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Weiye Loh

Himalayan glaciers not melting because of climate change, report finds - Telegraph - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...imate-change-report-finds.html

Glaciers Climate Science AGW

shared by Weiye Loh on 30 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Himalayan glaciers are actually advancing rather than retreating, claims the first major study since a controversial UN report said they would be melted within quarter of a century.
  • Researchers have discovered that contrary to popular belief half of the ice flows in the Karakoram range of the mountains are actually growing rather than shrinking.
  • The discovery adds a new twist to the row over whether global warming is causing the world's highest mountain range to lose its ice cover.
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  • It further challenges claims made in a 2007 report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the glaciers would be gone by 2035.
  • Although the head of the panel Dr Rajendra Pachauri later admitted the claim was an error gleaned from unchecked research, he maintained that global warming was melting the glaciers at "a rapid rate", threatening floods throughout north India.
  • The new study by scientists at the Universities of California and Potsdam has found that half of the glaciers in the Karakoram range, in the northwestern Himlaya, are in fact advancing and that global warming is not the deciding factor in whether a glacier survives or melts.
  • Dr Bodo Bookhagen, Dirk Scherler and Manfred Strecker studied 286 glaciers between the Hindu Kush on the Afghan-Pakistan border to Bhutan, taking in six areas.Their report, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, found the key factor affecting their advance or retreat is the amount of debris – rocks and mud – strewn on their surface, not the general nature of climate change.
  • Glaciers surrounded by high mountains and covered with more than two centimetres of debris are protected from melting.Debris-covered glaciers are common in the rugged central Himalaya, but they are almost absent in subdued landscapes on the Tibetan Plateau, where retreat rates are higher.
  • In contrast, more than 50 per cent of observed glaciers in the Karakoram region in the northwestern Himalaya are advancing or stable.
  • "Our study shows that there is no uniform response of Himalayan glaciers to climate change and highlights the importance of debris cover for understanding glacier retreat, an effect that has so far been neglected in predictions of future water availability or global sea level," the authors concluded.
  • Dr Bookhagen said their report had shown "there is no stereotypical Himalayan glacier" in contrast to the UN's climate change report which, he said, "lumps all Himalayan glaciers together."
  • Dr Pachauri, head of the Nobel prize-winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has remained silent on the matter since he was forced to admit his report's claim that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 was an error and had not been sourced from a peer-reviewed scientific journal. It came from a World Wildlife Fund report.
  • this latest tawdry addition to the pathetic lies of the Reality Deniers. If you go to a proper source which quotes the full study such as:http://www.sciencedaily.com/re...you discover that the findings of this study are rather different to those portrayed here.
  • only way to consistently maintain a lie is to refuse point-blank to publish ALL the findings of a study, but to cherry-pick the bits which are consistent with the ongoing lie, while ignoring the rest.
  • Bookhagen noted that glaciers in the Karakoram region of Northwestern Himalaya are mostly stagnating. However, glaciers in the Western, Central, and Eastern Himalaya are retreating, with the highest retreat rates -- approximately 8 meters per year -- in the Western Himalayan Mountains. The authors found that half of the studied glaciers in the Karakoram region are stable or advancing, whereas about two-thirds are in retreat elsewhere throughout High Asia
  • glaciers in the steep Himalaya are not only affected by temperature and precipitation, but also by debris coverage, and have no uniform and less predictable response, explained the authors. The debris coverage may be one of the missing links to creating a more coherent picture of glacial behavior throughout all mountains. The scientists contrast this Himalayan glacial study with glaciers from the gently dipping, low-relief Tibetan Plateau that have no debris coverage. Those glaciers behave in a different way, and their frontal changes can be explained by temperature and precipitation changes.
Weiye Loh

Spatially variable response of Himalayan glaciers to climate change affected by debris ... - 0 views

www.nature.com/...ngeo1068.html

Glaciers Climate Science AGW

shared by Weiye Loh on 30 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Controversy about the current state and future evolution of Himalayan glaciers has been stirred up by erroneous statements in the fourth report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change1, 2.
  • Variable retreat rates3, 4, 5, 6 and a paucity of glacial mass-balance data7, 8 make it difficult to develop a coherent picture of regional climate-change impacts in the region.
  • we report remotely-sensed frontal changes and surface velocities from glaciers in the greater Himalaya between 2000 and 2008 that provide evidence for strong spatial variations in glacier behaviour which are linked to topography and climate.
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  • More than 65% of the monsoon-influenced glaciers that we observed are retreating, but heavily debris-covered glaciers with stagnant low-gradient terminus regions typically have stable fronts. Debris-covered glaciers are common in the rugged central Himalaya, but they are almost absent in subdued landscapes on the Tibetan Plateau, where retreat rates are higher. In contrast, more than 50% of observed glaciers in the westerlies-influenced Karakoram region in the northwestern Himalaya are advancing or stable.
  • Our study shows that there is no uniform response of Himalayan glaciers to climate change and highlights the importance of debris cover for understanding glacier retreat, an effect that has so far been neglected in predictions of future water availability9, 10 or global sea level11.
Weiye Loh

Debris on certain Himalayan glaciers may prevent melting - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...110124162708.htm

Glaciers Climate Science AGW

shared by Weiye Loh on 30 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • ScienceDaily (Jan. 25, 2011) — A new scientific study shows that debris coverage -- pebbles, rocks, and debris from surrounding mountains -- may be a missing link in the understanding of the decline of glaciers. Debris is distinct from soot and dust, according to the scientists.
  • Experts have stated that global warming is a key element in the melting of glaciers worldwide.
  • With the aid of new remote-sensing methods and satellite images, we identified debris coverage to be an important contributor to glacial advance and retreat behaviors," said Bookhagen. "This parameter has been almost completely neglected in previous Himalayan and other mountainous region studies, although its impact has been known for some time.
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  • "There is no 'stereotypical' Himalayan glacier," said Bookhagen. "This is in clear contrast to the IPCC reports that lumps all Himalayan glaciers together."
  • Bookhagen noted that glaciers in the Karakoram region of Northwestern Himalaya are mostly stagnating. However, glaciers in the Western, Central, and Eastern Himalaya are retreating, with the highest retreat rates -- approximately 8 meters per year -- in the Western Himalayan Mountains. The authors found that half of the studied glaciers in the Karakoram region are stable or advancing, whereas about two-thirds are in retreat elsewhere throughout High Asia. This is in contrast to the prevailing notion that all glaciers in the tropics are retreating.
  • debris cover has the opposite effect of soot and dust on glaciers. Debris coverage thickness above 2 centimeters, or about a half an inch, 'shields' the glacier and prevents melting. This is the case for many Himalayan glaciers that are surrounded by towering mountains that almost continuously shed pebbles, debris, and rocks onto the glacier.
  • glaciers in the steep Himalaya are not only affected by temperature and precipitation, but also by debris coverage, and have no uniform and less predictable response, explained the authors. The debris coverage may be one of the missing links to creating a more coherent picture of glacial behavior throughout all mountains. The scientists contrast this Himalayan glacial study with glaciers from the gently dipping, low-relief Tibetan Plateau that have no debris coverage. Those glaciers behave in a different way, and their frontal changes can be explained by temperature and precipitation changes.
Weiye Loh

Op-Ed Columnist - Our Beaker Is Starting to Boil - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...18kristof.html

Global Warming Photography

shared by Weiye Loh on 18 Jul 10 - Cached
  • David Breashears is one of America’s legendary mountain climbers, a man who has climbed Mount Everest five times and led the Everest IMAX film team in 1996.
  • These days, Mr. Breashears is still climbing the Himalayas, but he is lugging more than pitons and ice axes. He’s also carrying special cameras to document stunning declines in glaciers on the roof of the world.
  • he dug out archive photos from early Himalayan expeditions, and then journeyed across ridges and crevasses to photograph from the exact same spots. The pairs of matched photographs, old and new, are staggering. Time and again, the same glaciers have shrunk drastically in every direction, often losing hundreds of feet in height.
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  • Lens: Photos Reveal Receding Himalaya Glaciers (July 16, 2010)
  • most Himalayan glaciers are in retreat for three reasons. First is the overall warming tied to carbon emissions. Second, rain and snow patterns are changing, so that less new snow is added to replace what melts. Third, pollution from trucks and smoke covers glaciers with carbon soot so that their surfaces become darker and less reflective — causing them to melt more quickly.
Weiye Loh

Photos Reveal Receding Himalaya Glaciers - Lens Blog - NYTimes.com - 0 views

lens.blogs.nytimes.com/...archive-22

Global Warming Photography

shared by Weiye Loh on 18 Jul 10 - Cached
  • “I’ve climbed Everest five times, and I would rather do that again than reach some of these photo points,” Mr. Breashears said. “Climbers, they choose good routes. A photographer chooses a position; a vantage point.”
  • Weiye Loh on 18 Jul 10
     
    July 16, 2010, 5:00 PM Photos Reveal Receding Himalaya Glaciers By KERRI MACDONALD
Weiye Loh

Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: Bringing it Home - 0 views

rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/...bringing-it-home.html

Journalism Science Climate Science Disaster

shared by Weiye Loh on 26 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Writing at MIT's Knight Science Journalism Tracker, Charles Petit breathlessly announces to journalists that the scientific community has now given a green light to blaming contemporary disasters on the emissions of greenhouse gases
  • We recently published a paper showing that the media overall has done an excellent job on its reporting of scientific projections of sea level rise. I suspect that a similar analysis of the issue of disasters and climate change would not result in such favorable results. Of course, looking at the cover of Nature above, it might be understandable why this would be the case.
  • Weiye Loh on 26 Feb 11
     
    An official shift may just have occurred not only in news coverage of climate change, but the way that careful scientists  talk about it. Till now blaming specific storms on climate change has been frowned upon. And it still is, if one is speaking of an isolated event. But something very much like blaming global warming for what is happening today, right now, outside the window has just gotten endorsement on the cover of Nature. Its photo of a flooded European village has splashed across it, "THE HUMAN FACTOR." Extreme rains in many regions, it tells the scientific community, is not merely consistent with what to expect from global warming,  but herald its arrival. This is a good deal more immediate than saying, as people have for some time, that glaciers are shrinking and seas are rising due to the effects of greenhouse gases. This brings it home.
Weiye Loh

Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: ClimateWire Correction Request - 0 views

rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/...tewire-correction-request.html

Science Communication Journalism

shared by Weiye Loh on 08 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Dear Debra- Your article today contains several major errors in its reporting of the WSJ conference last week. 1. I did not say that the IPCC Himalayan glacier error was "egregious".  I used that term to refer to the IPCC inclusion of a graph on disaster costs and climate change. 2. I did not say or imply (nor do I believe) that the glacier error or UEA emails "cast a shadow on the entire body of research showing evidence of anthropogenic climate change." I did say that the institutions of climate science were poorly prepared for dealing with the allegations of error. 3. Chris Field and I are not "frequent sparring partners."  We have discussed climate issues together publicly only once before. I spent the bulk of the time on the panel discussing the IPCC's treatment of the science of disasters and climate change and the institutional maturity of the climate science community.  I find it remarkable that you ignored those issues. That said, I am requesting that you correct the two serious misquotations of my remarks and the mischaracterization of my relationship with Chris Field. If you choose to contest this I am sure that the WSJ tape from the event can set the record straight. Many thanks, Roger
  • Weiye Loh on 08 Mar 11
     
    I talk to people in the media a lot, and occasionally I am quoted, almost always correctly.  ClimateWire has a story today from a reporter who I did not talk to and whose reporting is not so good. 
Weiye Loh

Adventures in Flay-land: Scepticism versus Denialism - Delingpole Part II - 0 views

flay.jellybee.co.uk/...rsus-denialism-delingpole.html

Skepticism Science Denial Climate Science

shared by Weiye Loh on 30 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • wrote a piece about James Delingpole's unfortunate appearance on the BBC program Horizon on Monday. In that piece I refered to one of his own Telegraph articles in which he criticizes renowned sceptic Dr Ben Goldacre for betraying the principles of scepticism in his regard of the climate change debate. That article turns out to be rather instructional as it highlights perfectly the difference between real scepticism and the false scepticism commonly described as denialism.
  • It appears that James has tremendous respect for Ben Goldacre, who is a qualified medical doctor and has written a best-selling book about science scepticism called Bad Science and continues to write a popular Guardian science column. Here's what Delingpole has to say about Dr Goldacre: Many of Goldacre’s campaigns I support. I like and admire what he does. But where I don’t respect him one jot is in his views on ‘Climate Change,’ for they jar so very obviously with supposed stance of determined scepticism in the face of establishment lies.
  • Scepticism is not some sort of rebellion against the establishment as Delingpole claims. It is not in itself an ideology. It is merely an approach to evaluating new information. There are varying definitions of scepticism, but Goldacre's variety goes like this: A sceptic does not support or promote any new theory until it is proven to his or her satisfaction that the new theory is the best available. Evidence is examined and accepted or discarded depending on its persuasiveness and reliability. Sceptics like Ben Goldacre have a deep appreciation for the scientific method of testing a hypothesis through experimentation and are generally happy to change their minds when the evidence supports the opposing view. Sceptics are not true believers, but they search for the truth. Far from challenging the established scientific consensus, Goldacre in Bad Science typcially defends the scientific consensus against alternative medical views that fall back on untestable positions. In science the consensus is sometimes proven wrong, and while this process is imperfect it eventually results in the old consensus being replaced with a new one.
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  • So the question becomes "what is denialism?" Denialism is a mindset that chooses to deny reality in order to avoid an uncomfortable truth. Denialism creates a false sense of truth through the subjective selection of evidence (cherry picking). Unhelpful evidence is rejected and excuses are made, while supporting evidence is accepted uncritically - its meaning and importance exaggerated. It is a common feature of denialism to claim the existence of some sort of powerful conspiracy to suppress the truth. Rejection by the mainstream of some piece of evidence supporting the denialist view, no matter how flawed, is taken as further proof of the supposed conspiracy. In this way the denialist always has a fallback position.
  • Delingpole makes the following claim: Whether Goldacre chooses to ignore it or not, there are many, many hugely talented, intelligent men and women out there – from mining engineer turned Hockey-Stick-breaker Steve McIntyre and economist Ross McKitrick to bloggers Donna LaFramboise and Jo Nova to physicist Richard Lindzen….and I really could go on and on – who have amassed a body of hugely powerful evidence to show that the AGW meme which has spread like a virus around the world these last 20 years is seriously flawed.
  • So he mentions a bunch of people who are intelligent and talented and have amassed evidence to the effect that the consensus of AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) is a myth. Should I take his word for it? No. I am a sceptic. I will examine the evidence and the people behind it.
  • MM claims that global temperatures are not accelerating. The claims have however been roundly disproved as explained here. It is worth noting at this point that neither man is a climate scientist. McKitrick is an economist and McIntyre is a mining industry policy analyst. It is clear from the very detailed rebuttal article that McIntrye and McKitrick have no qualifications to critique the earlier paper and betray fundamental misunderstandings of methodologies employed in that study.
  • This Wikipedia article explains in better laymens terms how the MM claims are faulty.
  • It is difficult for me to find out much about blogger Donna LaFrambois. As far as I can see she runs her own blog at http://nofrakkingconsensus.wordpress.com and is the founder of another site here http://www.noconsensus.org/. It's not very clear to me what her credentials are
  • She seems to be a critic of the so-called climate bible, a comprehensive report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
  • I am familiar with some of the criticisms of this panel. Working Group 2 famously overstated the estimated rate of disappearance of the Himalayan glacier in 2007 and was forced to admit the error. Working Group 2 is a panel of biologists and sociologists whose job is to evaluate the impact of climate change. These people are not climate scientists. Their report takes for granted the scientific basis of climate change, which has been delivered by Working Group 1 (the climate scientists). The science revealed by Working Group 1 is regarded as sound (of course this is just a conspiracy, right?) At any rate, I don't know why I should pay attention to this blogger. Anyone can write a blog and anyone with money can own a domain. She may be intelligent, but I don't know anything about her and with all the millions of blogs out there I'm not convinced hers is of any special significance.
  • Richard Lindzen. Okay, there's information about this guy. He has a wiki page, which is more than I can say for the previous two. He is an atmospheric physicist and Professor of Meteorology at MIT.
  • According to Wikipedia, it would seem that Lindzen is well respected in his field and represents the 3% of the climate science community who disagree with the 97% consensus.
  • The second to last paragraph of Delingpole's article asks this: If  Goldacre really wants to stick his neck out, why doesn’t he try arguing against a rich, powerful, bullying Climate-Change establishment which includes all three British main political parties, the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society, the Prince of Wales, the Prime Minister, the President of the USA, the EU, the UN, most schools and universities, the BBC, most of the print media, the Australian Government, the New Zealand Government, CNBC, ABC, the New York Times, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, most of the rest of the City, the wind farm industry, all the Big Oil companies, any number of rich charitable foundations, the Church of England and so on?I hope Ben won't mind if I take this one for him (first of all, Big Oil companies? Are you serious?) The answer is a question and the question is "Where is your evidence?"
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