Re: [asa] climate change severity

Merv wrote: "...If this has been a somewhat
linear loss since 1906, then could human-caused global warming still be
the primary agent? If it hasn't been a linear loss, then how much of
that 90% loss occurred in recent decades? I'll need to research some of
this on the web myself, but meanwhile, if there is a pool of experts
right here...."

I'm not one of your local experts on this, but I've read often enough that glaciers have been receding in many places starting well before, say, 1930, to have doubts about the degree of human causation. As anecdotal evidence, as a kid I used to visit Mt. Rainier in Washington regularly (late 1940s), and every time we went my Dad would remark how much smaller some of the glaciers had become since he'd visited as a young man--probably 15-20 years earlier. Park info also attested to rapid receding.

I mistrust human causation of global warming to the degree that it's become a bandwagon. Bandwagons in general are suspect.

Don

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Merv<mailto:mrb22667@kansas.net>
  To: asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
  Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2007 3:43 PM
  Subject: [asa] climate change severity

  This caught my eye this morning on the CNN site about the Ayles ice
  shelf collapse. ...quoting Vincent Warwick of Laval university:

  "It is consistent with climate change," Vincent said, adding that the
  remaining ice shelves are 90 percent smaller than when they were first
  discovered in 1906.

  I assume he was just referring to the six major Canadian ice sheets.
  Can this be right? Am I interpreting this correctly, then, that we
  have only 10% of the ice sheet area (or mass?) in the Canadian arctic
  than was known to exist in 1906? And, if this has been a somewhat
  linear loss since 1906, then could human-caused global warming still be
  the primary agent? If it hasn't been a linear loss, then how much of
  that 90% loss occurred in recent decades? I'll need to research some of
  this on the web myself, but meanwhile, if there is a pool of experts
  right here...

  Please note: I do NOT consider myself one of those who mistrusts all
  science in its advocacy for care of environment. Stewardship is a
  Christian calling (which predated the scientific enlightenment and is
  not founded on it.) Wendell Berry is a great author, IMO. I
  seriously endorse the bicycle as the superior transportation technology
  over the automobile (even if I hypocritically fall short of living that
  ideal -- I still aspire to it). My convictions here obviously are not
  based on science. But I am interested in any clarity science can bring
  to our knowledge of our footprint.

  --merv

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Received on Thu Jan 4 11:27:13 2007