George Bird Grinnell, the "Father of Glacier National Park", made a final visit to his namesake Grinnell glacier in 1926 and then wrote in his diary [1]:
>"the glacier is melting very fast and the amount of water coming from it is great. All these glaciers are receding rapidly and after a time will disappear."
I was at Glacier Bay National Park just last week (https://photos.prakhar.me/alaska) and it was just depressing to hear from the park rangers on how far the glaciers have receded. Really grateful to have been able to witness them in person but it is sad to see what we've done to this planet.
I don't know you but I doubt you're largely responsible for the climate crisis. What I mean is that the "we" is a unsteerable concept. As such, I don't consider myself responsible. I do as much as my limited power lets me (also i guess I could resort myself to more potent ways of political expression). People that have power are responsible.
It's important to also note, as explained in the article:
>"Grinnell was witnessing the glacier react to a relatively natural change in the climate. The Little Ice Age, which was a cold period when the park’s current glaciers were at their largest, ended in the late 1800s as the climate started warming. The melting of the park’s glaciers in the late 1800s, was a mostly natural reaction to the end of the Little Ice Age."
The quote, without context, implied to me that he had an understanding of anthropogenic climate change a century ago. While there were people[1] at that time who did theorize this was happening, I don't think that's what Grinnell was implying in his diary.
It's also the case that the amount of melting then pales in comparison to the amount occurring today - so I'm not attempting to say that what we see today may be the continuing of a natural climate fluctuation.
I’ll never forgive the US for pulling out of the Paris accords after we had gotten China to come to the table. That was our moment to get a real grip on this problem and we blew it. It’ll never come back, I’m convinced.
Why do you deny blaming Trump? Most other republicans wouldn't have done that. He's opened up a new ability to ignore standards of behavior, but without him I really think it wouldn't have happened. And average voters have never heard of treaties like that. They voted for idiocracy realized, and they got it, but they didn't know what they voted for.
So voters are responsible (and I never convinced my dad even to this day that trump was bad, how much am I at fault), but he's an out there candidate in many ways too.
Its not about not blaming Trump, its about making it clear that its also the fault of every US American to even allow this in the first place. Not standing up, not fightning against it etc.
In 2016 Trump got 46.1% of the popular vote vs Hillary Clinton's 48.2%.
Expressed as fractions of the total US population in 2016:
- about 28.5% of the population was not eligible to vote (due to age or other reasons)
- about 31.6% of the population was eligible to vote but did not vote for either candidate
- about 20.4% of the population voted for Hillary Clinton
- about 19.5% of the population voted for Trump
If approx 1 in 5 is 'tiny' then support for the alternative was also 'tiny'.
I recently visited Illecillewaet Glacier in Glacier NP , BC and most of the recession occurred prior to 1930 . Naturally the remnant continued to recede after that. And the recession started before 1880
When you draw short term graphs, of course those trends will appear worrisome.
I think you’re missing multiple points here. It doesn’t matter. It is highly likely that we’ll lose a large number of glaciers within our lifetimes, just based on trends you can measure with your own eyeball if you wanted. Sure seems like we’re on the tail end of a long process that humans just accelerated.
Whether or not you agree with the last point (though it’s odd to me for someone to look at the sheer scale of human industry and think it has no impact on the global ecosystem), loss of glaciers will certainly have a big impact on those areas. These mountainous regions will have less and less snowmelt in the summer, which means less water everywhere downstream of them, which impacts every living thing in those regions.
When change happens quickly, it is harder for the ecosystem or evolution to balance it out.
The long term trend is, indeed, quite worrisome, even if you want to toss out the short term graph.
All that aside: the problem is that humans are accustomed to some normal, predictable climate trends to live our lives. It is very disruptive when those change in unpredictable ways. And the climate will obviously be unpredictable when a glacier disappears from a region that always had one, or when the El Niño event is the hottest ever. Our predictions are based on similar past events, so what happens when we don’t actually have a similar past event to compare to?
If you show a graph of shrinking glaciers starting from 1950 , the story being told is "look, human emissions have triggered a sudden recession in glaciers, implying a looming cataclysm".
If you show the graph starting from 1860, showing that the bulk of the recession occurred before industry, then the story is " we are seeing a warming trend that likely started 1000 years ago or further"
The first story convinces people that human emissions are the primary cause, and the solution is degrowth.
The second story is that climate is cyclical, and the solution is identifying the specific threats to human welfare and addressing those.
interestingly, greenland, which is essentialy a giant glacier is melting slightly slower so far this year, but unfortunatly this is completly offset by huge polar ice loss, and reduced sea ice in the antarctic, and glacial melting in the himalayas, and off course deap ocean thermal expansion.
George Bird Grinnell, the "Father of Glacier National Park", made a final visit to his namesake Grinnell glacier in 1926 and then wrote in his diary [1]:
>"the glacier is melting very fast and the amount of water coming from it is great. All these glaciers are receding rapidly and after a time will disappear."
[1] = https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/repeat-photos-of-grinnell-g...
I was at Glacier Bay National Park just last week (https://photos.prakhar.me/alaska) and it was just depressing to hear from the park rangers on how far the glaciers have receded. Really grateful to have been able to witness them in person but it is sad to see what we've done to this planet.
I don't know you but I doubt you're largely responsible for the climate crisis. What I mean is that the "we" is a unsteerable concept. As such, I don't consider myself responsible. I do as much as my limited power lets me (also i guess I could resort myself to more potent ways of political expression). People that have power are responsible.
The Glacial National Park referenced by GP is in Montana; you were perhaps at Glacier Bay National Park.
Regardless, some beautiful photos, thanks for sharing
It's important to also note, as explained in the article: >"Grinnell was witnessing the glacier react to a relatively natural change in the climate. The Little Ice Age, which was a cold period when the park’s current glaciers were at their largest, ended in the late 1800s as the climate started warming. The melting of the park’s glaciers in the late 1800s, was a mostly natural reaction to the end of the Little Ice Age."
The quote, without context, implied to me that he had an understanding of anthropogenic climate change a century ago. While there were people[1] at that time who did theorize this was happening, I don't think that's what Grinnell was implying in his diary.
It's also the case that the amount of melting then pales in comparison to the amount occurring today - so I'm not attempting to say that what we see today may be the continuing of a natural climate fluctuation.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils_Gustaf_Ekholm
The graph for cumulative glacier mass balance is quite sobering. The loss seems to be accelerating as well. This stuff is so depressing.
I’ll never forgive the US for pulling out of the Paris accords after we had gotten China to come to the table. That was our moment to get a real grip on this problem and we blew it. It’ll never come back, I’m convinced.
Can we be more specific and say it was Trump who pulled the US out of the Paris Accord, twice.
It was the american people who voted in Trump twice!
So no.
Well, a tiny fraction less than half the American people, at least the first time?
All those who voted for him and all those who didn't vote against him are equally complicit
Why do you deny blaming Trump? Most other republicans wouldn't have done that. He's opened up a new ability to ignore standards of behavior, but without him I really think it wouldn't have happened. And average voters have never heard of treaties like that. They voted for idiocracy realized, and they got it, but they didn't know what they voted for.
So voters are responsible (and I never convinced my dad even to this day that trump was bad, how much am I at fault), but he's an out there candidate in many ways too.
Its not about not blaming Trump, its about making it clear that its also the fault of every US American to even allow this in the first place. Not standing up, not fightning against it etc.
In 2016 Trump got 46.1% of the popular vote vs Hillary Clinton's 48.2%.
Expressed as fractions of the total US population in 2016:
If approx 1 in 5 is 'tiny' then support for the alternative was also 'tiny'.
The chase on a glacier in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley would be a lot less dramatic today, Mer de Glace, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20251106-the-sea-of-ice-t...
They should mention thermal expansion, which is also a major driver of sea-level rise.
It's like they purposefully chose the most confusing Y axis.
I was at the Pasterze glacier in Austria a few months ago. It is little more than a puddle now.
https://x.com/subfossilguy/status/1942267429196910753/photo/...
I recently visited Illecillewaet Glacier in Glacier NP , BC and most of the recession occurred prior to 1930 . Naturally the remnant continued to recede after that. And the recession started before 1880
When you draw short term graphs, of course those trends will appear worrisome.
i guess HN hates facts
I think you’re missing multiple points here. It doesn’t matter. It is highly likely that we’ll lose a large number of glaciers within our lifetimes, just based on trends you can measure with your own eyeball if you wanted. Sure seems like we’re on the tail end of a long process that humans just accelerated.
Whether or not you agree with the last point (though it’s odd to me for someone to look at the sheer scale of human industry and think it has no impact on the global ecosystem), loss of glaciers will certainly have a big impact on those areas. These mountainous regions will have less and less snowmelt in the summer, which means less water everywhere downstream of them, which impacts every living thing in those regions.
When change happens quickly, it is harder for the ecosystem or evolution to balance it out.
The long term trend is, indeed, quite worrisome, even if you want to toss out the short term graph.
All that aside: the problem is that humans are accustomed to some normal, predictable climate trends to live our lives. It is very disruptive when those change in unpredictable ways. And the climate will obviously be unpredictable when a glacier disappears from a region that always had one, or when the El Niño event is the hottest ever. Our predictions are based on similar past events, so what happens when we don’t actually have a similar past event to compare to?
what matters is the story implied by the graphs.
If you show a graph of shrinking glaciers starting from 1950 , the story being told is "look, human emissions have triggered a sudden recession in glaciers, implying a looming cataclysm".
If you show the graph starting from 1860, showing that the bulk of the recession occurred before industry, then the story is " we are seeing a warming trend that likely started 1000 years ago or further"
The first story convinces people that human emissions are the primary cause, and the solution is degrowth.
The second story is that climate is cyclical, and the solution is identifying the specific threats to human welfare and addressing those.
https://nmaffe.github.io/iceboost_webapp/ is an app for estimating glacier ice thickness using a machine-learning model. 'ICEBOOST v2.0 viewer'
interestingly, greenland, which is essentialy a giant glacier is melting slightly slower so far this year, but unfortunatly this is completly offset by huge polar ice loss, and reduced sea ice in the antarctic, and glacial melting in the himalayas, and off course deap ocean thermal expansion.
https://www.eorc.jaxa.jp/JASMES/daily/GLmonitor/
https://nsidc.org/sea-ice-today
https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/products/ocean/sst/contour/
https://climatereanalyzer.org/