‘But the glaciers are not melting’—Except ... they are! 3

(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)

Objection: Sure, some glaciers are melting. But if you look at the studies, most of those for which we have data are growing.

Answer: This is simply not true, rumors on "the internets" aside. The National Snow and Ice Data Centre and their State of the Cryosphere division, on their Glacial Balance page, report an overall accelerating rate of glacial mass loss. The World Glacier Monitoring Service has similar findings, the most recent data coming from 2004.

While there surely are some growing glaciers, studies like these are designed to determine a global trend by ensuring glaciers from all regions of the globe are assessed. There are 67,000 glaciers in the World Glacier Inventory. Not all, or even most, have quality data for many decades, but there are enough with adequate data, located in enough regions of the globe, to know the average trend.

Global Glacier Mass Balance
(source: NSIDC)

Don't forget: there is similar evidence from other parts of the cryosphere. It's also worth noting that given the right circumstances, warming can actually cause glacier growth, with accumulation of increased winter snowfall outweighing increased summer melting.

Check this page for some good before-and-after images of glaciers over the last century, as well as other images of visible effects of global warming. There are also some compelling animations of changes in Glacier Bay National Park here.

Former musician, turned tree planter, turned software engineer. Same old story…

I have been blogging about climate change since 2006 at A Few Things Ill Considered.

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  1. mspelto Posted 8:50 am
    14 Apr 2007

    One in hundredBetween studies in Alaska and Washington I have observed terminus behavior of 130 glaciers over the last 25 years, one of them is advancing, teh Taku Glacier and 124 are retreating and five have disappeared.   North Cascade Glacier Climate Project

    mspelto

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  2. wichitazen Posted 8:46 am
    02 Apr 2008

    glaciers meltingI believe a study just came out in the past few weeks (early 2008) confirming the continuing melting of the world's glaciers. I'll search about for the particulars. Monbiot had an interesting article in the Guardian about bogus facts on this subject...google Monbiot and glaciers and see what you get. Interesting and sad about the stuff deniers cook up from whole cloth.

    Who dares to equal him,

    Who fall neither into being

    nor non-being.



    Tozan

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  3. retroproxy Posted 3:22 pm
    22 Nov 2008

    Misleading GraphThe problem with this graph is it starts at 1960. Widespread glacial recession began at the end of the Little Ice Age when the Earth began naturally warming. If the graph begins when the Little Ice Age ends around 1850 it's easy to see that glacial recession is not unique to the latter half of the 20th century. It began far before CO2 emissions became significant. Just because CO2 emissions have increased and glaciers are melting doesn't prove CO2 emissions are causing the glaciers to melt. Furthermore, numerous glaciers around the world are growing, including glaciers in Alaska that haven't grown since the Little Ice Age ended. CO2 isn't heating the atmosphere catastrophically, and it isn't the reason glaciers are melting.

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Series Intro
'There is no evidence' -- Yes, there is 59
'Mauna Loa is a volcano' -- CO2 rise is measured on top of a volcano! 8
'Warming is due to the Urban Heat Island effect' -- No, it isn't 25
'One hundred years is not enough'--Yes it is 18
'The scientists aren't even sure' -- No scientist ever is 33
'One record year is not global warming'--Luckily, there are plenty more years to consider 19
'Glaciers have always grown and receded'--A few glaciers melting does not mean global warming 14
'The temperature record is unreliable'--But temperature trends are clear and widely corroborated 8
'It's cold today in Wagga Wagga'--Weather and climate are different 2
'The satellites show cooling'--No, they don't 15
'What about mid-century cooling?'--No one said CO2 is the only climate influence 11
'Antarctic ice is growing'--Well, probably not, but even if it were, we are not off the hook 8
'Global warming stopped in 1998'--Only if you flagrantly cherry pick 170
'But the glaciers are not melting'--Except ... they are! 3
'Antarctic sea ice is increasing'--Yes, but ... 14
'Sea level in the Arctic is falling'--Sea level is a surprisingly complicated thing 11
'Climate sensitivity is not very high'--Thermal inertia of the oceans means the jury is still out 2
'Some sites show cooling'--But you can't draw global conclusions from individual sites 0
'Global warming is a hoax'--I wish James Inhofe were just a hoax ... 12
'There is no consensus'--If this is not consensus, what would consensus look like? 109
'Position statements hide debate'--True enough, but that is not the whole picture 5
'Consensus is collusion'--Is climate science maturing, or should we reach for our tinfoil hats? 8
'Peiser refuted Oreskes'--In a poor piece of work that has been retracted by its author 4
'Models don't account for clouds'--Clouds are complex and uncertain, but unlikely to stop warming 6
'Climate models are unproven'--Actually, GCM's have many confirmed successes under their belts 13
'Aerosols should mean more warming in the south'--More North. Hemisphere warming is well-understood 1
'We can't even predict the weather next week'--But weather is not climate 11
'Chaotic systems are not predictable'--Sure, but who says climate is chaotic? 13
Understanding what is happening right under our noses does not require paleoclimate perfection 1
'They predicted global cooling in the 70s'--But that didn't even remotely resemble today's consensus 29
'Hansen has been wrong before'--Maybe, but not about the climate! 13
'It was warmer during the Holocene Climatic Optimum'--This period was not global and not like today 4
'The Medieval Warm Period was just as warm as today'--Repeating this point does not make it true 216
'Greenland used to be green'--Don't judge a book by its cover, much less a land by its name 23
Yes, the last ice age started thawing over 20,000 years ago, but that stopped a long time ago 5
'The hockey stick is broken'--Well, no ... but who's playing hockey anyway? 6
'Vineland was full of grapes'--Or was it an early advertising campaign? 4
'Global warming is part of a natural cycle'--This idea is one short step above appealing to magic 39
'Mars and Pluto are warming too'--No they aren't -- and what if they were? 24
'Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans'--Not even close ... 31
'The null hypothesis says warming is natural'--An inappropriate test, and one that would fail anyway 4
'Climate is always changing'--That doesn't mean it isn't different today 5
'Natural emissions dwarf human emissions'--But emissions are only one side of the equation 5
'The CO2 rise is natural'--No skeptical argument has been more definitively disproven 12
'We are just recovering from the LIA'--Why should we expect this to happen? 4
'Climate scientists dodge the subject of water vapor'--No, they really don't 4
Water vapor is indeed a powerful greenhouse gas, but there is plenty of room for CO2 to play a role 29
There is no proof in science, but there are mountains of evidence 78
'CO2 doesn't lead, it lags'--Turns out CO2 rise is both a cause and an effect of warming 43
'Geological history does not support CO2's importance'--Just not true 0
'Historically, CO2 never caused temperature change'--Not so 19
'It's the sun, stupid'--Very bright, yes, but not getting brighter 18
The problem is not how high the temperature may go, but how fast it is changing 14
'Kyoto is a big effort for almost nothing'--Kyoto is only in its first phase 16
China and India have joined Kyoto, they just have different obligations, as is morally appropriate 3
'Climate change mitigation would lead to disaster'--Not really, but this may be lesser of two evils 6
Only if you ignore fossil fuel emissions 10
In 2008, did temperatures drop as much as they rose over the whole 20th century? 71
Is the IPCC so wrong their theories contradict a basic laws of physics? 23
Is the American Physical Society a crack in the climate change consensus? 3
Summer ice in the Arctic has recovered--Was the Arctic ice retreat a climate anomaly? 7
'Global warming comes from within'--Is heat at the Earth's core the real cause of global warming? 10
Was there another breathless announcement of another phony record, and another quiet retraction? 1
Hansen wants the skeptics thrown in jail--Did James Hansen really want to try the climate skeptics? 6
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