One of the more popular climate scams employed by the EPA, Katherine Hayhoe and many others – is to show photographs of glaciers from the 1940s (or later) next to recent photos. The implication being that these glaciers started to retreat sometime recently, and that it is due to global warming.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/indicators/
This is blatant fraud. These glaciers have been retreating for hundreds of years, and it has nothing to do with CO2. The glacier in the EPA photograph above retreated eight feet per day between 1794 and 1879.
As you enter Glacier Bay in Southeast Alaska you will cruise along shorelines completely covered by ice just 200 years ago.
Explorer Captain George Vancouver found Icy Strait choked with ice in 1794, and Glacier Bay was barely an indented glacier. That glacier was more than 4000 ft. thick, up to 20 miles or more wide, and extended more than 100 miles to the St.Elias Range of mountains.
By 1879 naturist John Muir found that the ice had retreated 48 miles up the bay. By 1916 the Grand Pacific Glacier headed Tarr inlet 65 miles from Glacier Bay’s mouth.
Same story for glaciers in Europe.
Clarence and Richmond Examiner Tuesday 14 October 1902
glaciers receding
The lower left area of these photos offer clear proof that retreating glaciers turn their former stomping grounds from lifeless deserts (1941) into lovely forests (2004).
I think these photos are not taken from the same position!! (Another trick)
The second one seems to be much further down the valley.
Don’t think so Paul. The fraud is the historical context. And I must assume that there are earlier photos than 1941 which they choose not to use. There are for the Rockies and, along with the written historical accounts, they show this melting is correlated with the end of the LIA, not the great CO2 era.
Next they will be showing comparison photos of areas taken in February and August to demonstrate the impacts of AGW.
If it’s not too late, you are correct, Paul. The photos aren’t taken from the same position, not even close. Looking at the 2004 photo, the 1941 one was taken from a point 33% in from the left, and half way up. It was taken quite close to the glacier.
@ Kaboom, well stated. Who wants all of that nasty green flora and crystal blue water when we can have lifeless ice? This is what the loonys are fighting against?
Well suyts, you must admit that what you dismissively refer to as a “lifeless” landscape does have far less carbon on it, and we all know that carbon is bad.
If the world was covered in ice we wouldn’t have so many problems. Life would be much simpler without life.
When I was a child there was the term ‘arctic wasteland’.
Ironically this is one of Bruce Molnia’s photos. He is the leading USGS expert on glaciers. In his book “Glaciers of Alaska” he states:-
During the Little Ice Age, Alaska’s glaciers expanded significantly. The total area and volume of glaciers in Alaska continue to decrease, as they have been doing since the 18th century”.
Rather says it all eh?
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/the-truth-about-alaskan-glaciers/
Ooops. Nat Geo accidentally mentioned the truth:
“When Capt. George Vancouver sailed the Alaska coast in 1794, Glacier Bay did not exist. It lay beneath a sheet of glacial ice several miles wide and thousands of feet thick. Since then, in one of the fastest glacial retreats on record, the ice has shrunk back 65 miles (105 kilometers) to unveil new land and a new bay, now returning to life after a long winter’s sleep.”
I suppose Vancouver’s ships must have been burning some coal to have precipitated this huge change.
I can clearly remember being a primary (Scotland, ages 5-11) schoolchild in the 1970′s and being taught about Swiss farmers using glacial meltwater as a source of freshwater “for hundreds of years”. These days that seems to have been reduced to since 1950.
From Nelson’s Encylopaedia, 1912, Vol XV, p513.
“Muir Glacier, a great glacier in Alaska, about 120 miles N. by W. of Sitka at Glacier Bay. It’s surface area is about 350 sq. m. Nine branches contribute to the main trunk, which flows at an average rate of 7 ft. per day, and during the month of August throws off daily 200,000,000 cub. ft. of ice into the bay. It has receded 25 miles within the last century.”
Great one Steve. Bookmarking this page to shove up the warmies’ posterior.
This was also a good story to hammer them with …
http://www.real-science.com/uncategorized/national-geographic-conveniently-loses-114
Just last night on the local PBS TV station they ran 2 NOVA shows about the glaciers and the ice in Antartica & Greenland- showing the ice core drilling and other research that is done to support their speculations about the impact of AGW, with both shows ending up with similar graphics about rising sea levels and coastal inundation. I watched because of the awesome spectacle of the ice cave and meltwater drainholes opening up in the ice but expected from the beginning that it was AGW propaganda. One of the main things they highlited looked an awful lot like the Muir glacier pictured in the article. As my wife was commenting on the speculation by researchers that is being treated as fact by other researchers I was recalling hearing somewhere about the retereat of glaciers being part of a long ongoing process, so thanks for the memory jog this article gave me.
http://gbpihed.gov.in/MoEF%20Dissussion%20Paper%20on%20Himalayan%20Glaciers.pdf
Hugh says:
December 29, 2011 at 12:18 am
Hugh, at Primary School in the 1950′s I remember being taught about prayers being said to halt the advancing glaciers in the Alps. Perhaps these prayers are being answered? But the additional pasture land must be good for farming?
I like the part that calls John Muir a “naturist.”
(That’s the PC term for “nudist,” IYDK.)