6 ms·

Mapping 50 Years of Melting Ice in Glacier National Park

74 points by daegloe 9y ago

24gttghh 9y ago
buried a couple links down, the real data: https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/58af7022e4b01ccd54f9f542 https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/58af7022e4b01ccd54f...
pilom 9y ago
Glacier National Park is one of the few US Government organizations that hasn't backed down to political pressure about climate change. There are multiple signs in the park that say something along the lines of "See that glacier over there on the hill? Given the rate of increasing temperatures due to climate change, we expect that glacier to disappear within 20 years. Climate change is caused by humans releasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere which trap heat." It made me really thankful I got to visit last year before they are all gone.
- creepydata 9y ago
  https://www.theguardian.com/technology/news-blog/2017/jan/25/national-parks-service-goes-rogue-in-response-to-trump-twitter-ban https://www.theguardian.com/technology/news-blog/2017/jan/25...
- senorjazz 9y ago
  >Glacier National Park is one of the few US Government organizations that hasn't backed down to political pressure about climate change wow, that is really really sad. Something is seriously wrong with the system if that is the case
- futun 9y ago
  > "Climate change is caused by humans releasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere which trap heat." Hmm.... Well... as positive the motivations behind that sign may be, that sentence is empirically untrue. The climate has always been changing and has never not been changing. And it has been both warmer and colder without humans. To be a scientifically valid statement it would have to say, "SOME degree of CURRENT climate change is PROBABLY caused by humans." Equating all "climate change" with AGW undermines the validity of the argument and scientists really shouldn't do it.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
graycat 9y ago
We need to measure the average temperature of the earth starting with accurate thermometers and not pictures of polar bears, ice bergs, glaciers, patterns of ice in late summer in the Arctic, coral reefs, the snows on Mount Killimanjaro, etc. This NYT story is one more example of why I refuse to consider the NYT for anything, why it's "dead to me", on paper can't compete with Charmin and on the Web is useless for wrapping dead fish heads.
- okreallywtf 9y ago
  What a fantastic idea, maybe someone should get on that? Of course I'm being sarcastic since there are many people doing that and I would provide some resources if I thought any measurement would be up to your high (perfect) standards.
  - futun 9y ago
    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/Phanerozoic_Climate_Change.png/450px-Phanerozoic_Climate_Change.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/Ph...
- gdudeman 9y ago
  The human mind is tuned to story. Stories help us make sense of facts and give them meaning. That's probably different from person to person - possibly you believe you're on the fact end of the spectrum. This is a small part of the overall climate story, but it's actually what you're arguing for I think - it's a factual account of how glacier ice has changed in the park. The same has happened in the Juneau Icefields, Mount Rainier and elsewhere. Stories are also a useful way to summarize the facts and can be misused to support things that are not factual - I understand that's what you're saying here. I'm not aware of the story you allude to around accurate or inaccurate thermometers - the one you believe to be the truth.
  - graycat 9y ago
    This is yet again the NYT talking about climate. Their goal is to create and push a never ending sequence of stories about climate, to create a lasting audience for such stories, and, then, to continue to feed the audience. The stories all have a foundation -- the sky is falling, in this case, the earth is warming, growing warmer, and the cause is sin, human sin from human greed and corruption, for human activities that release CO2 which is warming the planet dangerously, melting glaciers, ice in the Arctic and Antarctic, making the oceans acid and killing the coral reefs, killing off food for the whales, making the lobsters move farther north, raising sea levels, flooding low lands, killing the polar bears, etc. IMHO all this NYT stuff is just totally cooked-up, made-up, stirred-up, gang-up, pile on, nonsense, fake stories to get eyeballs for ad revenue and otherwise from junk down to a dangerous effort to sabotage the economies of the world. Well, then, let's start at the beginning: Warmer. How much warmer, since when, measured how, by whom, reviewed where, published where, when? On this basic, foundation issue, IMHO, the NYT should put up or shut up. Since they won't, and are free to publish their scare sewage, the NYT is dead to me but I am willing occasionally to call them out on their dangerous nonsense. For this foundation, we just need the data, temperature, in degrees F, C, or K. But the NYT doesn't want to do this. Similarly stories at Nova want to say "If temperatures keep increasing ..." Well, from all I've seen, there is no significant evidence that temperatures have increased significantly for 20 or so years. Moreover, I see no significant evidence that so far human activity has had any significant effect on temperature at all. Moreover, I have seen lots of evidence that CO2, from humans, volcanoes, out gassing from the oceans, rotting plant life, etc. has never had any significant effect on temperature for at least 800,000 years. I've seen lots of evidence of significant temperature changes but where CO2 could not have been the cause -- there must be other causes. Basically, over the past 800,000 years, temperature has changed significantly often, up and down, but CO2 could not have been the main cause or hardly ever or even once a significant cause. Why? Never, but never, not even once, in the whole 800,000 years was significantly lower temperature closely preceded by significantly lower CO2 concentration. So, CO2 had nothing to do with the change, and there must be other causes. For higher temperatures, the story is nearly the same. The evidence is clear: It's just ain't CO2, guys. Sorry 'bout that -- the causes are elsewhere. The Medieval warm period, closely preceded by higher CO2? Nope. The Little Ice Age, closely preceded by less CO2? Nope. The cooling from 1940 to 1970 from lower CO2? Nope -- if anything, higher CO2. It's over, guys: The CO2 scare is a scam. So, this OP is just again the NYT flogging their fake story. Sure, the NYT used to have scare stories about global warming, but somehow they got the memo and changed over to scare stories about "climate change" -- well, that's somewhat safe since we can be sure the climate will keep changing. Then, sure, we get lots of stories about why we must fight climate change -- how the heck to do that? Like the Mayans who killed people to pour their blood on a rock so that the sun would keep moving across the sky and, thus, avoid climate change if the sun stopped? What the NYT is doing is essentially the same as the Mayan charlatans killing people. And if the NYT had their way, many people would be killed. Indeed, many are being killed in Africa because of attempts to avoid releasing CO2. The NYT is up to dirty business, very dirty business. So, i'm calling them out on it. Simple.
microbial 9y ago
Glaciers carved the landscape there, which is why it's called "Glacier National Park". Sad the glaciers are melting so quickly, but they've been melting for thousands of years.
- AnonymousPlanet 9y ago
  The issue is the scale and speed. To get an idea, have a look at https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/ and take your time scrolling to the end.
username223 9y ago
I forget where I read it, but the Rockies' glaciers fare much worse than those in the Coast Range under global warming. If you want a shocking example, visit the Athabasca Glacier between Banff and Jasper [1]. It stretched all the way to the current highway when white men first passed through in the mid-18th century, and there are concrete pylons showing where its snout was at various points in the 20th century. That sad little side-glacier on the left connected to the main one when people first climbed the mountain on the left (Mount Andromeda). See it while you can. EDIT: On an unrelated note, the photographer, John Scurlock, has some amazing aerial photos of other mountains: http://www.pbase.com/nolock/ http://www.pbase.com/nolock/ [1] http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/b2/58/eb/b258ebc35c2d787394855d20a776d0fa.jpg http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/b2/58/eb/b258ebc35c2d...

74 points by daegloe 9y ago

buried a couple links down, the real data: https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/58af7022e4b01ccd54f9f542 https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/58af7022e4b01ccd54f...

pilom 9y ago

Glacier National Park is one of the few US Government organizations that hasn't backed down to political pressure about climate change. There are multiple signs in the park that say something along the lines of "See that glacier over there on the hill? Given the rate of increasing temperatures due to climate change, we expect that glacier to disappear within 20 years. Climate change is caused by humans releasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere which trap heat." It made me really thankful I got to visit last year before they are all gone.

creepydata 9y ago
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/news-blog/2017/jan/25/national-parks-service-goes-rogue-in-response-to-trump-twitter-ban https://www.theguardian.com/technology/news-blog/2017/jan/25...
senorjazz 9y ago
>Glacier National Park is one of the few US Government organizations that hasn't backed down to political pressure about climate change wow, that is really really sad. Something is seriously wrong with the system if that is the case
futun 9y ago
> "Climate change is caused by humans releasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere which trap heat." Hmm.... Well... as positive the motivations behind that sign may be, that sentence is empirically untrue. The climate has always been changing and has never not been changing. And it has been both warmer and colder without humans. To be a scientifically valid statement it would have to say, "SOME degree of CURRENT climate change is PROBABLY caused by humans." Equating all "climate change" with AGW undermines the validity of the argument and scientists really shouldn't do it.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

graycat 9y ago

We need to measure the average temperature of the earth starting with accurate thermometers and not pictures of polar bears, ice bergs, glaciers, patterns of ice in late summer in the Arctic, coral reefs, the snows on Mount Killimanjaro, etc. This NYT story is one more example of why I refuse to consider the NYT for anything, why it's "dead to me", on paper can't compete with Charmin and on the Web is useless for wrapping dead fish heads.

okreallywtf 9y ago
What a fantastic idea, maybe someone should get on that? Of course I'm being sarcastic since there are many people doing that and I would provide some resources if I thought any measurement would be up to your high (perfect) standards.
- futun 9y ago
  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/Phanerozoic_Climate_Change.png/450px-Phanerozoic_Climate_Change.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/Ph...
gdudeman 9y ago
The human mind is tuned to story. Stories help us make sense of facts and give them meaning. That's probably different from person to person - possibly you believe you're on the fact end of the spectrum. This is a small part of the overall climate story, but it's actually what you're arguing for I think - it's a factual account of how glacier ice has changed in the park. The same has happened in the Juneau Icefields, Mount Rainier and elsewhere. Stories are also a useful way to summarize the facts and can be misused to support things that are not factual - I understand that's what you're saying here. I'm not aware of the story you allude to around accurate or inaccurate thermometers - the one you believe to be the truth.
- graycat 9y ago
  This is yet again the NYT talking about climate. Their goal is to create and push a never ending sequence of stories about climate, to create a lasting audience for such stories, and, then, to continue to feed the audience. The stories all have a foundation -- the sky is falling, in this case, the earth is warming, growing warmer, and the cause is sin, human sin from human greed and corruption, for human activities that release CO2 which is warming the planet dangerously, melting glaciers, ice in the Arctic and Antarctic, making the oceans acid and killing the coral reefs, killing off food for the whales, making the lobsters move farther north, raising sea levels, flooding low lands, killing the polar bears, etc. IMHO all this NYT stuff is just totally cooked-up, made-up, stirred-up, gang-up, pile on, nonsense, fake stories to get eyeballs for ad revenue and otherwise from junk down to a dangerous effort to sabotage the economies of the world. Well, then, let's start at the beginning: Warmer. How much warmer, since when, measured how, by whom, reviewed where, published where, when? On this basic, foundation issue, IMHO, the NYT should put up or shut up. Since they won't, and are free to publish their scare sewage, the NYT is dead to me but I am willing occasionally to call them out on their dangerous nonsense. For this foundation, we just need the data, temperature, in degrees F, C, or K. But the NYT doesn't want to do this. Similarly stories at Nova want to say "If temperatures keep increasing ..." Well, from all I've seen, there is no significant evidence that temperatures have increased significantly for 20 or so years. Moreover, I see no significant evidence that so far human activity has had any significant effect on temperature at all. Moreover, I have seen lots of evidence that CO2, from humans, volcanoes, out gassing from the oceans, rotting plant life, etc. has never had any significant effect on temperature for at least 800,000 years. I've seen lots of evidence of significant temperature changes but where CO2 could not have been the cause -- there must be other causes. Basically, over the past 800,000 years, temperature has changed significantly often, up and down, but CO2 could not have been the main cause or hardly ever or even once a significant cause. Why? Never, but never, not even once, in the whole 800,000 years was significantly lower temperature closely preceded by significantly lower CO2 concentration. So, CO2 had nothing to do with the change, and there must be other causes. For higher temperatures, the story is nearly the same. The evidence is clear: It's just ain't CO2, guys. Sorry 'bout that -- the causes are elsewhere. The Medieval warm period, closely preceded by higher CO2? Nope. The Little Ice Age, closely preceded by less CO2? Nope. The cooling from 1940 to 1970 from lower CO2? Nope -- if anything, higher CO2. It's over, guys: The CO2 scare is a scam. So, this OP is just again the NYT flogging their fake story. Sure, the NYT used to have scare stories about global warming, but somehow they got the memo and changed over to scare stories about "climate change" -- well, that's somewhat safe since we can be sure the climate will keep changing. Then, sure, we get lots of stories about why we must fight climate change -- how the heck to do that? Like the Mayans who killed people to pour their blood on a rock so that the sun would keep moving across the sky and, thus, avoid climate change if the sun stopped? What the NYT is doing is essentially the same as the Mayan charlatans killing people. And if the NYT had their way, many people would be killed. Indeed, many are being killed in Africa because of attempts to avoid releasing CO2. The NYT is up to dirty business, very dirty business. So, i'm calling them out on it. Simple.

microbial 9y ago

Glaciers carved the landscape there, which is why it's called "Glacier National Park". Sad the glaciers are melting so quickly, but they've been melting for thousands of years.

AnonymousPlanet 9y ago
The issue is the scale and speed. To get an idea, have a look at https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/ and take your time scrolling to the end.

username223 9y ago

I forget where I read it, but the Rockies' glaciers fare much worse than those in the Coast Range under global warming. If you want a shocking example, visit the Athabasca Glacier between Banff and Jasper [1]. It stretched all the way to the current highway when white men first passed through in the mid-18th century, and there are concrete pylons showing where its snout was at various points in the 20th century. That sad little side-glacier on the left connected to the main one when people first climbed the mountain on the left (Mount Andromeda). See it while you can. EDIT: On an unrelated note, the photographer, John Scurlock, has some amazing aerial photos of other mountains: http://www.pbase.com/nolock/ http://www.pbase.com/nolock/ [1] http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/b2/58/eb/b258ebc35c2d787394855d20a776d0fa.jpg http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/b2/58/eb/b258ebc35c2d...