The shrinking Lyell Glacier/NPS photos.
Is it time to start a pool over when the Lyell Glacier in Yosemite National Park is no longer classified as a glacier? Or when it vanishes from the landscape? Those are good questions to ask, as the glacier, the second largest in the Sierra Nevada according to the National Park Service, is continuing to shrink.
The National Park Service's Climate Change Response team says the glacier "has thinned rapidly over just the last few years. Note (in the accompanying photo) the newly exposed bedrock on the east (left) side; it's estimated the glacier may now be only 15-20 feet thick. Currently the glacier is losing on average about three feet of thickness each year. How much longer until it's gone?"
It was back in February 2013 when word came that the Lyell Glacier had stagnated, or ceased its downhill movement, while the adjacent Maclure Glacier was still moving at its historical rate, about one inch per day.
Comments
Suprised all the tea partiers that hijack every thread on this site haven't said a peep about this. I guess, when science and evidence is presented to them, it's best to stay buried with your head in the sand.
I climbed Mt. Lyell way back in the sixties while hiking the John Muir Trail. It was the first glacier I traveled on and began a lifelong fascination with these rivers of ice. Except for the special circumstance of Crater Glacier at Mt. Saint Helens, glaciers here in our Northwest parks are also in rapid retreat:
http://www.nps.gov/olym/naturescience/glaciers.htm
http://www.glaciers.pdx.edu/Projects/LearnAboutGlaciers/MRNP/Atlas10.html
http://www.nichols.edu/departments/Glacier/bill.htm
I'd advise staying out of any betting pool on the disappearance date. It might not be that definite when a glacier is 'gone'. Many north-thru-east-facing talus slopes high in our western mountains have ice cores and there is a whole range of transitional geomorphic features:
http://www.uibk.ac.at/projects/rockglacier/rockglacier_intro.html
The funny part Gary is that you believe that two hand selected pictures is "science" or "evidence". What exactly are they "science" of "evidence" of? You think the California drought may have any role?
I can show you two pictures of the mountains near me. One more recent than the other with far more snow and ice. What does that prove? Like these pictures - nothing.
EC, next time I want advice from a realtor on climate science... well, never mind, I don't want advice from a realtor on climate science. Stick to what you know, and that's exchanging a properties titles, which requires ZERO scientific knowledge. You obviously are clueless when it comes to climate science, and sound like a fool when you attempt to discuss it. The NPS has built up a library of evidence in regards to a warming planet and its effects on the numerous ecosystems that the NPS manages. Just because you have your head in the sand and refuse to acknowledge any of the research means aboslutely nothing to me, or anyone else that has seen the effects and has studied subjects on climate change.
Get a clue, although I don't think you have the self-awareness to recognize your own fallacies. So you'll continue to make yourself look more and more clueless on this subject day in and day out.
Gary what are your climate science credentials?
This should be interesting. LOL
A portion of my career requires me to do research on a variety of subjects in biology, ecology, and climate science so that I can create educational films. Am I a climate scientist? Nope, not at all. Do, I collaborate with scientists when developing scripts on numerous park related topics? Yes, very much so. And I back up my work with visceral evidence. One of my films on the smokies documented the spruce-fir forests and how human pollution and climate change was effecting the ecosystem. It was very much backed by years of scientific research. SO LOL all you want. I used to do similar things when I worked in engineering. I've been collaborating and working with scientists and engineers for about 20 years now. So LOL LOL ...
Ill just continue to document the evidence. Thats the power of media.. While you sit reading teaparty blogs trying to trump up false propaganda to suit your "head in the sand" approach at life, there are guys like me actually out in the field documenting the changes with each storm and severe weather event.. Phenology and weather are two subjects that I find fascinating.