Free Republic

PORTLAND, Ore. – The seven largest of Mount Hood's 11 glaciers have shrunk by an average of more than 30 percent since the beginning of the last century, according to calculations by a Portland State University graduate student. Keith Jackson, who is part of a glacier research team financed by the National Science Foundation and NASA, estimates that Sandy Glacier, on Mount Hood's west slopes facing Portland, covers about 60 percent less ground than it did a century ago and Eliot Glacier has lost at least half of its ice in the last 100 years.And scientists think glaciers might recede...

what could be the simplest explanation for one component of global warming, a new study shows the Sun's radiation has increased by .05 percent per decade since the late 1970s. The increase would only be significant to Earth's climate if it has been going on for a century or more, said study leader Richard Willson, a Columbia University researcher also affiliated with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The Sun's increasing output has only been monitored with precision since satellite technology allowed necessary observations. Willson is not sure if the trend extends further back in time, but other studies suggest...