Mystery Glaciers Growing as Most Others Retreat

nationalgeographic ^ | June 22, 2009 | John Roach

[JoeProBono]

Two South American glaciers are displaying strange behavior for the times: They're growing.

Most of the 50 massive glaciers draped over the spine of the Patagonian Andes are shrinking in response to a global warming, said Andrés Rivera, a glaciologist at the Center for Scientific Studies in Valdivia, Chile.

But the Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina and Pio XI glacier in Chile are taking on ice, instead of shedding it.

"What is happening … is not well understood," Rivera said.

Theories center on the geography and topography of the glaciers; the depth and temperature of the waters where the glaciers end; and how quickly, or slowly, they react to changes in the climate.

Yet overall, "if you account for the gains and losses of all of Patagonia's glaciers, they are [still] losing huge amounts of ice," Rivera pointed out.

Climate Insensitivity?

One hypothesis for the 3-mile-wide (5 kilometer-wide) Perito Moreno's advance is the glacier's apparent insensitivity to changes in what glaciologists call the equilibrium line on glaciers, Rivera said.

Roughly equivalent to the snow line, the equilibrium line is the elevation above which the glacier is growing, due to snow accumulation, and below which the glacier is melting.

When this line moves higher up a hill or a mountain due to rising temperatures, for example, more of the glacier is situated in the melting zone, and the glacier retreats.

But because Argentina's Perito Moreno glacier is so steep in the area where the equilibrium line falls, climate shifts don't impact the line's movement much, at least as it relates to the height of the mountain, Rivera noted.

As a result, the amount of of ice lost or gained is minimal........

[JoeProBono]

[NorCoGOP]

Mystery Glaciers Growing as Most Others Retreat

Al Gore, Pulitzer Prize Committee hit hardest....

[JoeProBono]

Perito Moreno Glacier Patagonia

[TheClintons-STILLAnti-American]

"What is happening … is not well understood," Rivera said.

Says it all.

They don't know what they're talking about, yet they insist we must dismantle civilization as we know it based on their theories.

[JoeProBono]

[Danae]

No, its called a shifting tide, things are getting COOLEr, not warmer. You watch in 5 years they will be screaming hysterically about global cooling and how they have GOT to get cheaper energy....

BASTARDS.

[americanophile]

"What is happening … is not well understood," Rivera said.

Understatement of the decade.

[NormsRevenge]

We got gipped out of a close up of a glacier up Tracy Arm recently due to a warm streak in Alaska, too much ice in the water as the glaciers calved pretty good.. had to divert to another fjord, Endicott Arm and the Aames glacier.

[JoeProBono]

[gimme1ibertee]

Wow....that’s beautiful. Really pretty.

[JoeProBono]

[JoeProBono]

[CollegeRepublican]

In the grand scheme of things we are in an interglacial climate period. In the short term it may get colder or it may get warmer, but at some point the glaciers (of which there are like 67,000 of them in the world) will start growing and whoever is alive will pray for global warming.

[3niner]

This is stupid. Glaciers respond to many factors including, precipitation, temperature, direct sun exposure, the albedo of the ice, etc. Also, the conditions they respond to are local. Where I live we've just had the wettest, coolest June, in decades, but my mother's home has just experienced the warmest, driest June, in many years.

Even on the continent of Antarctica the ice mass is growing is some areas and shrinking in others.

[wastoute]

You are too young to remember we had to quit burning coal in the '70s because of global cooling. Some of us have been through this crap at least once before. Last time I bought it (sorry to admit) but not this time. Like the boy who cried wolf the global warming crowd needs a spanking and sent to bed without supper.

Μολὼν λάβε

[Mikey_1962]

There are 160,000 glaciers in the world, and only 200 of them have been studied.

Of the ones studied 33% are Growing, 33% Stable, and 33% shrinking.

[polymuser]

To: Albert Arnold Gore, Jr.

Ouch!

.

[count-your-change]

After long and careful study I've discovered why glaciers retreat and advance.

When the temperature is low enough to freeze water into ice the glacier advances if ice is added to it at a rate greater than any loss.

For warmer temps. years of study and experience has shown ice melts. Details to follow.

Please share this insight with the mystified Rivera.

[Steve Van Doorn]

I am want to do a graphic very similar to that. How did you create that graphic?

[Danae]

Nope, I remember that quite clearly. I am 40 years old, and grew up in the 70’s, I remember it because it was a BIG deal in Oregon at the time, Willamette valley has real pollution issues because of its geography.

[JoeProBono]

I did not create I purloined;-}

[ex91B10]

Stunning, isn’t it?