[joe bartels]

By SINDYA N. BHANOO
Published: November 2, 2009

The ice atop Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania has continued to retreat rapidly, declining 26 percent since 2000, scientists say in a new report.

Yet the authors of the study, to be published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reached no consensus on whether the melting could be attributed mainly to humanity’s role in warming the global climate.

Eighty-five percent of the ice cover that was present in 1912 has vanished, the scientists said.

To measure the recent pace of the retreat, researchers relied on data from aerial photographs taken of Kilimanjaro over time and from stakes and instruments installed on the mountaintop in 2000, said Douglas R. Hardy, a geologist at the University of Massachusetts and one of the study’s authors.

The photographs measure horizontal shrinkage of the ice, and the stakes indicate the reduction in depth. Both are decreasing at the same rate, Dr. Hardy said.

Researchers studying the mountaintop, including those involved in this study, differ in their conclusions on how much of the melting could result from human activity or other climatological influences.

The lead author of the study, Lonnie G. Thompson, a glaciologist at Ohio State University, has concluded that the melting of recent years is unique.

In 2000 he extracted deep cylinders of ice from Kilimanjaro’s glaciers and found that the higher layers were full of elongated bubbles — signs that melting and refreezing had occurred in recent years.

There was no presence of the bubbles in the deeper layers of the cores, Dr. Thompson said.

If his dating of the ice core layers is accurate, surface melting like that seen in recent years has not occurred over the last 11,700 years.

But Georg Kaser, a glaciologist at the Institute for Geography of the University of Innsbruck in Austria, said that the ice measured was only a few hundred years old and that it had come and gone over centuries.

What is more, he suggested that the recent melting had more to do with a decline in moisture levels than with a warming atmosphere.

“Our understanding is that it is due to the slow drying out of ice,” Dr. Kaser said. “It’s about moisture fluctuation.”

But Dr. Thompson emphasized that the melting of ice atop Mount Kilimanjaro was paralleled by retreats in ice fields elsewhere in Africa as well as in South America, Indonesia and the Himalayas.

“It’s when you put those together that the evidence becomes very compelling,” he said.

Cabinet to Meet on Mt. Everest

KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Nepal’s cabinet will hold a meeting on Mount Everest to highlight the threat from global warming, which is causing glaciers to melt in the Himalayas, an official said Monday.

The cabinet will meet at the Everest base camp this month, just before an international climate change conference in December in Copenhagen, said Deepak Bohara, the forest and soil conservation minister.

Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal and other cabinet members will fly by plane to the 17,400-foot camp, the starting point for mountaineers trying to climb the world’s highest mountain.

Last month, the cabinet of Maldives donned scuba gear and held an underwater meeting to highlight the threat of global warming to that nation, the world’s lowest.

[Jim Lyding]

Big Joe when my bruddah and I saw you going up Humphreys back in June (along with Wally & Stefan who cruised to the summit, and Bob & Denny) we met a group of Indian-American doctors who were training for their Kiliminjaro trip in July. They were very worried about the glaciers on Kili. Hopefully my children will be able to see glaciers up there, but I need to find a girlfriend before I worry about that!

[Vaporman]

It's all that dang Global Cooling!!! Or is it Global Warming... Ohh crap, i can't remember what the current dogma of the day.

How about the huge deforestation that's been going on around the mountain over the last century thus reducing the local humidity that is reducing the amount of cloud cover over the mountain and the increase of sunshine is melting the glacier to an oblivion...

[Jim Lyding]

Vaporman pulls out the theory that explains why the northeast Colorado Plateau is much drier and warmer than areas of similar elevation and latitude due to the deforestation that the Anasazis and other Native Americans inflicted upon that area.
Lots of trees absorb lots of water and transpiration puts a lot of that water back into the atmosphere which, in turn, leads to a relatively cooler- and wetter climate that sustains relatively more trees....and so on. Love to see Jhodlof weigh in on this one.
Some would say that the environmental changes wrought by the Anasazis (or whoever the people were) destroyed their own civilization. I have "Man Corn" on the shelf, and I will hopefully get the chance to read if it describes such a phenomenon.

[rally_toad]

It's all that dang Global Cooling!!! Or is it Global Warming... Ohh crap, i can't remember what the current dogma of the day.

All the doubters of climate change, also seem to doubt evolution by means of natural selection, so I guess the AIDS virus and the new swine flu are just hoaxes as well. Look at all the scientific data, and it is clear that there is a correlation between carbon dioxide levels and global climate (NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH WEATHER!). Starting from about the time of the industrial revolution global temperature has been going up as well as carbon dioxide levels. The greenhouse effect does exist, or else no life on earth would be possible. While the earth's climate has changed in its 4.6 billion year history, the change that is taking place now is startling as 150 years is literally nothing in eath's history. We can observe these changes everyday when we are hiking, mountaintops covered with dead White bark pine trees, decreasing Joshua Tree populations in JTNP, melting glaciers in Glacier and Glacier Bay.
The problem is... Science is not political. But we have had a political party that has taken the position of being anti-science, and so we have 40% of the population (basically all of them have no background in science) that is politically polarized by science (again, science is meant to be objective). So we have people who to this day doubt evolution by natural selection (a process which can be MEASURED by biologists) and now we have the politicizing of climate change, and in some cases science in general(teaching evolution in schools is still oft debated). Just suggesting that next time you decide want to believe about science, you might want to ask scientists, instead of Sarah Palin. The same people who are fighting action on climate change fought the Wilderness Act 45 years ago, after all that would mean getting in the way of oil company profits.
Not saying that deforestation does not have anything to do with it, but if we're going to make fun climate change than lets get some hard scientific articles links from you that support the hypotheses that
1. The mean global temperature is not rising.
2. Human beings have no effect on the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
3. There is no correlation between Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere and global climate.

[rally_toad]

Some would say that the environmental changes wrought by the Anasazis (or whoever the people were) destroyed their own civilization. I have "Man Corn" on the shelf, and I will hopefully get the chance to read if it describes such a phenomenon

Last time I checked, the Anasazis or Ancestral Puebloan civilizations were not "destroyed", just ask the Hopi, Zuni, and many other tribes that trace lineage back to the Ancestral Puebloans, there is a reason after all that they are called "Ancestral" Puebloans.

[te-wa]

WWFD?

[rally_toad]

te-wa does raise a good question.... What WOULD Freddy do?? No doubt he is referring to Freddy Mercury.

Or possibly its What WOULD Farnsworth do?? Either way, a valid and thought provoking question.

[Vaporman]

All the doubters of climate change, also seem to doubt evolution by means of natural selection, so I guess the AIDS virus and the new swine flu are just hoaxes as well.

I don't know about liberals, but I'm a child of God and created in his image... I have no idea how you jumped from Global Warming to AIDS, but it made for a good laugh.

Global Warming is nearly a religion that's ALL about politics and money! How much is Al Gore worth these days from spewing all this junk science... And scientists who don't belief are shouted down as heretics and symbolically burned at the stake. Carbon dioxide is not that bad of a greenhouse gas compared to other gases, the plants need it to survive and would much better if there was even more in the atmosphere, plus CO2 sinks down near the surface while other more dangerous gases rises towards the atmosphere...

[dysfunction]

The funny thing is that we can't even reach a consensus as to whether scientific observation is scientific observation. My hope in man kind is all but lost.

[rally_toad]

I just wanted to point out the fact that the same people who doubt climate change also doubt evolution by means of natural selection (which by the way says NOTHING about the existence of a God). Funny how you changed the subject to religion. Evolution by natural selection is a process that is measurable by scientists, as is global mean temperature.

I asked for scientific evidence and got nothing but a red herring... enough said.

Show us some, ANY evidence that supports one of the three hypotheses listed above.

We all know scientists are liberal right? Just like the corporate controlled media? If you're not on the same page with Glenn Beck your a left wing communist fascist right? And all those scientists just want to raise our taxes??!!

[Vaporman]

I asked for scientific evidence and got nothing but a red herring... enough said.

You were serious about that...

I think global warming is one BIG GIANT HOAX. So how about you show me some real evidence that's been thoroughly tested using the scientific method by real climatologists that aren't Kool-aid drinkers...

I believe in natural selection or micro evolution as you may prefer to call it, but only as it applies within a species. I certainly don't believe in macro evolution that certain species evolved from completely different species. Just to clarify...

[rally_toad]

The fossil record doesn't lie...

Do you want me to post links to all the biosys scientific papers here? or should I pm them to you?

[chumley]

Science actually IS political. It would be great if it wasn't, but just like journalists who in an ideal world would be truly objective, scientists also have personal beliefs which influence their hypotheses, research, and results. Often without any intent.

I'm not a scientist and I surely don't know the effects of human activity on the climate of this planet. But I am a sceptic about just about anything that "everybody" tells me I have to believe. But history shows (thanks to scientists?) that the Earth is incredibly resilient to change. If evolution by natural selection is such an integral part of the history of our planet, why shouldn't we let it continue without using our "intelligence" to interfere? If it gets too hot to sustain the population, then perhaps its because that's what's SUPPOSED to happen?

Because if there is a God, I'd prefer it be the one I choose to believe in, rather than one a bunch of politicians (not scientists) in Washington, Kyoto, or Copenhagen tell me I have to.

This has nothing to do with saving the planet. The planet will survive just fine on its own.

[Vaporman]

The fossil record doesn't lie...

They can prove Global Warming with animal fossils and you wonder why I don't believe in it...

No I'm not being serious. I don't think HAZ is the place for a full on debate about these issues, I just like to poke fun at people who believe this junk... Make them think twice about it other than just blindly accepting it because enough people keep saying it.

This has nothing to do with saving the planet. The planet will survive just fine on its own.

My thoughts exactly...

[BobP]

Start googling...global warming. After GLO see what's first and what's second .
If you want to change someone's take on this subject,take number one and place it against the temple of the person you want to change.
People are set in their beliefs one way or another on this subject...

Disclaimer..Obviously I'm kidding about the Glock and Global Warming

[jeffmacewen]

I can't even believe some of what I've read on this thread.

[chumley]

People are set in their beliefs one way or another on this subject...

I think that rally_toad is pointing out what most people believe about this subject is based on politics, not on science.

Its when people get so set on their beliefs that they are unwilling to listen to the opinions of others that things get rough. I don't think we're going to solve this in the HAZ forum, but I do like reading what other people have to think about the subject.

[rally_toad]

Make them think twice about it other than just blindly accepting it because enough people keep saying it.

Accepting something based on overwhelming scientific evidence is just "blindly accepting"? Once again vaporman, lets see some hard scientific studies that say support the above hypotheses I listed.

You never answered my question, should I post the biosis database scientific papers here? Or Pm the links to you?

Once again someone with no background in science is debating climate change and evolution by the means of natural selection. Funny to say the least. The people who debate these topics have no scientific background. I would love to thank Al Gore AND the GOP for once again politicizing science.
Or maybe you would like to share your scientific background with us? Perhaps I am wrong?
Just remember, vaporman, not only are those scientist liberals godless, they're coming for our guns!!!

This has nothing to do with saving the planet. The planet will survive just fine on its own.

Correct. Nothing to do with saving the planet, give it a few million years and it will recover from anything, it has in the past and will again. This has everything to do with our children, giving them a cleaner place to live, where they can still have the same opportunities we have.

[BobP]

In response to chumley:
CC sailed the ocean blue in 1492..most people thought he'd fall off. The "scientists" disagreed back then also . Some even used a different calendar. Religion,polictics, and science will always have winners and losers and shades of my turning hair color. The lonies from both sides will fight it out and both will profit. Opinions on the internet and in person are just that. But your wrong...The HAZ forum slovez everything