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When not involved in "character assasignate"[tion] I perform what is known as research. Here's another marker on our descent into heck. NARO MORU, Kenya (AP) -- Rivers of ice at the Equator -- foretold in the 2nd century, found in the 19th -- are now melting away in this new century, returning to the realm of lore and fading photographs. From mile-high Naro Moru, villagers have watched year by year as the great glaciers of Mount Kenya, glinting in the equatorial sun high above them, have retreated into shrunken white stains on the rocky shoulders of the 16,897-foot peak. Climbing up, "you can hear the water running down beneath Diamond and Darwin," mountain guide Paul Nditiru said, speaking of two of 10 surviving glaciers. Some 200 miles due south, the storied snows of Mount Kilimanjaro, the tropical glaciers first seen by disbelieving Europeans in 1848, are vanishing. And to the west, in the heart of equatorial Africa, the ice caps are shrinking fast atop Uganda's Rwenzoris -- the "Mountains of the Moon" imagined by ancient Greeks as the source of the Nile River. The total loss of ice masses ringing Africa's three highest peaks, projected by scientists to happen sometime in the next two to five decades, fits a global pattern playing out in South America's Andes Mountains, in Europe's Alps, in the Himalayas and beyond. Almost every one of more than 300 large glaciers studied worldwide is in retreat, international glaciologists reported in October in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. This is "essentially a response to post-1970 global warming," they said. Even such strong evidence may not sway every climate skeptic. Some say it's lower humidity, not higher temperatures, that is depleting Kilimanjaro's snows, for example. Stefan Hastenrath of the University of Wisconsin, who has climbed, poked, photographed and measured east Africa's glaciers for four decades, says what's happening is complex and needs more study. But on a continent where climatologists say temperatures have risen an average 1 degree Fahrenheit in the past century, global warming plays a role, he says. "The onset of glacier recession in east Africa has causes different from other equatorial regions. It's a complicated sort of affair," he said by telephone from Madison. But "that is not something to be taken as an argument against the global warming notions." In Kampala, Uganda's capital, veteran meteorologist Abushen Majugu agreed. "There's generally been a constant rise in temperatures. To some degree the reduction of the glaciers must be connected to warming," he said. For the full story: Click Here


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glaciers have been in retreat the last 500 years. SO perhaps we were emitting too much CO2 500 years ago, might be what turned the ice age.

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JonathanLowe said:

"SO perhaps we were emitting too much CO2 500 years ago, might be what turned the ice age."


How long ago did humans learn to control, and so use, fire to some extent?

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Well TNZ for a very long time. And JLowe is partly correct in that glaciers have been melting for awhile though his 500 year figure is a made up number of the top of his head. It could be longer, it could be shorter, he really doesn't know but it was a nice round number and made it sound like he was authoritative. I looked it up and he is laughably wrong.

But the point is not whether they are melting. Rather it is the increased rate at which they are melting. And the implications for the future.

When there is no water left in the Yangtze River it won't matter how many years ago the glaciers started melting. People with AK47s don't ask nicely when they are thirsty.


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Originally Posted By: DA Morgan
I looked it up and he is laughably wrong.


I was so wrong, that the little ice age occured most likely between 1550 and 1850. Considering that it's 2006 now this means 456 years ago. I am terribly sorry that I was out by 44 years, I was meerly just rounding.

Can you explain how this is laughably wrong?

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Your statement is still incorrect. And your insincerity far from obscured. Your statement was laughably wrong and it still is. It is the equivalent of saying "it rained yesterday and today the sun came out so we are having a one day desertification."

Climatology is not simple. Perhaps that is why you find it elusive.


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Sorry Morgan, can you explain once again why that statement was "laughably wrong"? I would prefer if you actually cam up with a reason rather than just saying it was wrong. Many thanks.

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Your number is wrong. Why is it my obligation to go to google, or the library, and get you the citations?

You posted something as fact. You wrote: "glaciers have been in retreat the last 500 years." And that is not the case. Then you updated by stating: "the little ice age occured most likely between 1550 and 1850. Considering that it's 2006 now this means 456 years ago." Which is also incorrect.

I presented the above to a young lady currently in her senior year at university and she quickly found the basic error in your statements, above. Why can't you?

It took me less than 60 seconds with google to find this from Harvard University:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1997PhDT........88C
And it would take no more than another few minutes to find numerous other examples that demonstrate that climatology is more complex than you can ....


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nope, here's an article that says from 1300 to 1800:
http://www-user.zfn.uni-bremen.de/~gheiss/Personal/Abstracts/SAJS2000_Abstr.html

In fact, as wikipedia notes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

"Some confine the Little Ice Age to approximately the 16th to the mid-19th centuries while others suggest a span from the 13th to 17th centuries. It is generally agreed that there were three minima, beginning about 1650, about 1770, and 1850, each separated by slight warming intervals"

perhaps you should change wikipedia's webpage about this?

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JLowe wrote:
"nope, here's an article that says from 1300 to 1800:"

Read the article. If you can't catch the error in what you posted you've no business sitting for an advanced degree.

The error is that you are focusing on a single event.

Now were that event to meeting the criteria you had previously set up you would be correct. But it isn't. I could, with equal value, point to the signing of the US Declaration of Independence in 1776. But that event too would be irrelevant.

Go back to your original statement: "glaciers have been in retreat the last 500 years." and consider that it is just possible that the end of the Little Ice Age is irrelevant to when they started retreating.

Perhaps viewing a commercial film "An Inconvenient Truth" might help your focus. Al Gore, at least, got it right.


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Originally Posted By: DA Morgan
Go back to your original statement: "glaciers have been in retreat the last 500 years." and consider that it is just possible that the end of the Little Ice Age is irrelevant to when they started retreating.

Perhaps viewing a commercial film "An Inconvenient Truth" might help your focus. Al Gore, at least, got it right.


So tell me what was so laughably wrong with 500 years? Was it instead 50 years or 5000? I must have been way out? Or were you in fact, (as we all know) just brushing the comment off. We all know the truth here, and the fact that you are trying to defend yourself on this one just proves your stubborness.

And Al Gore? huh? Ohh no, we don't want to get in a debate about this do we?

Geez, all you have to do is a google search to see so many holes in almost every one of his arguements,

but please feel free to answer the question, was it 50 years ago or 5000 years ago that made my comment so laughable?

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What was laughably wrong is that you seized upon the end of the little ice age as the point-in-time from which you claimed the planet's glaciers started retreating.

It is irrelevant whether the little ice age ended 456 years ago, 500 years ago, or 15 minutes ago. It has nothing to do with the point when retreat began.

Which, BTW, was thousands of years before that.

Which you will no doubt seize upon as validating your preconceived notion of what is happening. Alas that date too is irrelevant to current climatology.


DA Morgan

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