Comments mspelto has made

BBC Coverage

You have merely to read the first few pages of the summary report and examine the charts contained to see the significance.  The BBC has the most reporting I have seen.  A sobering report indeed.On IPCC synthesis report confirms global warming is a force to be reckoned with posted 2 years ago 7 Responses

Run of river

This would beyond a doubt add water to the system, with those evaporative losses.  The timing of this addition would be the problem, more water in the spring, less in summer and fall.  Evaluating hydro projects for FERC I occassionally see a run of river project which extracts water from the stream, when flow is large enough to handle the loss,  pipe it for some distance until the river valley has dropped then, have it descend on the turbines like usual, without needing the dam.  Instead of backing up the river with a reservoir to raise it, you just take the water from further upstream and pipe it to your destination, even if it for drinking.  This does not seem like a good idea here, but has merit in places

mspelto

Tip of the Iceberg

The number of glaciers referenced above is the tip of the iceberg of the number observed. Terminus fluctuations reported to the World Glacier Monitoring Service numbered 546 for the 1995-2000 period.  Terminus behavior reflects mass balance change.  Positive mass balance indicates surplus snowfall over ablation, and leads to advance.  Negative balances result from excess melt and lead to retreat.  The retreat is like jettisoning debt for a glacier.  If it cannot jettison enough debt through time via retreat it will disappear.  In the North Cascades of Washington we observe mass balance on ten glaciers each year and terminus behavior of 47, all 47 have either been retreating or disappeared.  We have also noted that of the 756 glaciers in the North Cascades noted by the USGS based on maps from the 1955-1965 period, 53 have disappeared.  I could go from nation to nation noting the number of glacier observed by myself and fellow glaciologists it is extensive indeed.

mspelto

Good analogy

Using budget examples is the best way to bring a message home.  Having observed 47 North Cascades glaciers every year since 1984, well actually only 43 are left, we have noted that a small percent change in snowmelt compounds quite dramatically.  We measure glacier mass balance, and if glacier snowmelt increases by 3%, than the mass of the glacier declines by a like amount each year, rather quickly leading to its disappearance.  Glacier mass balance is an annual budget, they have income snowfall and expenditures snowmelt.  If there is a deficit they have to pay it out of pocket, depleting the glacier.   North Cascade Glacier Research

mspelto