Scare stories about supposed threats to billions are just pablum for the credulous, which sells, and you bought it.Darron, It all comes down to how one frames their argument. dusty has set up his argument so that the only thing that matters about glaciers is their immediate availability for human consumption. All else falls under the realm of "externalities" that can be belligerently ignored and condescendingly written off as irrelevant. That glaciers create an environment for seasonal snowfields to form and build and to act as buffer, slowing down and spreading out melt, thus seasonal river run off... such details mean nothing to him. (In fact, his accounting manages to divorce snowfields and snowpack from glaciers altogether. And I'm sure he's absolutely incapable of appreciate their intimate connections between them.) nor That refrigerated glacial ice mass directly impact regional weather patterns (mountains really do make their weather) means nothing his ilk. That beyond their meteorological influences* Greenland, Antarctic and Arctic glaciers play key roles in biological process and food chains, means nothing. It can't be dispensed from a tap, so it don't matter in his world. A very one dimensional cartoonish world for sure, but his and millions of theirs, nonetheless. *let's not forget their global warming amplifying ability... All such details dusty dismisses, comforted knowing that the chorus of idiots is sure to chime in their approval for his sort of discombobulation of basic Earth Science. As we see V is more than happy to prove me correct on score.
I bolded what the Republican/libertarian PR Machine want’s to focus on, in exclusion of all else.
It’s around such tidbits of facts that they weave their stories, ignoring all inconvenient complexities and facts.
On the one hand, I’ll admit, that figure is a bit surprising,
(Its worth pointing out that the study acknowledges these are tentative estimates of difficult terrain)
but that figure doesn’t negate the importance of glaciers since much of their impacts and importance is in their ability to
enhance snowfield formation and slow melt. {or to put it another way glaciers are more important in their frozen form, so lack of direct contribution to river flow is a twisted disingenuous way of looking at it, to begin with.}
Not to mention during those times when the snow has melted and rains failed,
that 2% becomes the critical difference for downstream stakeholders,
thus, dusty dismissing glacier with his adolescent self-certain-contempt, is, well it’s contemptible for adults to engage in.
Role of snow and glacier melt in controlling river hydrology in Liddar watershed (western Himalaya) under current and future climate Authors G. Jeelani, Johannes J. Feddema, Cornelis J. van der Veen, Leigh Stearns First published: 12 December 2012 DOI: 10.1029/2011WR011590 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011WR011590/full ________________ Abstract [1] Snowmelt and icemelt are believed to be important regulators of seasonal discharge of Himalayan rivers. To analyze the long term contribution of snowmelt and glacier/icemelt to river hydrology we apply a water budget model to simulate hydrology of the Liddar watershed in the western Himalaya, India for the 20th century (1901–2010) and future IPCC A1B climate change scenario. Long term (1901–2010) temperature and precipitation data in this region show a warming trend (0.08°C yr−1) and an increase in precipitation (0.28 mm yr−1), with a significant variability in seasonal trends. In particular, winter months have undergone the most warming, along with a decrease in precipitation rates; precipitation has increased throughout the spring. These trends have accelerated the melting and rapid disappearance of snow, causing a seasonal redistribution in the availability of water. Our model results show that about 60% of the annual runoff of the Liddar watershed is contributed from the snowmelt, while only 2% is contributed from glacier ice. The climate trend observed from the 1901 to 2010 time period and its impact on the availability of water will become significantly worse under the IPCC climate change scenarios. Our results suggest that there is a significant shift in the timing and quantity of water runoff in this region of the Himalayas due to snow distribution and melt. With greatly increased spring runoff and its reductions in summer potentially leading to reduced water availability for irrigation agriculture in summer. 1. Introduction [2] Himalayan rivers are a key source of fresh water to more than one billion people. They support one of the most heavily irrigated regions in the world in northern India [Tiwari et al., 2009], while the Pakistan economy is largely dependent on water resources originating in the upper Indus for agricultural irrigation and hydropower generation Our results suggest that there is a significant shift in the timing and quantity of water runoff in this region of the Himalayas due to snow distribution and melt. With greatly increased spring runoff and its reductions in summer potentially leading to reduced water availability for irrigation agriculture in summer. ...--------------------------
Lets bring it a little closer to home.
Here are some of the details folks like dusty and his Republican/libertarian PR Machine ignore.
Keep in mind the Himalayas are definitely a different creature so of course their dynamics are scaled differently,
but the underlying truths are every bit as real. It’s how nature operates,
damned straight forward and knowable for those who care to spend the effort to honest learn.
Recent Glacier Retreat and Changes in Streamflow in the North Cascades https://www.nichols.edu/departments/glacier/glacier.htmGlacier Runoff: The North Cascades currently support approximately 700 glaciers. These glaciers store as much water as all of the states lakes, rivers, and reservoirs combined, and 25% of the North Cascade region's total summer water supply. These are natural reservoirs that yield the most water during the driest period late summer. As glaciers retreat the size of the reservoir shrinks and so does the available runoff. The complete melting of the Lewis Glacier resulted in a 75% decline in late summer streamflow at Lewis Lake. The North Cascade Glaciers release approximately 230 billion gallons of water during the summer. This water is nearly fully utilized for irrigation, salmon fisheries and power generation. With recent warming in the area glacier have been retreating. Many of these glaciers feed the Columbia River system. ...Changing Alpine and Glacier Runoff: Glacier catchments generate freshets that last longer, larger and peak higher than other alpine catchments, the glaciers acting as efficient reservoirs. Unfortunately the storage capacity of these natural reservoirs is shrinking as they retreat, which results in alpine streamflow changes. Comparison of streamflow from two adjacent USGS monitored basins Thunder Creek and Newhalem Creek, the former with 14% glacier cover the latter with 0% glacier cover highlight the impact of glaciers on streamflow. ...Glacier Reservoirs: Glaciers are natural reservoirs storing water as ice instead of using a dam. As they shrink so does the melting and consequent runoff they provide. ...Declining Alpine Runoff in the summer is becoming a larger issue. In the last 40 years winter precipitation has not declined, yet April 1 snowpack has at the five long term USDA Snotel stations with reliable records over this period. This is due to more melting during the winter and more rainfall events even at elevation. This is further highlighted by the ratio between snowpack and total precipitation. The lower the ratio the lesser the percent of precipitation that is falling and being retained as snow. Both of these show a substantial decline from 1965-2006. As the snowpack diminishes to the point that only glaciers and a few small snow patches remain, alpine streamflow declines. ...Glacier Reservoir Area Reduction: ...Glacier Runoff Significance: ...
DarronS - Now you’re just being a condescending asshole.Guilty, kind of. I mean, you just don't seem to understand basic differences between the locations and volumes of ice and the effects that has on human consumption of water versus sea level rise. From your lack of understanding you consider me to have "cognitive dissidence" of a "psychopath".
i love this coming from someone who has openly dismissed facts in favor of his ideology.Nonresponsive. My points stand on the facts I have presented. 1. Melting and calving of land ice on Antarctica and Greenland have the potential for dramatic sea level rises that would/will be devastating to our coastal cities and lands. 2. Melting of glaciers everyplace else will have almost no impact on human consumption of water and will actually open up additional land for life that is presently locked in a lifeless state by the deadly land ice. The only dissidence between statements 1. and 2. are your lack of understanding of the facts of the water cycle and most especially how water moves through a river watershed.
Lois - What’s the point of this thread, anyway?I made the rather innocuous comment, I thought, that glaciers were not essential to human water consumption, over on another thread. That was so upsetting/maddening/flabbergasting or whatever to CC that he started this thread and kept poking me to come over to it, so I figured, what the heck, I'll give it a go. See: http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewreply/223731/ Since then I have heard all kinds of horror stories about how whole regions of water dependency are going to have collapsed agriculture, variously 370 million or 2 billion people are at dire risk, all due to glaciers melting on the inhabited continents (not Antarctica or Greenland). I am just the kind of guy that goes around debunking nonsense and I have inadvertently kicked a nest of it here and the rest is history...
CC - dusty has set up his argument so that the only thing that matters about glaciers is their immediate availability for human consumption.Nope, I have isolated my arguments so as to avoid conflating them. I call that leading by example. Hopefully folks here will begin to catch on.
2. Melting of glaciers everyplace else will have almost no impact on human consumption of water and will actually open up additional land for life that is presently locked in a lifeless state by the deadly land ice.But this is fantasy. Please provide some serious source that explain and support your notion?
Here’s an example of these clowns being totally unaware of what they are actually saying.
It's the hubristic stupidity that dusty was trotting out that caused me to start this thread and start sharing serious information sources - not that dusty seems to have had any time for any of that.Lois - What’s the point of this thread, anyway?I made the rather innocuous comment, I thought, that glaciers were not essential to human water consumption, over on another thread. That was so upsetting/maddening/flabbergasting or whatever to CC that he started this thread and kept poking me to come over to it, so I figured, what the heck, I'll give it a go. See: http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewreply/223731/ Since then I have heard all kinds of horror stories about how whole regions of water dependency are going to have collapsed agriculture, variously 370 million or 2 billion people are at dire risk, all due to glaciers melting on the inhabited continents (not Antarctica or Greenland). I am just the kind of guy that goes around debunking nonsense and I have inadvertently kicked a nest of it here and the rest is history...
Posted: 12 May 2016 06:42 AM #46 Glaciers are not “essential". Oh yes, the end is nigh. No, our global ecosystem is not going to collapse because some smelt died in the delta of California, or some species in a rainforest went extinct.
Posted: 12 May 2016 06:49 AM #47 Oh yes, the end is nigh. No, our global ecosystem is not going to collapse because some smelt died in the delta of California, or some species in a rainforest went extinct.
Posted: 15 May 2016 07:34 AM #60 If the glaciers disappear from Glacier then we can change the name, so what? We change the names of places frequently. How is this some kind of disaster? Melting glaciers will lead to more growth, not less, at least in the region of the glacier. Not much grows on or under a glacier. The glacier kills everything in its path. When it melts a whole new ecosystem will spring up, it always does, else Wisconsin would be a wasteland instead of the water soaked lush and beautiful place it became after the ice melted.
Posted: 15 May 2016 07:46 AM #61 So where is counter evidence and reasoning to my “bullshit"? Lot’s of pretty pictures of glaciers. No pictures of the wildlife that will be able to grow once the deadly ice melts. Mountain ice does not produce water, but ice stores water. So do underground aquifers and reservoirs. When a glacier melts land is recovered for growth. We do not get a barren landscape after the glacier melts. Glaciers are not only not essential, they are deadly to all life in their path. Please provide a link to all the lush life living under, in, or on top of our glaciers.
Oh and the gloom and doom is guaranteed by the willful ignorance
and the profound disregard we display towards our planet’s processes.
Not by trying to understand what is going on upon our planet!
CC - 2% becomes the critical difference for downstream stakeholders,Your own source says glaciers are only 2%, yet somehow you manage to turn that around as "the critical difference"! No mention is made of the fact that when the glaciers are gone that 2% will still flow, but at a different rate. The reason is that glaciers do not produce water, they only delay precipitation. If the glacier is stable in size then the melt equals the precipitation that lands on it. Take the glacier away and that precipitation still flows, but at different rates throughout the year. Your own source says precipitation is increasing! Yet, somehow, a shift in the timing of 2% of water flow in a trend of increasing annual precipitation is just a disastrous situation. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011WR011590/pdf I have no knowledge of your personal life, but did you once have a PCP or crystal meth problem? Were you in a combat zone or tortured as a POW? Were you kidnapped and raped and tortured as a child? I mean what in the world has turned you into such a paranoid hand wringing doomsday proselytizer? Dude, it's a beautiful day, just go outside. Sun, rain, snow...it's all good man. In fact, I love the weather. Sure, I love a warm sunny day, but I like the rain. I like to run in the rain and ride my bike in the rain. I look up when I go outside. People think I am crazy walking around looking at the clouds and the stars. I love the weather and the sky, all kinds. It's all good. The end is not nigh. Change happens. Some of if will be very challenging. But we got through WWII and all kinds of bad things. We are going to be ok. Just enjoy this great but all too short life and stop fretting so much over every alarmist scare site out there.
CC - Glacier Reservoirs: Glaciers are natural reservoirs storing water as ice instead of using a dam.Looks like we might need to build a few more dams. On the plus side they could provide some clean electricity. Take a deep breath my friend, we are going to be OK. Building a few dams is not the end of our agriculture or social structure.
SP - 2. Melting of glaciers everyplace else will have almost no impact on human consumption of water and will actually open up additional land for life that is presently locked in a lifeless state by the deadly land ice. CC - But this is fantasy. Please provide some serious source that explain and support your notion?Actually that is 2 basic ideas I presented, and I have covered the first at length, so I will answer the second. "Melting of glaciers everyplace else ... will actually open up additional land for life that is presently locked in a lifeless state by the deadly land ice. This should be obvious, do you really need an explanation for this? Glaciers have virtually no life under, in, or on top of them. The ice kills virtually everything on the land it occupies. When the ice melts life moves in, it always does. Seeds blow in or get transported by animals. Ground cover grows. Trees grow. Animals move in. They always do. In place of barren ice we will have vibrant ecosystems, mountain wildlife. Do you really need a source to explain how the spread of life works? The ice age was a very bad time for life in Northern North America. I am glad it is mostly over. There are some vestiges of the deadly ice still smothering patches of land. When that ice is gone those last bits of land will spring forth with life just like all the rest of the land did when it was uncovered.
No, you are sharing you dreamy conviction.The challenge was to produce some serious science support this.
You opinion don’t mean squat, and that’s all you been sharing.
Have you ever actually seen a valley where the glacier has receded?
Talk a close look at the soil the glacier has been hiding from us.
Hint, you are going to have to look mighty, mighty close to find any.
Now why not scamper off and read up on some of those fine learning opportunities I’ve offered.
Perhaps, you’ll recognize some dimension you were totally oblivious.
And trust me I know how many surprises there are when you make a sincere effort to learn about our planet, and it’s ways and means.
Spoken like a true ideologue. When evidence contradicts your beliefs, just dismiss the evidence.DarronS - You dismiss the 370 million people who depend upon glaciers for fresh water as inconsequential.I dismiss that figure as hyperbolic irrational nonsense completely unsupported by facts or reason.
Do you really need a source to explain how the spread of life works?Yes! Why not produce that book that describes the transition form a barren mountain valley to a lush farming valley. I wonder have you ever noticed how all the great farm land is in lower lying areas, that receive glacier (including glacier milk - know what that is?) runoff for millennia on end.
Do you really need a source to explain how the spread of life works?Yes! Why not produce that book that describes the transition form a barren mountain valley to a lush farming valley. I wonder have you ever noticed how all the great farm land is in lower lying areas, that receive glacier (including glacier milk - know what that is?) runoff for millennia on end. Come on CC. Most of the great American farm land that cannot solely depend on rain water, are fed by canals. And most canals are fed from dams, not glaciers. Thus glaciers are nothing more that mother nature’s dams. Many rivers would dry up during the time the farms needs the water if it was not for the dams. Dams also produce electric power. If the glacier feeding the dam was to disappear, the water would still fall as rain and the dams would still provide water to the farms when needed. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_canals_in_the_United_States
The bottom line is that some science “outlets” like to categorize “ice caps” like the ones in Greenland and The Antarctic as “glaciers”.
If you take away these 2 polar ice caps, the remaining glaciers on the planet account for very little of the fresh water in the world.
And seeing as those two polar ice caps provide no water for anyone…there out of the question.
The vast majority of fresh water comes from the water cycle and lakes, rivers, and aquifers.
Glaciers have no impact on the water supply, unless they melt! And then not much.
Precipitation is what’s important. That’s essential!
Not glaciers.
The obtuseness is unfucking believable.
That’s why the future holds nothing but doom and gloom.
Zero thoughtfulness, zero interest in learning, beating down supposed (and mostly self-created) enemies is all you clowns know.
You have no clue about our living infinitely interconnected biosphere nor how the climate system operates. Worse you don’t care to learn.
But seriously folks. . . . . . .
Unfortunately, Ignorance Feels Blissful: The Dunning-Kruger Effect By Leigh Pretnar Cousins, MS http://blogs.psychcentral.com/always-learning/2016/04/unfortunately-ignorance-feels-blissful-the-dunning-kruger-effect/ . . . Psychologists call this the Dunning-Kruger Effect, in which ignorant people often have great confidence in their “knowledge," whereas better-informed people tend to doubt themselves. This counter-intuitive effect does make some sense: When a person knows little about a subject, the subject seems simple! Then, as the person learns more, she begins to glimpse the depth and complexity and becomes less sure of her expertise. The Dunning-Kruger Effect is the stuff of both comedy and tragedy in adult decision-making. Next time you click on the news to see a politician ranting in simplistic terms about some highly nuanced issue he clearly knows nothing about, or you observe an outsider blithely stepping into a complex situation to “solve" it, you are seeing the Dunning-Kruger Effect in action. Dunning-Kruger helps explain those sweeping generalizations adolescents often make. . . .
The Dunning-Kruger Effect: Are the Stupid Too Stupid to Realize They’re Stupid? February 23, 2015 by Bob Seidensticker http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2015/02/the-dunning-kruger-effect-are-the-stupid-too-stupid-to-realize-theyre-stupid/
The obtuseness is unfucking believable. That's why the future holds nothing but doom and gloom. Zero thoughtfulness, zero interest in learning, beating down supposed (and mostly self-created) enemies is all you clowns know. You have no clue about our living infinitely interconnected biosphere nor how the climate system operates. Worse you don't care to learn.Agreed. From Dusty's petty squabbling to Yohe's fantasies to Vy's nonsense they're all missing the big picture, and proud of it. We have met the enemy and they are us.