Bookmark page
Our glaciers are growing, not melting - More falsehoods from Al Gore
By Robert Felix
(AXcess News) - "Almost all of the ice-covered regions of the Earth are melting - and seas are rising," said Al Gore -in an op-ed piece in the New York Times on February 27.
Both parts of Gore's statement are false.
Never mind that Mr. Gore makes only passing reference to the IPCC's fraudulent claims that the Himalayan glaciers will all melt by 2035. ("A flawed overestimate," he explains.)
Never mind that Mr. Gore dismisses the IPCC's fraudulent claims that the oceans are rising precipitously. ("Partly inaccurate," he huffs.)
Never mind that Mr. Gore completely ignores the admission by the CRU's disgraced former director Phil Jones that global temperatures have essentially remained unchanged for the past 15 years.
I'll let someone else dissect Gore's lawyering comments, and concentrate on just the one sentence about melting ice, because neither part of that sentence is true.
Contrary to Gore's assertions, almost all of the ice-covered regions of the Earth are growing, not melting — and the seas are not rising.
Let's look at the facts.
If you click on the words "are melting" in Gore's article, you're taken to a paper by Michael Zemp at the University of Zurich. Mr. Zemp begins his paper by warning that "glaciers around the globe continue to melt at high rates."
However, if you bother to actually read the paper, you learn that Zemp's conclusion is based on measurements of "more than 80 glaciers."
Considering that the Himalayas boast more than 15,000 glaciers, a study of "more than 80 glaciers" hardly seems sufficient to warrant such a catastrophic pronouncement.
Especially when you learn that of those 80 glaciers, several are growing.
Growing. Not melting.
"In Norway, many maritime glaciers were able to gain mass," Zemp concedes. ("Able to gain mass" means growing.)
In North America, Zemp also concedes, "some positive values were reported from the North Cascade Mountains and the Juneau Ice Field." ("Displaying positive values" means growing.)
Remember, we're still coming out of the last ice age. Ice is supposed to melt as we come out of an ice age. The ice has been melting for 11,000 years. Why should today be any different? I'm guessing that most Canadians and Northern Europeans are very happy that the ice has been melting.
Unfortunately, that millenniums-long melting trend now appears to be changing. No matter how assiduously Mr. Gore tries to ignore it, almost all of the ice-covered regions of the Earth are now gaining mass. (Or, displaying positive values, if you will.)
For starters, let's look at those Himalayan glaciers. In a great article, entitled "World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown," Jonathan Leake and Chris Hastings show that the IPCC's fraudulent claims were based on "speculation" and "not supported by any formal research."
As a matter of fact, many Himalayan glaciers are growing. In a defiant act of political incorrectness, some 230 glaciers in the western Himalayas - including Mount Everest, K2 and Nanga Parbat - are actually growing.
"These are the biggest mid-latitude glaciers in the world," says John Shroder of the University of Nebraska-Omaha. "And all of them are either holding still, or advancing."
And get this. Eighty seven of the glaciers have surged forward since the 1960s.
So much for Mr. Gore's "more than 80 glaciers."
(I don't know how many Himalayan glaciers are being monitored, but my guess would be fewer than a thousand, so it's possible that hundreds more are growing. There aren't enough glaciologists in the world to monitor them all.)
But we don't need to look to the Himalayas for growing glaciers. Glaciers are growing in the United States.
Yes, glaciers are growing in the United States.
Look at Washington State. The Nisqually Glacier on Mt. Rainier is growing. The Emmons Glacier on Mt. Rainier is growing. Glaciers on Glacier Peak in northern Washington are growing. And Crater Glacier on Mt. Saint Helens is now larger than it was before the 1980 eruption. (I don't think all of the glaciers in Washington or Alaska are being monitored either.)
Or look at California. All seven glaciers on California's Mount Shasta are growing. This includes three-mile-long Whitney glacier, the state's largest. Three of Mount Shasta's glaciers have doubled in size since 1950.
Or look at Alaska. Glaciers are growing in Alaska for the first time in 250 years. In May of last year, Alaska’s Hubbard Glacier was advancing at the rate of seven feet (two meters) per day - more than half-a-mile per year. And in Icy Bay, at least three glaciers advanced a third of a mile (one half kilometer) in one year.
Oh, by the way. The Juneau Icefield, with its "positive values," covers 1,505 square miles (3,900 sq km) and is the fifth-largest ice field in the Western Hemisphere. Rather interesting to know that Gore's own source admits that the fifth-largest ice field in the Western Hemisphere is growing, don't you think?
But this mere handful of growing glaciers is just an anomaly, the erstwhile Mr. Gore would have you believe.
Well, let's look at a few other countries:
• Perito Moreno Glacier, the largest glacier in Argentina, is growing.
• Pio XI Glacier, the largest glacier in Chile, is growing.
• Glaciers are growing on Mt. Logan, the tallest mountain in Canada.
• Glaciers are growing on Mt. Blanc, the tallest mountain in France.
• Glaciers are growing in Norway, says the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE).
• And the last time I checked, all 50 glaciers in New Zealand were growing.
Page One | Page Two
