 Poster: A snowHead
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A report just published by the European Environment Agency states that last summer's heatwave, which is being linked to climate change, reduced the mass of the French, Austrian, Swiss and Italian glaciers by 10%.
The study looks at a broad range of physical and economic impacts of global warming, as reported by The Scotsman and BBC Online.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Interestingly, the opposite trend was noted on the glaciers of New Zealand last year, where a net gain of ice was recorded.
This report from The New Zealand Herald.
Perhaps the high snow accumulations in New Zealand so far this winter will continue that trend.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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interesting and not surprising. Scanning those I'm not I understand to what extent, if any, that reduction was offset by winter snowfall. i.e in, say, May were the glacier 10% smaller than the previous May?
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A more comprehensive and historic perspective on glacial trends is covered in the September edition of National Geographic Magazine.
The introduction to their coverage focusses on Glacier National Park, Montana, where an estimated 120 of the 150 glaciers recorded in 1910 have disappeared.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Just to be contentious: perhaps it won't matter if the human being is eradicated from the planet due to it's own greed and self importance. Wouldn't that be just deserts? The planet will probably do just fine without us. 
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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That would be the Ultimate War for Bush to win. He would be the man who defeated mother nature!
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Wear The Fox Hat, don't even suggest such a thing, given his record on geographical knowledge of the world and his record on attacking things with force first and asking questions after suggesting that he might win verses mother nature is a seriously bad idea
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D G Orf, got to say I thought they were, and I think they might be winning 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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ise, you could unfortunately be very right, but we certainly should not be encouraging them
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A conference on glaciers in Oslo has been looking at the reasons why many shrink, but others grow.
This report from Reuters.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| David Goldsmith wrote: |
A conference on glaciers in Oslo has been looking at the reasons why many shrink, but others grow.
This report from Reuters. |
Glaciers shrink where temperatures rise and / or precipitation decreases causing the equilibrium point to rise, this point is at around 2900 meters in the French Alps. It would take around a 12C average rise in temperature for the glaciers on Mont Blanc to completely vanish given no change in precipitation.
Global warming will cause shrinking glaciers but such warming may be accompanied by increased precipitatiion. Where this falls as snow in sufficient quantities in the glacier's accumulation zone the glacier will gain in mass. A 0.75C rise in temperature is equivalent to a 20% decrease in precipitation. Of course your glacier has to have an accumulation zone sufficiently high to catch snow.
Glaciers that are now cut off from their accumulation zones will shrink very rapidly.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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A study of the South Cascade Glacier in the NW USA is projecting its demise by the end of the century. The study commenced in 1959.
This report on the research and its implications from The Seattle Times.
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So where will the polar bear stand?
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You know it makes sense.
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In the middle of the street catching snowboarders possibly 
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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And the Fox will be severely disappointed.
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Poster: A snowHead
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A 24-year study of China's vast glaciers, which comprise 15 per cent of those worldwide, has been published. This research, which has involved a team of over 50 scientists and substantial resources, reveals much new information about glaciation in China.
In parallel with the reports mentioned in previous postings, the research indicates significant melting and retreat of the ice fields.
This report from China Daily.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I can't help thinking that people tend to react badly to change. It is impossible for things to remain in a constant state, there must be change and there alway will be.
The real problem is in not knowing the timescale to view these changes accross. Should it be decades, centuries, millenia? Who knows, but you can bet your bottom dollar that one year isn't correct, and to do the job correctly we'd need the records from before records began, which are tricky to find as I think they were misfiled in the Bronze Age.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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The latest study of glacier melting trends concerns those in the Andes, as reported by SciDev.net
The Andean glaciers are thought to be highly sensitive indicators of climatic trends, partly due to the El Nino effect, with its warming and cooling of the Pacific Ocean.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Today's New York Times carries an interesting article on the melting of glaciers in Tibet, in particular the Zepu glacier, and the resultant effect on rivers and lakes. Click here to read it. Here's an extract:
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"Thirty years ago, there was no river here," said Dr. Yao Tandong, the director of China's Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, who has spent the last two decades on expeditions like these to study Tibetan glaciers. "Of course, there has always been a river downstream, but up here, everything had always been frozen solid."
The glacier, named Zepu, has lost more than 100 yards of thickness, all in the last three decades, largely because of rising temperatures in the region. And it is hardly unique. Working with scientists from Ohio State University, Dr. Yao has documented similar losses all over Tibet, the largest and loftiest highlands on earth, and home to the biggest concentration of alpine glaciers anywhere. |
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More devastating evidence on the situation in the Alps, this time from Zurich University which has been studying the Swiss glaciers. Their conclusions:
- Swiss glaciers lost 18 per cent of their surface area between 1985 and 2000, while the entire Alpine region lost 22 per cent.
- From 1973 to 1985, the loss was only one per cent.
- From 1973 to 2000, the loss accelerated by a factor of three.
- From 1985 to 2000, the loss accelerated by a factor of seven.
More details from SwissInfo.
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Calm down people. Marc Gledhill has it right. Earth's climate is in constant flux and temperature rises over certain parts of the planet even over a few decades is all part of the norm.
Much info can be found here:
http://www.envirotruth.org/myths.cfm
easiski - Myth #1 is for you.
Wear the Fox Hat - Myths 8 & 10 may be instructive.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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4thefunofit, Oh, that's ok then. Thanks so much for putting my mind at rest. There was I thinking there was a possibility there might be more than a grain of truth in the theories of so many learned scientists, and all I had to do was ask 4thefunofit and read "envirotruths", sponsored by The National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative American think-tank. Of course, no need to politically identify representatives of think-tanks, or identify their financial bases. That's just me being a touch paranoid. Why on earth should they have any ideological predispositions? How foolish of me. Of course they are non-partisan, even if a large chunk of funding comes from "corporate sources", what does that prove?
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave
God Bless America.
PS, Should Mr Bush ever take up winter sports, I've found him the perfect pair of goggles - you could try them as well? I'm sure they'd suit you both....
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Yes, there are too many of these (anti) environmental lobbying organisations operating without proper transparency. Any body using the word 'truth' in its title has to be suspect. People must deal in bona fide peer-reviewed scientific evidence.
The heating of the planet evidenced by this Swiss research is far too severe and sudden to be explained away as part of a natural cycle. As far as I can see it must be a product of artificial pollution.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Quote: |
| The heating of the planet evidenced by this Swiss research... |
Actually, it's evidence of the heating of Switzerland, or possible lack of precipitation there, or both (which isn't to say there's not similar evidence elsewhere).
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| ...is far too severe and sudden to be explained away as part of a natural cycle. |
Supernovæ occur naturally. They're quite a bit more severe and sudden than the gentle warming of a mid-sized planet. A small variation in solar output could produce that.
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| As far as I can see it must be a product of artificial pollution |
As far as I can see, it might be.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Fair enough - but greenhouse gases are so-called for a reason. Whatever the balance of the cause elements in producing the effect, I have yet to see the suggestion that anything other than warming can result, whatever the degree. What do we do - wait and see who was right? Or take sensible precautions?
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PG, the latter -- but I think you and I differ on what is 'sensible'.
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You know it makes sense.
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laundryman, Supernova are not sudden events in a stars cycle in fact they stat many thousands of years before the event we call a supernova, the stars explosion. They appear sudden because the stars are so far away all we can detect is the light from the massive energy release in a supernova, but if we were near enough to the star we would be able to predict the event and see it is a gradual build up ( in human terms of time ) but not in astronomical terms where human existence is insignificant in the universe's time frame since the big bang. (sorry for going off topic everyone)
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Russell, I would draw a distinction between predictability and suddenness. If someone lights a fuse on a cartoon bomb, I can predict that the bomb will explode. It still does so suddenly.
Just looked it up: sudden has distinct meanings of 'unexpected' and 'abrupt', so I guess we're both right!
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Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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laundryman, Call it a draw then
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Oh how you guys love your obessions with glacial movements. Preferable, I guess, to obsessions with other types of slow movements....but still! Come on guys, chill (sorry, couldn't resist the pun)
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Interestingly, the opposite trend was noted on the glaciers of New Zealand last year, where a net gain of ice was recorded.
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Er, yes, but: Down there they say that every other year about the glaciers.
Glaciers are constantly "on the move" and by nature are cyclical creatures - they keep retreating/encroaching thru out their lifespan in response to minor weather fluctuations. Makes visiting NZ glaciers an interesting lottery on a yearly basis - shall we need to walk (literally) miles from the carpark to the glacier this year? Or will the carpark have dissapeared under a wall of ice....
The degree to which you guys want to connect the "receeding" cycle of a glacier's life with global warming is just a tad obsessive! Chances are the retreat is normal and will be followed by a long period of encroachment (and then the complaints will start about the excessive amount of ice).
But you guys seem to have so much fun obsessing - carry on!
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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I'm not sure that Alpine glaciers behave like that. The photographic evidence is long-term recession (over many decades). Serious concerns about the Alpine environment were being raised as long ago as the mid-late 1980s, the glaciers being a major component of those concerns.
Last edited by You need to Login to know who's really who. on Tue 16-11-04 13:04; edited 1 time in total
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| Manda wrote: |
| But you guys seem to have so much fun obsessing - carry on! |
But you would expect snow sports enthusiasts to be more interested in climate change than most, wouldn't you? Have you never obsessed about the local weather, from day-to-day, on a skiing holiday?
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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Hmm. And now Powell has stepped down, to be replaced as Secretary of State by Condoleezza Rice, a former Chevron director. Chevron have even named an oil tanker after her.
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Very flattering
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| 4thefunofit wrote: |
Calm down people. Marc Gledhill has it right. Earth's climate is in constant flux and temperature rises over certain parts of the planet even over a few decades is all part of the norm.
Much info can be found here:
http://www.envirotruth.org/myths.cfm
easiski - Myth #1 is for you.
Wear the Fox Hat - Myths 8 & 10 may be instructive. |
Do you relaise who those guys are?
They are funded by The National Center for Public Policy Research a conservative think tank with some pretty right wing views with the money coming from people with some serious vested interests
There are very few environmentalist left who claim that global warming isn't happening and at a very high rate. Unfortunately people like yourself and your friends at "Envirotruth" are doing your best to muddy the waters.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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FAQ
