Science : Kilimanjaro Glacier Gone By 2015

7 Responses to Science : Kilimanjaro Glacier Gone By 2015

1. kentclizbe says:

   October 21, 2015 at 12:50 pm

   A whole series of articles is possible on this subject.

   The key is to focus on Lonnie Thompson (Dr. “Never met a government-funded boon-doggle I didn’t like” Glacier).

   His specialty of glacier ice-coring nets him massive government funding to make alarming predictions.

   His predictions are always conditioned with, “…if melting continues at the current rate.”

   My favorite from the Lon-Man was his visit to a glacier on top of a mountain in INDONESIA–1 degree off the equator. Yes, there are glaciers one degree off the equator! That should be the amazing climate fact. But no, not for Lon-Man.

   While he was there, on the equator, on top of a mountain that looms over a rain forest–climate change happened! And Lon-Man witnessed it! He must have phoned in his account to NPR via government-funded satellite phone, he was so excited.

   The NRP headline? “Scientist Watches Glacier Melt Beneath His Feet!” Run away, Chicken Little, the sky is falling!

   http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129652700

   Money quote from the article? “While Thompson and his team were there drilling cores, he says, they witnessed the glacier drop 12 inches in just two weeks.

   “If that’s representative of the annual ice loss on these glaciers,” he says, “you’re looking at losing over seven meters of ice in a year. Unfortunately, that glacier’s going to disappear in as little as five years if that rate continues.”

   That was five years ago.

   The weather report on the mountain (Puncak Jaya) this week? Snow every day. From 5 inches to more than a foot of snow is forecast for each day this week.

   http://www.meteoexploration.com/forecasts/Puncak-Jaya/

   At that rate, Lonnie, the glacier on Puncak Jaya will be 60 miles high in five years!

   Science!

   For even more laughs, read the comments in the NPR article. “Bob the Science Guy” is the resident “denier responder.” Hilarious and pitiful.

   Reply
   • Dave N says:

     October 21, 2015 at 8:06 pm

     In Australia we could focus solely on Tim Flannery, none of whose predictions have even come close, yet they still praise him as if he were a hero.

     Reply
     • Rico L says:

       October 21, 2015 at 10:54 pm

       I can’t get over how the ABC keep putting him on TV, he is ridiculous. If he was a Harry Potter spell , he would be “ridiculous maximus”!

       Reply
       • Anthony S says:

         October 22, 2015 at 8:39 pm

         Ironically, in the Harry Potter universe that spell (Riddikulus) is used for preventing boggarting.
2. Billy Liar says:

   October 21, 2015 at 4:50 pm

   Ah, Lonnie Thompson; I suspect The Salina Journal is still waiting for him to archive his data.

   http://climateaudit.org/2012/07/08/lonnie-thompsons-legacy/

   Reply
3. Richard Keen says:

   October 21, 2015 at 7:57 pm

   The Kilimanjarists keep making the intentional and self-serving flaw of a linear extrapolation of measures of ice cap size – fitting a trend line and saying “if” and “may”. But the shrinking is not due to global warming, but to a decrease in precipitation in the region in the 1800s. The usual response to a sudden change is an asymptotic relaxation to a new equilibrium condition. If you fit that kind of curve to the data it’s clear the ice will still be there in 2015 (doh!) and that it will be stable for a while. At least, that’s my forecast from ten years ago:
   http://icecap.us/images/uploads/KILIMANJARO_KEEN.jpg
   There’s a nice article on ICECAP with gobs of data:
   http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/lonnie_thomson_again_snow_cap_disappearing_from_mount_kilimanjaro/

   Reply
4. Bruce D'Amours says:

   October 22, 2015 at 12:30 pm

   Have any of the “climate experts” ever officially admitted that Kilimanjaro’s ice loss is almost certainly due to deforestation at the base of the mountain? I thought that was a proven given for quite some time now.

   Reply