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DrDeeg
Mountain climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jul 18, 2010 - 12:45pm PT
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I thought about posting this in the Climate Change skeptics? section, but decided it is on-topic. David Breashears (the original Kloberdanz Kid, distinguished filmmaker, and with 5 ascents of Everest) has been taking photos to document changing Himalayan glaciers. David has retraced the steps of renowned mountain photographers of the past century to recapture images of these mountains and their glaciers from exactly the same vantage points. The methods allow him to use terrestrial photogrammetry to estimate volumetric changes, instead of just changes in glaciers' termini.
Multi-decadal records of glacier variations are key indicators of climate in mountainous areas around the world, with winter growth recording snow accumulation and summer wastage recording summer melt. Most often these records are based on observations of a few specific glaciers, yet we know that it is difficult to characterize regional climate based on a small sample of glaciers. Nowhere is this understanding needed more than in mid-latitudes where meltw#ter from the glaciers supports human consumption, agriculture, and hydropower, especially during dry seasons. From satellite data (some of them old declassified spy satellite images), we can identify advances and retreats in the terminus of a glacier and thus derive an index to its mass balance, but these analyses do not provide a quantitative measure of changes in mass balance that Breashears’ photos do.
The photos are currently on display in New York City (July 13 – August 15, Asia Society, 725 Park Ave). The web site (Rivers of Ice) is superb; click on their Comparative Photography link for example. Also see today’s column by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times.
If I can get to New York before mid-August, I plan to tour the exhibit.
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elcap-pics
Big Wall climber
Crestline CA
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Jul 18, 2010 - 01:58pm PT
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Thanks for the post.... very interesting stuff....
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TYeary
Social climber
State of decay
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Jul 18, 2010 - 02:03pm PT
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Glacial retreat is even more apparent in the tropical mountain ranges of the world, for example, the Cordillera Blanca. Dramatic melt back and down(thining) has created some dangerous situations, sometimes resulting in catstrophic flooding and loss of life and property in the Peruvian highlands. The real question is how much has mans activities on the planet contributed to these changes.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Jul 18, 2010 - 02:07pm PT
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Thanks!
This is a topic dear to my heart as the valley of Sherpas I have been studying since 1974 is home to the world's largest and deepest glacial lake which has expanded alarmingly in the intervening years as the glaciers melted. A massive engineering project has taken place to begin draining the lake before it bursts and creates a devastating flood, as have many other glacial lakes in the Himalaya.
http://www.reynolds-international.co.uk/mountain_hazards_group/pdf/proj_summ_02_tshorolpa.pdf
http://raonline.ch/pages/np/nat/np_glacier01c.html
The even bigger problem is that all the major rivers of Asia begin in the Himalayas and the disappearance of the glaciers means the disappearances of the water sources on which over 2 billion people are dependent.
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the kid
Trad climber
fayetteville, wv
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Jul 19, 2010 - 01:42pm PT
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but wait, i thought this was a hoax brought on by science?
nope its true, we are warming up and melting fast.
fattrad, care to chime in?
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Jul 19, 2010 - 02:37pm PT
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Rox is right about something.
Water wars are coming.
Over a billion people rely on the water that flows from the roof of the world.
That can't last.
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Jerry Dodrill
climber
Sebastopol, CA
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Jul 19, 2010 - 03:09pm PT
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Thanks for the link.
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corniss chopper
Mountain climber
san jose, ca
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Jul 19, 2010 - 04:02pm PT
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As individuals nothing we do will make any difference to the climate, let
alone the weather.
So might as well enjoy the show while fighting the carbon tax scammers.
.. a fun alarmist site that knows how to crank the fear factor.
http://feww.wordpress.com/2010-disasters/
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Oct 11, 2011 - 12:33pm PT
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Alpinist 32, October 2010
http://www.alpinist.com/doc/_print/web10f/wfeature-ventura-glaciers
The Alpinist photos are really good. Dig out your #32.
What's the deal here? Brashears and Fabio Ventura cooperating but Fabio not getting credit from Brashears? Or are they competing? or what?
Anyway the more the public gets to see photos like these with their own eyes the better off we'll all be.
Many of us have bought into the semantic trap of calling it "Climate Change". Sure, climate change is the main effect we'll see from Global Warming. Climate change effects are currently very hard to predict so what to do about it is difficult to determine.
However, the chain of causality is hydrocarbon emissions causing global warming causing climate change.
The chain of causality is irrefutable. The long term solution is inescapable: reduce global hydrocarbon emissions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
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apogee
climber
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Oct 11, 2011 - 12:37pm PT
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"As individuals nothing we do will make any difference to the climate, let
alone the weather."
That might very well be true to some extent, but using that as a rationale to do nothing to minimize our environmental impacts is just incredibly lame.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Oct 11, 2011 - 12:40pm PT
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Vanishing glaciers are nothing new, I remember that the crux of my first El Cap route was getting across the schrund from the remnant glacier at the base of El Cap to the rock. That glacier, as you know, has completely disappeared.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Oct 11, 2011 - 12:43pm PT
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Was that the schrund you bridged with the wooly mammoth femur?
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Oct 11, 2011 - 12:45pm PT
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Wasn't that big, we got by with the tibula.
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Dolomite
climber
Anchorage
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Oct 11, 2011 - 12:46pm PT
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Up on the Byron Glacier a couple weeks ago. Pretty shocking--I had last been there in July 2009. And, true we had a weak (500 inches) snowfall last winter. Nonetheless, didn't look like the same place.[photoid=220728]
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Oct 11, 2011 - 12:48pm PT
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DMT
You make my point. "climate change" can be a controversial word. However the data is here to establish long term global warming. If you consider the mean temperature of the earth's oceans and land to be one component of climate, climate is certainly changing.
Either by short term data:
Or 2000 year data:
Or glacial mass data:
Just in case you think it's sunspots
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Dolomite
climber
Anchorage
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Oct 11, 2011 - 12:48pm PT
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Oct 11, 2011 - 12:59pm PT
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Tami
Global greenhouse emissions per capita are pretty much the same for US and Canada.
So get yer Sh** together up there, get out of your cars and stop mining tar sands!
Making liquid fuels from oil sands requires energy for steam injection and refining. This process generates two to four times the amount of greenhouse gases per barrel of final product as the "production" of conventional oil.[3] If combustion of the final products is included, the so-called "Well to Wheels" approach, oil sands extraction, upgrade and use emits 10 to 45% more greenhouse gases than conventional crude. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_sands
Now back to your regularly scheduled programming
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nature
climber
back in Tuscon Aridzona....
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Oct 11, 2011 - 01:06pm PT
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I believe the tibia of a woolly is longer than the femur.
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corniss chopper
climber
breaking the speed of gravity
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Oct 11, 2011 - 01:25pm PT
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However, the chain of causality is hydrocarbon emissions causing global warming causing climate change.
The chain of causality is irrefutable.
HT - That chain of causality is easily refutable: accelerated glacier melting is due to the snow/ice albedo change from the Himalayan Brown Haze. Not any mythical temperature rise.
Andes Haze, Rocky Mtn Haze, CA Sierra Haze, etc. Darken ice and it melts faster.
So simple even a Canadian can do it.
An urban heat dome over a city cannot melt glaciers many miles away
but the soot from cooking fires (re: industry) blowing into the mountains is and will melt the glaciers faster.
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Carrots under snow. How Japanese farmers spread charcoal
on snow covered fields to melt the snow and harvest carrots.
The IPCC must hate they guys.
http://www.carrotjuice.jp/snow/
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