(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.
(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.
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Comments View as Flat
mspelto Posted 8:50 am
14 Apr 2007
One in hundred
Between 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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wichitazen Posted 8:46 am
02 Apr 2008
glaciers melting
I 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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retroproxy Posted 3:22 pm
22 Nov 2008
Misleading Graph
The 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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