Christina Justice, April, 25 2011
The Myth: Glaciers are Growing.
What the Science Really Says:
The Myth that glaciers are growing originates from multiple pathways climate skeptics use in their reasoning for its falsity; including claims to conspiracy, seeking to assign the observed affects to things separate from climate change, and using data to make assumptions that have not been scientifically reviewed.
James Taylor uses an article in the magazine Nature as well as misprints of the IPCC that Gore used in his movie the inconvenient truth to make the broad statement that global warming is not causing glaciers to melt. The use of Mt. Kilimanjaro as a case study of global warming as a whole is completely biased. There are many different components to all elements of global warming and climate change and they are all interrelated. The melting of Kilimanjaro may not be directly related to global warming but it is still being caused by humans inducing changes on our surroundings and transforming the land for our own needs. While it is not as highly advertized, land use is one of these components and it is now recognized by the IPCC as a major cause of climate change. There is ample evidence that states that the Earths average temperature is increasing so saying that the melting of the glaciers is not due to global warming in this one case and to deforestation instead, has no say in the overall trend of global warming.
Many climate skeptics use the misprint in the IPCC fourth assessment report to refute the claims of the entire report and existence of global warming saying if that the scientists are attempting to alarm the public but falsifying facts so as to prompt action. The claim made was that the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035. This statement was indeed false and not originated from peer reviewed literature nor did it meet the standards of evidence. Within 3000 pages one mistake which was not even included in the Technical Summary, the Summary for Policymakers, or the Synthesis Report does not speak to the assessment as a whole or to the writers. The IPCC Assessment reports are peer reviewed multiple times and are even criticized as being too conservative on their estimates of the effects of global warming so to say that because of this one error in future projections speaks to the paper and its conclusions as a whole is ridiculous. The conclusions that climate change is indeed happening and is having drastic effects on ecosystems are still valid and have a plethora of scientific data to back this up. Skeptics simply try to highlight this error to undermine climate change science as a whole which only serves to slow down the process of reacting to climate change and any efforts to mitigate this. Another backing behind this climate myth and the falsity of climate change is the claim that after years of decline, glaciers in Norway are again growing, reports the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE). This statement serving as a source of proof of the inexistence of climate change has no scientific strength. Climate change is based on long term climate changes not the year to year fluctuations of glaciers and using statistics of small numbers to try and make this correlation is false. Overall there is a very strong trend in the trend of declining glaciers. The past two years of the growing glaciers could be due to many different things such as especially cold winters and summers so the snow is able to accumulate more readily. What makes this claim unrealistic is that climate and weather are two very different things. Climate is formed over the period of 30 plus years. The year to year variation of ice melt will not prove anything in the realm of climate and cannot speak to the subject of climate change.
Overall the truth is that there is long-term satellite data that has mapped out the growth and decline of glaciers and show the overwhelming trend that glaciers are indeed receding. Despite all other speculation this fact is irrefutable and speaks for itself in defense of the validity of climate change.
Bibliography Asher, Mike. 25 November 27, 2008, ÒGlaciers in Norway Alaska Growing AgainÓ, The Daily Tech. April 25, 2011.