It seems those glaciers just don’t melt at a set rate, and that projections based upon a rapid-melt year are therefore unnecessarily alarmist – and not indicative of a trend.

A U.S. study suggests two of Greenland's largest glaciers are melting at variable rates and not at an increasing trend.

The study, led by Ian Howat, a researcher with the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center and the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory, shows the glaciers shrank dramatically and dumped twice as much ice into the sea during a period of less than a year between 2004 and 2005.

But then, fewer than two years later, they returned to near their previous rates of discharge.

Howat says such variability during such a short time underlines the problem in assuming glacial melting and sea level rise will necessarily occur at a steady upward trajectory.

"Our main point is that the behavior of these glaciers can change a lot from year to year, so we can't assume to know the future behavior from short records of recent changes," he said. "Future warming may lead to rapid pulses of retreat and increased discharge rather than a long, steady drawdown."

The research is online in the journal Science Express.

And then there is this little tidbit from India about glaciers in the Himalayas.

Believe it or not. There are only about a dozen scientists working on 9,575 glaciers in India under the aegis of the Geological Society of India. Is the available data enough to believe that the glaciers are retreating due to global warming?

Some experts have questioned the alarmists theory on global warming leading to shrinkage of Himalayan glaciers. VK Raina, a leading glaciologist and former ADG of GSI is one among them.

He feels that the research on Indian glaciers is negligible. Nothing but the remote sensing data forms the basis of these alarmists observations and not on the spot research.

Raina told the Hindustan Times that out of 9,575 glaciers in India, till date, research has been conducted only on about 50. Nearly 200 years data has shown that nothing abnormal has occurred in any of these glaciers.

Now if nothing abnormal is happening to the glaciers, could it be that maybe, just maybe, global warming is a crock of steaming excrement perpetrated by scientific light-weights for political purposes?

Posted by: Greg at 01:02 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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