http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/indicators/pdfs/climate_indicators_slideshow.pdf
They forgot to mention that there was 10 times as much ice loss at that glacier prior to 1941.
http://soundwaves.usgs.gov/2001/07/glacierbaymap.gif
Isn’t official government fraud fun? The EPA used the meaningless date of 1960 to intentionally fool people into believing their CO2 agenda.
An Alaskan Glacier.
The Muir glacier, which is the great wonder of of Alaska, was, says a scientific writer in the Globe, doubtless discovered by Vancouver in 1791, but Professor John Muir was the first to describe it. Muir Inlet, at the head of Glacier Bay, is thetermination of this great ” river of ice.” The wall of blue ice is there a mile long and about 400 feet high. It is worn into towers, castles, and caverns, and is continually discharging fragments, from the size of a paving-stone to that of Cologne Cathedral. These falling into the sea cast up the spray for hundreds of feet into the air, and send forth waves which dash upon the shores and echo like thunder among the mountains. The Muir glacier is really a sea of ice, with numerous branches in the valleys, any one of which is as large as the Gomer or Aletzch glacier of Switzerland. It is according to Mr. S. P. Baldwin, a recent visitor, as large as all the Alpine glaciers in one, being 1,200 square miles in area. The ice is 1,000 feet thick at the mouth in Muir Inlet, and the glacier, is estimated to comprise as much water as Lake Erie. It disharges 77 billioncubic feet of ice as icebergs, and 175 billion cubic feet of water by melting every year. The centre of the glacier, where the motion is quickest, is so rough and broken into crevasses that it is con- sidered impassable. The eastern half, however, can be travelled as far as the névé. Professor
Wright has found the motion at the centre to be as much as 65 feet a day, whereas that of the Alpine glaciers is only 33 inches or so. As much as 90 feet a day has been found in the case of a Greenland glacier. The Muir glacier has once extended much further into the bay, and is now receding every year, while the sources of the ice supply are failing.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/003358947790014X
Much of the 20th century has experienced glacier recession, but probably it would be premature to declare the Little Ice Age over. The complex moraine systems of the older expansion interval lie immediately downvalley from Little Ice Age moraines, suggesting that the two expansion intervals represent similar events in the Holocene, and hence that the Little Ice Age is not unique.
The following temperature trends are from a 2006 paper ( Chylek et al. 2006. “Greenland Warming of 1920-1930 and 1995-2005”, Geophysical Research Letters, 33, 2006) and show three temperature trends for the two Greenland stations that have long term data. [http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2006GL026510.shtml]. The authors state: “Almost all decades between 1915 and 1965 were warmer or at least as warm as the 1995 to 2005 decade…suggesting the current warm Greenland climate is not unprecedented and that similar temperatures were a norm in the first half the 20th century. … no statistically significant difference between the average temperature from the 1905 to the 1955 period and 1955 to 2005 period,” the only difference being that summertime (JJA) average temperatures were warmer at both stations during the 1905-1955 period. Further, although the decade 1920-1930 was as warm as the decade 1995-2005, the rate of warming was “50% higher” during the earlier decade.”
The Jakobshavn Glacier has been retreating since observations began being recorded in the 1800s. The following figure shows the retreat of the glacier since before 1850. Since the IPCC indicates CO2 warming has only occurred since 1970, the previous 150 years of glacier retreat must be caused by something else. [http://www.ametsoc.org/atmospolicy/documents/Thompson%20Senate307.pdf]
An international team of scientists from Norway’s Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC), Mohn-Sverdrup Center for Global Ocean Studies and Operational Oceanography and the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Russia’s Nansen International Environmental and Remote Sensing Center and the United States’ Environmental Systems Analysis Research Center 1992 to 2003 analyzed data from radar altimeters on ESA’s ERS satellites to determine thickness changes in the Greenland Ice Sheet. They found a net increase of 6.4 centimeters (2.5 inches) per year in the interior area above 1500 meters (4921 feet) elevation. Below that altitude, the elevation-change rate is minus 2.0 centimeters (0.8 inch) per year, broadly matching reported thinning in the ice-sheet margins. [http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/2005/2005110420860.html]
A study of organic remains recently exposed by a receding glacier in Greenland (“Organic Remains from the Istorvet Ice Cap, Liverpool Land, East Greenland: A Record of Late Holocene Climate Change” by Lowell, T V, Kelly, M A, Hall, B., Smith, C A, Garhart, K, Travis, S, and Denton, G H, American Geophysical Union, 2007 Fall Meeting) performed radiocarbon dating of emergent organic remains along the western margin of the Istorvet ice cap. The study found ”the largest concentration [of radiocarbon dates] from A.D. 800 to 1014… Both the ice cap geometry and the presence of overrun organic remains indicate past temperatures at least as warm as those at present.” [http://www.agu.org/cgi-bin/SFgate/SFgate?&listenv=table&multiple=1&range=1&directget=1&application=fm07&database=%2Fdata%2Fepubs%2Fwais%2Findexes%2Ffm07%2Ffm07&maxhits=200&=%22C13A-04%22 ]
Great site, another Greenland Glacier pic with same stuff in it
http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/RS_Greenland.htm
I’ve been reading James L. Dyson’s 1962 book, “The World of Ice”, because I find geology writing of this vintage to be pretty straightforward and wonderfully descriptive.
Of the Glacier Bay area he writes “So now we know that the vast area of ice that Vancouver encountered [in 1794] little more than 150 years ago has largely melted away” … … … “uncovering a huge branching system of fiords with a combined length of 160 miles” … … … “ice was more than 2,000 feet thick [in 1892] in places where today there is none” (p. 173-174).
Regarding the effect of CO2 on temperatures, he writes (p. 187) “we cannot call upon it for an answer to the minor warm periods … prior to the Industrial Revolution when the gift of carbon dioxide to the air by the burning of fossil fuels was nil”.
I love that – “gift” of CO2
Plants are smiling.
Brian Fagan’s book ” The Little Ice Age” makes clear just how far glaciers advanced in the LIA. and it was a worldwide phenomenon. It was also a frightening event for anyone living in the vicinity.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/what-was-life-like-in-the-little-ice-age/
Anyone who has been to the glacier and actually listened to the Federal guide which accompanies the ship knows that the glacier is a product of The Little Ice Age. Not only confirmed geologically, but by the historical accounts of the Indians that lived in the area that was iced over.
That’s weird, everything I have read said that Global Warming started with the Industrial Revolution, which began in the 18th century. And what do you know, the glacier was out to the ocean in 1760-1780 and started receding in the decades that followed.
Amazing.
And then there is the guy above who said that the IPCC claims Global Warming started in the 70′s. Really? If we look at the Hockey Stick graph that you all hate so much we see that temperatures start to increase in the 1700, and continue to increase all the way through the 1800′s, 1900′s and all the way to today.
Sure I know you guys deny the hockey stick, but you just posted evidence that supports it! That glacier seems to start receding and keep pace with the temperature rises shown in the Hockey Stick.
Great job! You’ve helped prove Global Warming is not a myth. Bahahahaha!
Given that CO2 was falling prior to 1845, you have just provided evidence that whatever you are worried about didn’t have anything to do with CO2.