2020 sign.
The National Geographic was equally certain:
Teams from Lysander Spooner University, visit the Park each September and observed that the most famous glaciers such as the Grinnell Glacier and the Jackson Glacier have been growing since 2010.
https://strangesounds.org/2019/06/glacier-national-park-glaciers-growing.html
Grinnell Glacier
On September 10, 2022, pictures were taken of the Grinnell Glacier in the central area of Glacier National Park. These were then compared with earlier pictures taken on August 26, 2010. It became evident that the Glacier has not receded in 12 years.
Ice loss has actually stalled or slightly reversed since 2008 and this resulted in embarrassed Glacier National Park personnel taking down the signs in 2017.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/09/20/are-the-glaciers-in-glacier-national-park-growing/
GLACIERS IN PATAGONIA
Perito Moreno Glacier
Despite the fact that many glaciers are receding, a number of glaciers in Patagonia, at the southern end of South America including parts of southern Chile and Argentina, have been stationary or have advanced during the last twenty years.
There are more than 300 glaciers in this area with the 5km long Perito Moreno glacier being the most visited. It is nourished by snowmelt from the Andes and is constantly growing, producing very large icebergs:
https://www.thepiratescove.us/2009/06/15/climate-change-causes-glacier-to-advance-or-something/
The Viedma Glacier
The Viedma glacier has been stationary and sometimes advancing over the last 20 years and the snout, sometimes called the toe or terminus, has now reached the water’s edge:
Piedras Blancas Glacier
The Piedras Blancas Glacier and the Marconi Glacier are at the same location as they were when photographed in 1936. The same can be said of the Gorra Blanca Glacier.
The Grande Glacier
The Grande Glacier (sometimes called the Fitz Roy Glacier) has also not retreated or decreased in height.
Pia Glacier
Pia glacier is one of the longest in the Southern Hemisphere and lies on the north-west arm of the Beagle Channel and extends from the Darwin mountain range down to the water’s edge where it is advancing and calving.
The very strong and persistent west winds produce aeolian glacial erosion but, despite this, there is no evidence to show there has been any marked general recession of south Patagonian glaciers over the last twenty years
GLACIERS IN ALASKA
The Tsaa Glacier
Three Alaskan glaciers at Icy Bay have advanced one-third of a mile in less than a year. Here we see the terminus of the Tsaa glacier:
Hubbard Glacier calving
The Hubbard Glacier is the largest of eight calving glaciers in Alaska that are currently increasing in total mass and advancing. Since measurements began in 1895, Alaska’s Hubbard Glacier has been thickening and steadily advancing into Disenchantment Bay.
https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-001-03/
Taku Glacier
The Taku glacier in Alaska originates in the Juneau icefield and has advanced 7.75 kilometres since 1890.
Dr. William Pield cites examples of glaciers in Alaska, nearly side by side, some of which are retreating and others advancing. He emphasises that factors other than climate change are responsible for glacial advances or retreats.
https://www.gi.alaska.edu/alaska-science-forum/glaciers-advancing-or-retreating
GLACIERS IN THE HIMALAYAS
In what was called ‘Glaciergate’, the IPCC’s lies about melting glaciers in the Himalayas was exposed as conspiring to present a tissue of lies. The IPCC claimed with greater than 90% confidence that Himalayan glaciers would see a significant loss by 2035. The IPCC passage in AR4 reads:
“Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world (see Table 10.9) and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate. Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 km? by the year 2035 (WWF, 2005).”
No empirical evidence was provided for the claim made in the IPCC’s 2007 Fourth Assessment report (AR4) and the IPCC’s source was later found to be the activist group World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The IPCC’s glacier claim was criticized by geologist Dr. Vijay Kumar Raina who said that:
“While some glaciers in the Himalayas were retreating, it was nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to suggest as some have said that they will disappear.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jan/20/ipcc-himalayan-glaciers-mistake
Former IPCC contributing scientist Dr. Georg Kaser noted:
“This number of receding glaciers reported by the IPCC is not just a little bit wrong, it is far out by any order of magnitude … It is so wrong that it is not even worth discussing.”
https://climatism.blog/2020/03/07/46-statements-by-ipcc-experts-against-the-ipcc/
Many Himalayan glaciers are advancing, dismissing claims from climate alarmists saying they would all be gone or substantially melted within a quarter of a century, leading to Science Minister Harsh Vardhan saying:
“The National Centre of Antarctica and Ocean Research (NCAOR) has established a high-altitude research station in the Himalayas called Himansh at a remote region in Lahaul-Spiti to study and quantify the Himalayan glaciers’ response towards climate change.”
And:
“The rate of melting/recession varies from glacier to glacier and depends on the topography and climatic variability of the region. There is no abnormal trend in melting documented in recent years.”
A significant proportion of Himalayan glaciers are advancing. In fact, 58% of glaciers examined in the westerly Karakoram range, a chain of snowy peaks along the border of India, Pakistan and China, were stable or advancing with annual snowfall increasing. A study of Himalayan glaciers, published in the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate reported that cooler summers are failing to melt winter snows, which are themselves becoming more frequent, resulting in advancing glaciers.
https://www.livescience.com/48256-asia-karakoram-glaciers-stability.html
GLACIERS IN CHINA
Advancing glaciers have also been observed in the western Kunlun Shan mountains of Xinjiang and Tibet in China. Dr. Remco de Kok at Utrecht University said:
“Growing glaciers [in these mountains] are less sensitive to temperature changes and the computer models also indicate that this low temperature sensitivity and increase in snowfall are the main reasons why glaciers in the region are stable and growing.”
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/10/15/irrigation-glacier-growth/
GLACIERS IN ICELAND
Glaciologist Dr. Dorothy Hall notes that, although many of the 46 Iceland glaciers are currently retreating, some glaciers like the Breidamerkurjökull advance and retreat independent of temperature change. She points out that the Drangajökull glacier is one that is not retreating and that caution must be exercised when attributing glacier movements solely to climate change.
Thoranson (1969) compiled historical records about glacier surges in Iceland, describing several 20th-century surges in detail. He estimated that between 1890 and 1964, when other glaciers were in recession, most of Vatnajökull’s outlets (except those in the southeast sector) had undergone surges.
Surge events have been noted on the small, steep outlets of the ice-capped volcano Öræfajökull in southern Vatnajökull, the steep southern outlets of Mýrdalsjökull ice cap and on surge-type glaciers such as Skeiðarárjökull and Breiðamerkurjokull.
Bjornsson et al. (2003) point out how:
“Observations suggest that certain glaciers surge at fairly regular intervals. Síðujökull has surged at 30 year intervals since the 1930s, Dyngjujokull at 20–30year intervals, Brúarjökull every 80–100 years and Mulajokull about every 10 years. “
GLACIERS IN GREENLAND
In western Greenland the Jakobshavn Glacier is seen to be one of the world’s most active and fastest-growing glacier. It discharges a tremendous amount of ice from the Greenland Ice Sheet into Ilulissat Icefjord and adjacent Disko Bay.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145185/major-greenland-glacier-is-growing
The Jakobshavn Glacier is not the only Greenland glacier to be advancing. The Hofsjökull, Langjökull and Mýrdalsjökull glaciers have also grown over the last few years as Dr. Finnur Pálsson observed:
“It is a fact that it has been colder the last few years. And there was more snowfall in August on the upper part of Langjökull, which is very unusual.”
https://www.cfact.org/2019/05/19/growing-iceland-greenland-glaciers-makes-scientists-gasp/
GLACIERS IN NEW ZEALAND
Franz Josef Glacier, New Zealand
It was reported in 2017 that at least 58 glaciers in New Zealand advanced between 1983 and 2008 with the Franz Josef Glacier advancing nearly continuously during this time and actually regaining almost half of the total length it had lost during the twentieth century.
Fox Glacier, New Zealand
Dr. Jennifer Marohasy visited New Zealand and reported:
“I believed that all glaciers are in retreat due to global warming. But then I discovered, when I recently visited New Zealand, that I had been deceived. In September we visited the Fox glacier on the West coast. We passed a sign some kilometres from its face telling us that this marked where the glacier was in 1750. When we reached the face we were told that the glacier stopped retreating in 1985 and is in fact now advancing at the rate of one metre a week.”
https://jennifermarohasy.com/2008/11/the-fox-glacier-is-advancing/
Dr. Andrew Mackintosh from Victoria’s Antarctic Research Centre said the New Zealand glaciers that were advancing had certain characteristics, including specific elevation and geometry.
https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/news/2017/02/explaining-new-zealands-unusual-growing-glaciers
GLACIERS IN NORWAY
Norway has around 1,600 glaciers with 900 in the north of Norway, with Jostedalsbreen being the largest glacier in continental Europe covering 487 sq. kms. With ice up to 600 metres thick.
Glaciologist Dr. Stefan Winker (2020) pointed out that there is no evidence that Jostedalsbreen, a southern Norway glacier, even existed during the first several thousand years of the Holocene.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-52563-7_3
GLACIERS IN SWITZERLAND
There are numerous glaciers in Switzerland and many of them are easily reached:
Great Aletsch Glacier
Receding Swiss glaciers, such as the Brunifirm glacier, have revealed a number of artifacts such as trousers, shoes and a wooden doll. These items have been found near glacier sites, dating back to over 9,000 years, proving that those areas were once ice free, allowing travellers to go where they cannot go today because of current levels of snow and ice.
Dr. Christian Schlüchter’s demonstrated that the Rhone glacier area had been ice-free for more than 5,000 of the last 10,000 years.
GLACIER FORMING IN SCOTLAND?
Ben Nevis, Scotland
British botanists conducting a summer survey of Scotland’s tallest mountain, Ben Nevis, were most surprised to find evidence of recently formed multi-year ice fields, areas of compacted snow, some of which weigh hundreds of tons.
Whilst it is not suggested this is evidence that Ben Nevis is generating a new glacier, this is how glaciers start. First there is a build-up of snow which does not melt in the Summer. This leads to a positive feedback loop, as the growing ice mass reflects more and more sunlight back into space. Cooling and further snow accumulation results.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-28885119
GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS IN ANTARCTICA
Alarming reports that the Antarctic ice sheet is rapidly melting misrepresent the science of a very complex situation. Antarctica has been ice-covered for at least 30 million years. The ice sheet holds over 26 million gigatonnes of water (a gigatonne is a billion metric tons). If it were to melt completely, sea levels would rise 60 metres. Such a change is many millennia in the future, if it happens at all, although climate alarmists will always claim that such a response is just around the corner because of (imaginary) global warming.
Modest ice loss is normal in Antarctica. Each year in summer, more than 2,000 gigatonnes of ice is discharged in the form of melt and icebergs, while snowfall additions keep the ice mass in equilibrium.
Ice sheets can be described as glaciers that cover very large areas and the most obvious examples are found in Greenland and Antarctica where around two-thirds of the Earth’s fresh water is stored.
The Antarctic ice sheet is the world’s largest mass of ice covering around 14 million sq. km.
In their paper: “Antarctic ice shelf advance driven by anomalous atmospheric and se-ice circulation” Christie et al. (2022) reported that:
“The seaward ice-shelf perimeter fringing this coastline underwent uninterrupted advance between the early 2000s and 2019.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-022-00938-x
Whilst climate alarmists claim that anthropogenic global warming aka climate change threatens the Antarctic ice sheet, research by Bozkurt et al. (2020) reveals that Antarctica’s Larsen Ice Shelf station equipment indicate a significant cooling trend of -1.1°C per decade and this has been ongoing since the late 1990s.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-020-9183-x
Whereas the political/ideological Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2013 report, claimed that Antarctica is losing land ice overall, a NASA study showed that an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh any losses from thinning glaciers.
Antarctica
The west Antarctic Peninsula, known as the “Banana Belt” because of its warmer climate, extends in a north-westerly direction and warmer water in this region contributes to some ice melt and breakup of ice shelves.
As far back as 2008, scientists suggested that active sub-surface volcanoes beneath Antarctica’s thick ice could be contributing to melting of ice in parts of Antarctica and we can be sure that media outlets will never discuss the size, extent and heat flow from the many ice-covered volcanoes in Western Antarctica.
To date, over 90 sub-surface volcanoes have been identified:
The average temperature at the South Pole in winter is -60oC whilst the average temperature in summer is -27.5oC thus, to get any appreciable melting of surface ice in the Antarctic, temperatures would have to rise over 38oC for prolonged periods. It is obvious that the climate alarmist’s claims of imminent large-scale melting of the Antarctic ice sheet are grossly exaggerated.
In a review of the scientific literature, Lunig et al. (2019), like the findings by Bozkurt et al. (2020), showed that Antarctica as a whole has undergone a cooling trend in recent decades. They conclude:
“Main drivers of the multi-centennial scale climate variability appear to be the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) and El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) which are linked to solar activity changes by nonlinear dynamics.”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031018219303190
Climate model simulations have consistently predicted that Antarctic sea- ice would decline because of (imaginary) global warming, whereas data based on observed measurements show just the opposite has occurred.
Looking at Antarctic sea-ice trends, Fogt et al. (2022) report:
“There have been statistically significant positive trends in total Antarctic sea-ice extent since 1979.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01254-9
Unadjusted data from Syowa, Antarctica show a cooling trend over the last 60 years:
Singh et al. (2020) point out that Antarctica hasn’t warmed in the last 70 years:
Scientists from Columbia University and the University of Victoria, British Columbia showed the lack of a carbon dioxide–global temperature link, reporting that:
“The Antarctic continent has not warmed in the last seven decades, despite a monotonic increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-020-00143-w
Turner et al. (2016) reported an absence of 21st century warming on the Antarctic Peninsula consistent with natural variability:
Scott, Evans, Oates, Bowers and Wilson
The Antarctic explorers Robert Falcon Scott, Edgar Evans, Lawrence Oates, Henry Bowers and Edward Wilson who reached the South Pole in January 1912, all tragically died when they ran out of food and fuel.
Their tent site was found by a search party the following November and their bodies and tent were covered by a snow cairn on the Ross Ice Shelf where they are now covered by 20 metres of accumulated ice. The bodies of the explorers are moving with the ice towards the water’s edge, having already travelled around 50 kilometres.
As the Ice Shelf slowly moves, the bodies of Scott et al., now covered by more than 100 metres of ice, will finish up at McMurdo Sound in the Ross Sea. Eventually, their remains will likely become encased in a calving iceberg around the year 2250 and carried out to sea.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/87394/explorers-corpse-has-been-trapped-ice-more-century
THE GREENLAND ICE SHEET
The Greenland ice sheet is a very large body of ice covering 1,710,000 sq. km and covers around 80% of Greenland’s land surface with an average thickness of about 1,500 metres. It has existed for over 18 million years, changing in extent over time.
Contrary to media alarmism, the surface mass balance of Greenland is above average for the fifth year out of the last seven:
The notorious “Climategate” emails between Dr. Phil Jones and Dr. Tom Wigley showed their concern when they had to admit that Greenland had been cooling significantly since the 1950’s yet global warming and dramatic Greenland ice melt are still being promoted by climate alarmists.
Despite the media referring to imaginary Greenland ice sheet melt as “staggering” or “stunning” or “dangerous” Ryan et al. (2019) report that neither the end-of-melt-season snowline nor observations of bare ice extent exhibited a statistically significant trend over the entire study period (2001-2017).
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aav3738
O’Regan et al. (2021) reported that the Ryder Glacier in North Greenland advanced 2,881m between 1948-2015. It has an advancing rate of 43 m/yr with its modern ice extent about 50 km greater than it was 6,300 years ago.
They also note that the Nearby 60 km-tongued Petermann Glacier didn’t even exist during the Roman Warm Period (250 BC–400 AD).
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/4073/2021/
Medford et al. (2021) reconstructed the Holocene glacial history from Renland (a peninsula in East Greenland) using lake sediments and noted:
“Deglaciations commenced as early as 12,670 yrs BP and 9,500 yrs BP and the Renland ice cap had retreated behind its present-day extent.”
McFarlin et al. (2018) showed that north-western Greenland was 4 to 7°C warmer than current temperatures during the Early Holocene, and 5.5 to 8.5°C warmer than current temperatures during the last interglacial around 130,000 years ago. At this time, carbon dioxide levels were very low, ranging between 255 and 275 ppm.
https://www.pnas.org/content/115/25/6357
Elnegaard Hansen et al. (2022) also showed there is no detectable link between Greenland’s climate and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379122003353
The following report should finally dispel the climate alarmist’s myth that the Greenland ice cap is melting away:
In 1942, two B-17 bombers and six P-38 Lightning aircraft ran out of fuel and crash-landed on the Greenland ice cap. In 1988, one P-38 Lightning was located using steam boring down to a depth of 82 metres and in 2002 the restored P-38 flew again.
Lockheed P-38 Lightning
In other words, 82 metres of ice had accumulated in 46 years on the Greenland ice cap.
Arctic sea ice
We are constantly told by the media that glaciers, ice caps and sea ice are shrinking rapidly with some climate alarmists saying they will all disappear “for the first time ever” despite the Earth having been ice-free for most of the last 500 million years.
Glaciologists Larocca and Axford (2022) have shown how, during a much warmer Early to Middle Holocene climate when atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations ranged between a mere 260–270 ppm, more than half of the Arctic ice existing today disappeared during this much warmer period. They also point out that today’s Arctic ice extent is amongst the largest over the last 10,000 years.
https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/18/579/2022/
Studies by Wu et al. (2020); Durantou et al. (2012) and Allaart et al. (2020) also show that today’s Arctic sea ice extent is greater than nearly any time during the last 10,000 years:
And:
https://bg.copernicus.org/articles/9/5391/2012/bg-9-5391-2012.pdf
And:
Bennike and Bocher (2021) note that past interglacial carbon dioxide levels of a trivial 280 ppm were associated with a “nearly ice free” Greenland and the presence of flora and fauna in subarctic terrestrial environments 1,000 km northwards of where they can survive today, point to “at least 5°C higher temperatures”
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118561461.ch3
Musk Ox
Boeskorov (2020) provided evidence showing that grass-eating animals such as musk ox, bison and wild horses were living in the Arctic between 5,300–2,200 years ago:
This demonstrates that the current Siberian climate is far too cold to sustain such animals today. So much for current unprecedented global warming!
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/438/1/012004/pdf
This is in agreement with other studies such as Dong et al. (2022) who said:
“Compared to the present climate, the Arctic climate in MH (Mid-Holocene) summer became warmer and had less sea ice.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33106-1
Diamond et al. (2021) examined paleoclimate data showing there was less Arctic sea ice before the industrial revolution than there is in modern times.
We are constantly told that current sea ice losses are dangerously low when satellite data show that the 2002–2006 minimum sea ice extent was 5.92 million km², which is 0.38 km² above the 1700s and 1800s or pre-industrial levels. This finding again contradicts claims of unprecedented sea ice losses in recent decades, as promoted by climate alarmists.
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/5099/2021/
We are currently living in an interglacial (warmer period) of an ice age with the Earth having experienced 4 previous interglacial over the last 500,000 years:
There have been several major ice ages over geologic time, with no correlation between atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and global temperature:
Despite the gradual increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, global temperature has not risen significantly for more than 20 years. Again, this dispels the climate alarmist’s view that anthropogenic forcing by carbon dioxide results in global warming.
The trigger(s) for warming/cooling, the onset of ice ages and the swings between glacial maxima and interglacial periods are poorly understood and it is likely that a number of factors are at play with atmospheric carbon dioxide not being a significant driver.
Climate alarmists should take note that a number of peer-reviewed, published papers have used ice core data to show that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels always lag global temperature rise, since the gas is released from oceans after global temperature increases. This follows Henry’s Law:
These studies include the following: Petit et al. (1999) analysed 420,000 years of Vostok ice core data and found that, as the world cools into an ice age, the delay before carbon dioxide levels begin to fall is several thousand years.
Fischer et al. (1999) described a lag of 600 plus or minus 400 years as the world warmed, following a glacial maximum. Monnin et al. (2001) looked at Dome Concordia (also in Antarctica) and found a delay on the recent rise out of the last major ice age to be 800 ± 600 years. Mudelsee (2001) showed that over the full 420,000 year Vostok history carbon dioxide variations lag temperature by 1,300 ± 1000 years. Caillon et al. (2003) analysed the Vostok data and found a lag (where carbon dioxide rises after temperature) of 800 ± 200 years.
Factors that are known to influence global climate change and ice sheet/glacier extent are many and, in some cases, poorly understood. These include:
Orbital change, eccentricity, obliquity, and precession:
Plate tectonics:
Variations in solar output:
And:
Solar activity and clouds:
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-clouds-important-role-history-climate.html
Asteroid/comet strikes:
Volcanism including eruptions of super-volcanoes:
https://volcano.oregonstate.edu/laki-iceland-1783
And:
https://earthsky.org/earth/volcanoes-might-have-triggered-the-little-ice-age/
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC):
https://phys.org/news/2021-05-year-history-current-yields-climate.html
And:
The Beaufort Gyre:
https://www2.whoi.edu/site/beaufortgyre/
And:
https://electroverse.net/the-arctics-ticking-climate-bomb-little-ice-age-imminent/
El Niño and La Niña:
Earth passages through the Milky Way’s spiral arms:
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep06150
And:
https://dailyinterlake.com/news/2014/aug/30/global-warming-just-eco-religion-6/
Orbital dynamics of the Earth – Moon system:
https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2022/egusphere-2022-151/
As former IPCC contributing scientist Dr Kiminori Itoh has said:
“There are many factors which cause climate change. Considering only greenhouse gases is nonsense and harmful.”
Dr Hajo Smit was another IPCC contributing scientists and he agreed:
“There is clear cut solar-climate coupling and a very strong natural variability of climate on all historical time scales. Currently I hardly believe anymore that there is any relevant relationship between human CO2 emissions and climate change.”
https://climatism.blog/2020/03/07/46-statements-by-ipcc-experts-against-the-ipcc/
The question is often asked: Will one, or a combination of several of the above factors, lead to the melting and disappearance of all the glaciers and ice sheets in the near future as alarmists tell us, or will those factors take us back into another little ice age?
The evidence shows that atmospheric carbon dioxide will make little or no contribution to global temperature, despite the political/ideological Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the many vested interests trying to persuade the public otherwise.
The evidence also shows that computer models, referred to by the IPCC, and predicting global warming have proved to be spectacularly wrong. Despite that, we can expect IPCC personnel, ably assisted by the media and some politicians, to continue telling us that the Earth is warming dramatically with glaciers and ice sheets soon to disappear and that the resulting rising sea levels will swamp coastal settlements.
We should remember the many foolish, failed global warming predictions, including the one made by Al Gore who said the Earth would “turn into a total frying pan” by 2016.
We should remember the silly, failed prediction made by UN official Noel Brown who said:
“Entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.”
Perhaps the last word about our non-warming planet should come from Dr. John Christy, Alabama State Climatologist, professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and NASA satellite expert. Christy was an IPCC Lead Author in 2001 but resigned when he witnessed first-hand the corruption of climate science by IPCC activist scientists. He said:
“I was at the table with three Europeans, and we were having lunch. And they were talking about their role as lead authors. And they were talking about how they were trying to make the report so dramatic that the United States would just have to sign that Kyoto Protocol.”
And:
“Little known to the public is the fact that most of the scientists involved with the IPCC do not agree that global warming is occurring. Its findings have been consistently misrepresented and/or politicized with each succeeding report.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7081331.stm
Despite the continuing alarmist nonsense from those who have invested in the “global warming industry” we can be very confident that this particular emperor has no clothes and there is no catastrophic anthropogenic global warming on the most distant horizon.
Those many thousands of glaciers and ice sheets are going to be around for a very long time.
Dr. John Happs M.Sc.1st Class; D.Phil. John has an academic background in the geosciences with special interests in climate, and paleoclimate. He has been a science educator at several universities in Australia and overseas and was President of the Western Australian Skeptics for 25 years
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Tue 01/24/2023
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