hackr - I did not ask about anything other than Glacier National Park. You did not say anything about any changes in the park over the last 30 yearsI don't necessarily limit my answers to direct and specific responses to questions. Glacier is just one of our great parks. I have been to many. They are all alive and vibrant. 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? Or we can keep the name but extend the hiking trails into the areas previously covered with glaciers. This is a fascinating place to visit, such as in Wisconsin, where one can study the aftermath of ice. http://www.mfairlady.com/wiscglacialmounds/ There are others such as Kettle Moraine on the Ice Age Trail. Here you can go to see for yourself the aftereffects of ice flow on land http://www.iceagetrail.org/ice-age-trail/ice-age-trail-landscape-geology/ See how beautiful the world can be after the ice melts? 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. Glaciers do not produce water. Precipitation produces water. History has shown that when the Earth was warmer we had abundant life, not some kind of barren wasteland.
hackr - What simplistic bullsh!t. http://www.aspenideas.org/session/“rivers-ice"-vanishing-glaciers-greater-himalaya But then only the United States and Americans matter. Oh, sorry. This thread is about Mars. Won’t getting to Mars require brains? psikSo 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.
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?How are these anything other than idiotic questions? We've told you why glaciers are important. CC even started a thread on it. Yet you continue to pull stupid ideas out of thin air and present them as if they are profound.
Please provide a link to all the lush life living under, in, or on top of our glaciers.There you go again. You're sounding like the religious fundies that come here and promote their fact-free ideologies.
DarronS - Simplistic is too soft a word here. Ignorant comes closer, but still does not convey the extent of the bullshit in Stardusty’s post. Anyone with a better than double-digit IQ should be able to figure out the problem; glaciers disappear when snow does not fall. If the precipitation does not fall then glaciers disappear. It is that simple.Uhm, Darron, no, you forgot one itty bitty little factor, temperature. Lots of regions with very heavy snowfall have no glaciers. It is not cold enough there for the glaciers to accumulate. Ya know, dude, you might want to think things through a but more before tossing out "simplistic" and "ignorant", "gnorant, idiotic, ridiculous statements " kinda makes you look, well...
Tiny percentage? You need to study the Earth’s hydrological cycle.You need to study geometry. What percentage of the Earth's surface outside Antarctica and Greenland is covered by glaciers? For example Glaciers cover North America 124,000 square kilometers https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/glaciers/questions/located.html Total land North America - 24,247,039 square km http://geography.about.com/od/lists/a/largecontinent.htm So, 0.5% of North America is covered by glaciers. Only the precipitation that falls on the glacier is stored in the glacier, and only 0.5% of our land area has this method of storage. 99.5% of land in North America does not store water in glaciers. Glaciers are a tiny percentage of water storage, with lakes and underground aquifers dwarfing glaciers in volume. Glaciers are not essential and if all our North American glaciers melt it will have virtually zero impact on our water supply and will in fact actually open up land for growth that the glaciers are presently keeping dead and barren.
Stardusty Psyche - 15 May 2016 07:34 AM 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? How are these anything other than idiotic questions? We’ve told you why glaciers are important. CC even started a thread on it. Yet you continue to pull stupid ideas out of thin air and present them as if they are profound. Please provide a link to all the lush life living under, in, or on top of our glaciers. There you go again. You’re sounding like the religious fundies that come here and promote their fact-free ideologies.Unresponsive namecalling. No answers to simple questions. How is renaming a park a human disaster? Can you send me a link to the lush life living under, in, or on top of glaciers? Glaciers are deadly to all life in their paths. When they melt the barren landscape of ice is replaced with a vibrant ecosystem. I sent you links to Wisconsin where this fact is abundantly in evidence. Your vapid namecalling is utterly unimpressive.
Once again, your ignorance is showing. See http://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthglacier.html
Almost ten percent of the world's land mass is covered with glaciers...
Glaciers store about 69% of the world's freshwater, and if all land ice melted the seas would rise about 70 meters (about 230 feet).As I said, you need to study this subject instead of spouting off the top of your head. I didn't respond to your question about renaming Glacier National Park because it is a stupid question, and irrelevant to anything we are discussing, aka a red herring.
ROFLMAO OH YES, let's run for our live from the speeding glaciers! psikhackr - What simplistic bullsh!t. http://www.aspenideas.org/session/“rivers-ice"-vanishing-glaciers-greater-himalaya But then only the United States and Americans matter. Oh, sorry. This thread is about Mars. Won’t getting to Mars require brains? psikSo 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.
Once again, your ignorance is showing. See http://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthglacier.html Almost ten percent of the world’s land mass is covered with glaciers… Glaciers store about 69% of the world’s freshwater, and if all land ice melted the seas would rise about 70 meters (about 230 feet). As I said, you need to study this subject instead of spouting off the top of your head. I didn’t respond to your question about renaming Glacier National Park because it is a stupid question, and irrelevant to anything we are discussing, aka a red herring. Signature You cannot have a rational discussion with someone who holds irrational beliefs.So when are you going to begin having a rational discussion as opposed to failing to address any of my rational points and instead tossing out meaningless ad hominems? I specified outside of Antarctica and Greenland because those ice sheets do nothing to add to freshwater supplies for the world population. We don't need glaciers in Glacier National Park. If they melt then the barren wasteland occupied by the glaciers will become a vibrant ecosystem of life, instead of the uninhabitable zone it presently is. There is almost no life in Antarctica living on, in, or below the ice. The only things that can live are a few microorganisms and marine life at the very edges that must get their food from the ocean, not the ice. Glaciers cover just 0.5% of North America, store just a small fraction of our stored water, and produce no water themselves. We don't need them and we might well be better off without them by gaining a bit of habital land they now hold in a barren state.
hackr - ROFLMAO OH YES, let’s run for our live from the speeding glaciers!Where glaciers exist life is nearly eliminated. When glaciers melt life springs forth in abundance on the once barren land. But I guess you are too busy rolling on the floor laughing your ass off to be able to follow that simple bit of reasoning. Visit Wisconsin. Hike the Ice Age Trail. You will find beautiful abundant life where there used to be only deadly ice locking the land in lifelessness. It was called the Ice Age and I, for one, am glad it is over.
So when are you going to begin having a rational discussion as opposed to failing to address any of my rational points and instead tossing out meaningless ad hominems?As soon as you offer some rational points to discuss. BTW, calling your comments ignorant is not an ad hominem. An ad hominem is an attack on a person's character, such as "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries."
Tomorrow, next years, next decades are coming rapidly, trust me, I know how fast a half century can fly by. And a half century from now you can be sure major coastal infrastructure will be destroyed, and the population "redistribution", we don't want to be there, I'm sure. But many will be dealing with it. Don't think there will be major shifts in priorities?Trust CC, he knows. He knows how to derail another thread into alarmist doom and destruction. Wanna talk about cupcakes? CC can make it about AGW. He knows man.
DarronS - As soon as you offer some rational points to discussDodge. 0.5% of North America is covered with Glaciers. They produce no water and only store a very small fraction of precipitation because only the precipitation that falls on them gets stored. The land covered by glaciers is nearly lifeless. When glaciers melt life can and does flourish on that previously barren land. We don't need glaciers in a national park or any place else in North America.
So you seem have a problem analysing cause, effects and side effects. Are you saying that life is abundant where it is cold enough to produce galaciers but insufficient precipitation to cause them? psikhackr - ROFLMAO OH YES, let’s run for our live from the speeding glaciers!Where glaciers exist life is nearly eliminated. When glaciers melt life springs forth in abundance on the once barren land.
hackr - So you seem have a problem analysing cause, effects and side effects. Are you saying that life is abundant where it is cold enough to produce galaciers but insufficient precipitation to cause them?I said: "Where glaciers exist life is nearly eliminated." Ok, where does a glacier exist? Where does anything exist? Where it is located. I hate make such a preposterously obvious statement but you do not seem to understand my simple statement. At the location of the glacier, the place where the glacier exists, nearly all life is eliminated. Almost nothing lives under, in, or on top of a glacier. A glacier is almost devoid of life. I said: "When glaciers melt life springs forth in abundance on the once barren land." So, when a glacier melts it is said to retreat, or shrink. Land previously covered by life killing ice is then exposed. Once land is exposed life inevitably moves in. For example, during the Ice Age much of North America was covered in ice. That ice killed everything in its path. As the ice advanced all vegetation and wildlife in its path that could not move was killed. When the Earth warmed and the deadly ice retreated the land was exposed again at which time life moved back in and we now have lush ecosystems growing on the glacier carved landscapes of North America. So, I don't know what the folks here have invested in glaciers as these wonderful and supposedly "essential" features. I have been on a glacier. They are indeed beautiful. They are also dangerous and devoid of any apparent life.
Tomorrow, next years, next decades are coming rapidly, trust me, I know how fast a half century can fly by. And a half century from now you can be sure major coastal infrastructure will be destroyed, and the population "redistribution", we don't want to be there, I'm sure. But many will be dealing with it. Don't think there will be major shifts in priorities?Trust CC, he knows. He knows how to derail another thread into alarmist doom and destruction. Wanna talk about cupcakes? CC can make it about AGW. He knows man."VYAZMA" you sound more and more like a pissed off teenager all the time. This topic was about the feasibility and appropriateness of spending vast energy and treasure on going to Mars. And it was being ignored, to boot. I notice no one was able to bring it back to why such an investment would make sense in light of today's real challenges here on Earth. ' If you can't see how that sort of long term commitment is heading toward a direct intersection with the climate change happening on our planet, than you plainly have never spent any serious time learning to understand today's realities. We will be spending an ever larger percentage of our GNP on disaster relief and rebuilding, but your kind simply can't imagine it,... refuse to imagine,… get enraged when anyone else dares consider facts and observations and an appreciation for our complex society and how utterly dependent it is on a healthy biosphere. Nah you just refuse to imagine such a thing, simply refuse. If someone like me can come up with facts and has the balls to stand eye ball to eye ball with the Republican/libertarian PR campaign of malicious lies and slander. Well you don't have any facts to confront me. What else is left. You don't have a rational argument, but you got a lot of rage and adolescent hatred, so what else is there to do LOOK AT THAT CC THE FLAMING DRUG HEAD CAN'T EVEN WHIP HIS OWN ASS BUT HE'LL TURN ANY ARGUMENT INTO AGW, hahahaha. Yippy, you win. Stupid is as stupid does "VYAZMA" - I can't bottom that! If you ever want to have a grown up argument about facts and rational thinking and trends, I'd be first to welcome it. If you ever decided that learning was your thing, I'd celebrate it.
That may be the problem dusty, that seems all you are capable of seeing, and you have no interest in looking any deeper. Have you ever studied ecological systems? Have you ever studies California's mountain hydrology and it's impact on the valley? or the relationship between glaciers and mountain weather patterns and how glaciers actually act as meteorological anchored of sorts for regional weather patterns? I don't think you know a thing about California glaciers, don't think you've never pondered the cascading consequences to California's hydrology of losing them. Probably aren't even concerned about California's droughthackr - What simplistic bullsh!t. http://www.aspenideas.org/session/“rivers-ice"-vanishing-glaciers-greater-himalaya But then only the United States and Americans matter. Oh, sorry. This thread is about Mars. Won’t getting to Mars require brains? psikSo 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.
cc - You display such a flippant disregard, yet you expect us to prove something to you,Indeed, there is always some crackpot crying "the end is nigh", and I do indeed have a flippant disregard for the endless stream of doomsday prophesies. And yes, indeed, if you want your particular doomsday prophesy to be taken seriously the burden is most certainly on you to prove your point.
you got your contempt for our planet’s processesI have neither contempt nor love for our planet's processes. They simply exist. They are not static. History has shown that life persists though the changes.
That’s a bullshitter in action not any serious student of life and our Earth.Indeed, my reaction to a crowd that has some kind of fetish for large pieces of ice that are holding land in a state of lifelessness. 0.5% of land in North America is covered in glaciers, yet, somehow, if they melt whole regions are going to dry up. Well, North America used to be covered in glaciers down to what is now the Northern USA. Those glaciers are almost all gone yet somehow North America remains saturated with water, but, if that last little percent go, watch out folks, it's doomsday for sure. And what would we call Glacier National Park if there isn't any glacier any more? Oh yes, a human catastrophe indeed, to have to rename a park, I don't see how we will live through it.
Just so we know what you’re going on about
That may be the problem dusty, that seems all you are capable of seeing, and you have no interest in looking any deeper. Have you ever studied ecological systems? Have you ever studies California's mountain hydrology and it's impact on the valley? or the relationship between glaciers and mountain weather patterns and how glaciers actually act as meteorological anchored of sorts for regional weather patterns? I don't think you know a thing about California glaciers, don't think you've never pondered the cascading consequences to California's hydrology of losing them. Probably aren't even concerned about California's droughthackr - What simplistic bullsh!t. http://www.aspenideas.org/session/“rivers-ice"-vanishing-glaciers-greater-himalaya But then only the United States and Americans matter. Oh, sorry. This thread is about Mars. Won’t getting to Mars require brains? psikSo 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.
If someone like me can come up with facts and has the balls to stand eye ball to eye ball with the Republican/libertarian PR campaign of malicious lies and slander.But you don't CC. You hide here with an audience of about 5-7 people(and some drifting window shoppers) and repeat the same thing over and over. You're like a broken record.
cc - Just so we know what you’re going on aboutWas there some new content in the repost? I took another look at the California glaciers. You know the place many people say is the most beautiful place in California? Yosemite, of course. Formed by glaciers but fortunately, the glaciers all melted there and are gone. If the valley was still filled with ice nothing would be growing there. Now that the ice is gone we can visit and enjoy all the wonderful life in the ecosystem. Here is an interesting site on the subject http://glaciers.research.pdx.edu/glaciers-california According to the map there are almost no glaciers in Northern California, yet Northern California is a wonderful living forested place that also supports vast agriculture in the valleys and hills. What few there are in Northern California are not much more then crags in the rocks where the snow piles deep enough and is up high enough that it does not melt in the summer. Why these small and scattered areas of year round snow pack are thought to be "essential" truly is beyond me. Yes, they do provide some amount of storage, but there are lots of places that get along just fine without such storage. What shrinking glaciers do tell us is that the world is in fact warming. So does shrinking sea ice. The good news about warming is that it seems to be driving increased snowfall such that Antarctica is actually growing its ice storage, at least for now. Overall, however, in the long term, warming is likely to lead to sea level rise as land ice melts. That is a long term problem for coastal regions and island nations.