by Don J. Easterbrook
The headline of the September 8, 2015 Seattle Times states:
‘Disastrous’: Low snow, heat eat away at Northwest glaciers
“Glaciers across the North Cascades could lose 5 to 10 percent of their volume this year, accelerating decades of steady decline. One scientist estimates the region’s glaciers are smaller than they have been in at least 4,000 years.” “The best word for it is disastrous,” said Pelto”
This was a multi-page story with numerous photographs and many predictions that glaciers in the North Cascade Mts. will be gone in 50 years. Having just finished a major analysis of Mt. Baker’s glaciers dating back thousands of years, I thought, what kind of nonsense is this? So I put together some of the data on Mt. Baker glaciers that will soon be published.
Photos and maps from a large collection dating back to 1909 document exactly what Mt. Baker glaciers have done in the past. What these photos and maps clearly show is the Mt. Baker glaciers reached their maximum extent of the past century in 1915 at the end of the 1880 to 1915 cold period. The glaciers then melted back strongly during the 1915 to 1950 warm period. The climate then turned cool again, and Mt. Baker glaciers advanced strongly for 30 years. In 1977, the climate turned warm again and since about 1980, glaciers have been retreating again. However, photos and maps prove that all Mt. Baker glaciers are more extensive today than they were in 1950. Here are a few examples.
Roosevelt and Coleman glaciers
Comparison of the position of the terminus of the Roosevelt glacier on USGS topographic maps of 2014 (blue line) and 1952 (green line) (Fig. 1). Both the Coleman and Roosevelt glaciers are more extensive now than they were in 1952. Figure 2 shows the advance and retreat of the two glaciers measured from vertical air photographs.
Figure 1. Positions of Coleman and Roosevelt termini in 2014 (blue) and 1952 (green) taken directly from USGS topographic maps.
Figure 2. Advance and retreat of the Coleman and Roosevelt glaciers from 1940 to 1990. (Plotted from data in Harper, 1992)
Comparison of photographs of the Roosevelt glacier in 2015 and 1950 confirm that the glacier is more extensive now than in 1950. In the photos below, note that the terminus of the glacier reaches to the edge of dark cliff (left photo) in 2015, but was well upvalley from it in 1950 (right photo). The X on the photos is a point of reference for comparison.
Figure 3. Comparision of photographs of the Roosevelt glacier in 2015 (left) and 1947 (right). Note that the glacier is more extensive now than it was in 1947.
Deming glacier
Comparison of the position of the terminus of the Deming glacier on USGS topographic maps of 2014 (blue line) and 1952 (green line) (Fig. 4) show that the glacier was more extensive in 2014 than it was in 1952. The right side of the figure shows that rates of advance and retreat of the Deming glacier from 1940 to 1990 (plotted from data in Harper, 1992).
Figure 4. Comparison of the position of the Deming glacier terminus in 2015 and 1952 taken directly from USGS topographic maps (left). Graph on the right shows rates of advance and retreat of the glacier from 1940 to 1990.
Photographs of the Deming glacier 2011-2015 confirm that the glacier is more extensive now than it was in 1950-52. In the photos below the X is a point of reference and the yellow diamond is the terminus. The 2011-2015 terminus is far downvalley (see map) from it’s 1950-52 position.
Figure 5. Deming glacier, 1950 (left) and 2011 (right).The yellow X is a point of reference and the diamond shape is the position of the terminus in 1950 and 2011. These photos show that the Deming glacier is more extensive now than it was in 1950 and confirm the positions of the terminus shown in Fig. 4.
Boulder glacier
Comparison of the position of the terminus of the Boulder glacier on USGS topographic maps of 2015 (blue line) and 1952 (green line) (Fig. 6) show that the glacier is more extensive now than it was in 1952.
Figure 6. Comparison of the position of the Boulder glacier terminus in 2014 and 1952 taken directly from USGS topographic maps. The glacier is now more than a kilometer downvalley from its 1952 position.
Figure 7. Photos of the Boulder glacier in 1950 (left) and 2014 (right). The yellow X is a common point of reference and the yellow diamond marks the glacier terminus.
Photographs of the Boulder glacier 2014 confirm that the glacier is more extensive now than it was in 1950-52. The present is far downvalley (see map) from its 1950-52 position.
All of Mt. Baker’s other glaciers show the same thing. They are all more extensive now than they were in 1952 and nothing unusual is happening to them—they have been where they are now many times before. Data similar to that shown here for the Coleman, Roosevelt, Deming, and Boulder glaciers is also available for the Easton, Squak, Talum, Park, Rainbow, and Mazama glaciers.
The Seattle Times states that “Riedel estimates the region’s glaciers are smaller than they have been in at least 4,000 years.” However, the photos and maps of the Sholes glacier, the featured in the Times article, below prove that these claims are totally false˗˗the Sholes glacier has not changed at all in the past 70 years.
Figure 8. The Sholes glacier in 1947 (left) and 2011 (right) are virtually identical.
These photos prove that the Sholes glacier today is identical to what it was in 1947. In addition, comparison of the glacier terminus on USGS topographic maps of 1952 and 2014 (below) show that the Sholes glacier has not changed since 1952.
Figure 9. The blue line is the margin of the Sholes glacier shown on the USGS 2014 topographic map. The green line is the terminus position shown on the 1952 map. These maps prove that the Shole glacier today is identical to what it was in 1952.
Watts Up With That?
So is Pelto just incompetent or a liar?
Lying incompetent.
“So is Pelto just incompetent or a liar?”
NO, just a typical media writer — commuted to stories of coming doom who is scientifically illiterate and too lazy to check the actual facts
.
says it all
Pelto is probably just a moron. Glaciers grow and glaciers recede. That is what glaciers do. So much written about so little.
Looks like Pelto is following the Richard Alley school of alarming journalism: if reality does not agree with your psychosis … then make it up.
Ha ha
… never let truth be a burden …
Excellent compilation showing natural fluctuations.
CAGW was hatched pre-falsified by cooling of 1945-77 under rapidly rising CO2.
ask the newspaper for a retraction
And ask what the “disaster” would be.
Why should anyone care if the glaciers are gone?
The back-story is that glaciers are dependent on snowfall and heavy snowfall and deep accumulation provides water in summer when water from precipitation is rare. In the State of Washington, summer precipitation is low …
… when insolation and temperature is high. The high elevations with ice, snow, and cold water provide unique habitats. The cold streams and rivers at lower elevations also provide distinctive habitats. On the eastern side of the Cascades the water from the melting snow is like having a dozen extra reservoirs.
The glaciers on the volcanoes makes for photogenic outings, the sale of climbing and hiking gear, cameras (and at one time Kodachrome II), and sore feet. And like a great big old tree, they are interesting.
Because then people like Obama’s daughters and their kids won’t be able to hike up to see them.
Simples!
It has already been proven that these lunatics have been lying about nearly all the world’s glaciers. This is beyond ridiculous since we have so much information about many of these glaciers in the past and note that the warm freaks are lying about ice at the North and South Poles, too. Nakedly and nonstop.
They should all be arrested for fraud.
What do you think the odds are that the Seattle Times, having gad this brought to their attention, will publish a correction? Yeah – that is what I thought too.
As I believe it’s been said before, glaciers (in general, ice) make a bad indicator for anthropogenic climate change. Almost as bad as tree ring data.
I see that the Seattle Times article comes with the usual graph with the cherry-picked start time. I’d say that at some level Pelto has to know that what he’s saying is nonsense.
Cliff Mass had a some words on this a few days ago.
Seattle Times Glacier Disaster
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2015/09/seattle-times-glacier-disaster.html
Thanks for facts Don. And thank the Lord for WUWT !
So despite the second half of the 20th being warmer than the first half the glaciers are more extensive.
Glaciers are sustained by snowfall. Increasing glacier extent indicates more snowfall. More snowfall is just another case of the increased precipitation that is expected “in a warming world”. This is exactly the kind of thing that is predicted to result from global warming caused by CO2 emissions from buring fossil fuels.
You see whatever happens, AGW has all bases covered !
Seattle Times quote. First he blurts it out like he has divine knowledge. Then he pulls back to a qualified position. Of course, most people fixate on the first assertion and pass over the pull back. Classic noble cause corruption possible tinged with the fishing for further grant money. Appropriate name for a climate scientist, though.
Looks to me like he “fudged” on it.
(sorry, couldn’t pass it up.)
Dana would say that Pelto is wrong, but in the right way.
While patronizing the local “Dairy Barn” This summer I noticed my large-size mint chocolate-chip “Glacier” was not as big as last year’s were. I can only surmise that shrinking glaciers is this year’s theme.
Don J. Easterbrook,
Thanks for the essay. It was timely and informative. It was a nice slapdown of a moron.
However, there is one item I often wonder about. Why do we love glaciers so much? I would like to see the planet much warmer and have far less glaciers. What was so bad about the warmth during the age of the dinosaurs anyway?
Disclosure: I live in Florida and love the summertime heat. Perhaps I am somewhat biased.
Would someone remind me again what the chosen start year is for most alarmista trends.
I wonder how closely these graphs also resemble the real history of Arctic sea ice?
Thanks Don.
I was born with a topo in my hip pocket. Love those maps. But if you keep using them in this manner the “gov” might make them disappear.
I guess when the POTUS says the ice is shrinking the researchers need to confirm this or lose funding.
~~~~~
Earlier this year Dave Tucker (Mount Baker Volcano Research Center) came over to Ellensburg and gave a presentation of the steam plume surveys he and others are doing. The talk and photos were about past eruptions and the rocks, and about the vent measurements, rather than ice.
Don, if you just finished an analysis going back thousands of years, why do you only show recent data, with a benchmark of the “high” point around 1950? Also, is Mt. Baker representative of all the N. Cascades? Where is your work going to be published?
Even with no change in temperature the glaciers would be currently in retreat due to the lack of precipitation in the region recently. Once precipitation returns to more normal conditions, the ice will return.
Let’s get this right: glaciers atop a big ‘locked & loaded’ volcano are showing signs of melting, and folks are all atwitter about humanities perfidious contribution to this phenomenon.
Well presented data, Don. No more than was necessary.
I believe that the termini in Figures 5 and 7 are mis-identified in the 1950/1952 images. The terminus is not where the white stuff ends, it is where the ice, even if it covered with a layer of moraine, ends.
In Figure 5 it is very obvious that the 1950 terminus is where the stream emerges from the rock covered ice some way to the left of the yellow diamond. In Figure 7, it’s pretty obvious that moraine covered ice extends below and to the right of the yellow diamond, very slightly farther down the mountain than the 2014 image.
I am amazed that it is not generally known that moraine can make it very difficult to tell where glacier termini are located. Has no-one heard of ‘rock glaciers’?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_glacier
Since the Seattle Times is relying on one unusually warm and dry year (2015), we should ask if this seems to be the ‘new’ pattern? And of course it is just an exception, not the new norm. Some recent past winters have been seen lots of mountain snow and some very little. Spring and summer conditions have ranged from record to near record warmth to record to near record cold. It seems much like the Dust Bowl conditions of the 1930s.
One record does stand out for Mt Baker in particular. Over the winter of 1998-99, Mt Baker had 1140 inches of snow. That’s 95 feet, a record for the mountain, a record for Washington State, a record for the USA, and an all-time world record snowfall. I wonder if we will see a repeat when we come out of the present strong El Nino? The record in 1998-99 came as we were exiting the Super El Nino of 1998.
Gordon J. Fulks, PhD (Physics)