“Mote and Georg Kaser, a glaciologist at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, write in American Scientist that the decline in Kilimanjaro’s ice has been going on for more than a century and that most of it occurred before 1953, while evidence of atmospheric warming there before 1970 is inconclusive.
“They attribute the ice decline primarily to complex interacting factors, including the vertical shape of the ice’s edge, which allows it to shrink but not expand. They also cite decreased snowfall, which reduces ice buildup and determines how much energy the ice absorbs — because the whiteness of new snow reflects more sunlight, the lack of new snow allows the ice to absorb more of the sun’s energy.
“Unlike midlatitude glaciers, which are warmed and melted by surrounding air in the summer, the ice loss on Kilimanjaro is driven strictly by solar radiation…
Read more here: http://www.physorg.com/news100885146.html
And here: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/06/12/climate.kilimanjaro.reut/index.html
And Real Climate had an article on tropical glacier retreat way back in May 2005:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/05/tropical-glacier-retreat
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Seem to recall that 60 Munutes did a story on this, http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=259335 September 2005
Had a nice video but lots of doom and gloom. It featured PROFESSOR LONNIE THOMPSON with a counter view from PROFESSOR RICHARD LINDZEN.
Perhaps the 60 Minutes team could do a follow up story. I think CNN also did a story featuring the glacier retreat back in 2005
Another Al Gore scarenario bites the dust.
Yep fair cop Ian.
But note well what the same authors say about other glaciers !
“There are dozens, if not hundreds, of photos of midlatitude glaciers you could show where there is absolutely no question that they are declining in response to the warming atmosphere,” said climatologist Philip Mote, a University of Washington research scientist.
But in the tropics — particularly on Kilimanjaro — processes are at work that are far different from those that have diminished glacial ice in temperate regions closer to the poles, he said.
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/55553;jsessionid=aaa8ND6ZsKydQL
If human-induced global warming has played any role in the shrinkage of Kilimanjaro’s ice, it could only have joined the game quite late, after the result was already clearly decided, acting at most as an accessory, influencing the outcome indirectly. The detection and attribution studies indicating that human influence on global climate emerged some time after 1950 reach the same conclusion about East African temperature far below the peak.
The fact that the loss of ice on Mount Kilimanjaro cannot be used as proof of global warming does not mean that the Earth is not warming. There is ample and conclusive evidence that Earth’s average temperature has increased in the past 100 years, and the decline of mid- and high-latitude glaciers is a major piece of evidence. But the special conditions on Kilimanjaro make it unlike the higher-latitude mountains, whose glaciers are shrinking because of rising atmospheric temperatures. Mass- and energy-balance considerations and the shapes of features all point in the same direction, suggesting an insignificant role for atmospheric temperature in the fluctuations of Kilimanjaro’s ice.
It is possible, though, that there is an indirect connection between the accumulation of greenhouse gases and Kilimanjaro’s disappearing ice: There is strong evidence of an association over the past 200 years or so between Indian Ocean surface temperatures and the atmospheric circulation and precipitation patterns that either feed or starve the ice on Kilimanjaro. These patterns have been starving the ice since the late 19th century—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say simply reversing the binge of ice growth in the third quarter of the 19th century. Any contribution of rising greenhouse gases to this circulation pattern necessarily emerged only in the last few decades; hence it is responsible for at most a fraction of the recent decline in ice and a much smaller fraction of the total decline.
Did you not his other comments, Ian? Forget Gore, listen to the scientists.
Meanwhile E G Beck gets caught manipulating his curves.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/curve-manipulation-lesson-2
Is anyone arguing that the globe on average is not worming. The main question on my mind is weather it was caused my man or if it is just part of the natural heating and cooling pattern that has always happened. It is all confusing because scientists who say it is caused by man’s pollution presents evidents that contradicts with other scientist who also say man has caused it.
Hyrum – bad question to ask here as you’ll get two totally different answers – yes and no on warming; and yes and no on human vs natural. Basically we’ll argue about everything. I think you’ll find a majority here will at least agree it’s warming.
I’ll suggest you check out the latest Working Group I, II and III reports here. http://www.ipcc.ch/
Others will give you alternative suggestions I’m sure.
It was warming up to 1998, if you can believe unrepresentative global data sets that are inconsistent with national sets, but even then, the past decade has not warmed.
“But note well what the same authors say about other glaciers !”
Soot on snow perhaps?
SJT – I wouldn’t worry too much about Beck:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1737#more-1737
Must be psychologically modifying for whingers like McIntyre to spend their entire life never producing anything of value and furiously rummaging through everything looking for a molehill to turn into a mountain. A whole blog dedicated to big whineys. Without end. Infinite.
Jones et al 1990 turned the mountain of UHIE into a molehill, then ‘lost’ the data rendering the IPCC claim unverifiable.
Still it rumbles on:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1741
keep your eyes shut:
McIntyre, Stephen and Ross McKitrick (2005) Reply to Comment by von Storch and Zorita on “Hockey Sticks, Principal Components and Spurious Significance” Geophysical Research Letters 32(20) L20714 10.1029/2005GL023089 21 October 2005
McIntyre, Stephen and Ross McKitrick (2005) Reply to Comment by Huybers on “Hockey Sticks, Principal Components and Spurious Significance” Geophysical Research Letters 32(20) L20714 10.1029/2005GL023586 21 October 2005
McIntyre, Stephen and Ross McKitrick (2005) Hockey Sticks, Principal Components and Spurious Significance Geophysical Research LettersVol. 32, No. 3, L03710 10.1029/2004GL021750 12 February 2005.
You can list your publications underneath!?
Hardly constructive though is it Paul. All ragging and whinging. New science actually created = zippo. What a great vacuous whinger McIntyre is and runs a veritable cess pit blog of grizzlers, pessimists and creeps. Imagine a whole life dedicated to poking and prodding but never actually revealing anything except a few loose rivets.