Glacier National Park glaciers growing, or melting?

[Johnny_L.A]

Climate change deniers claim that glaciers in Glacier National Park have grown by 25%.

[T]he Grinnell Glacier and the Jackson Glacier appear to have been growing—not shrinking—since about 2010. (The Jackson Glacier—easily seen from the Going-To-The-Sun Highway—may have grown as much as 25% or more over the past decade.)…

Almost everywhere, the Park’s specific claims of impending glacier disappearance have been replaced with more nuanced messaging indicating that everyone agrees that the glaciers are melting. Some signs indicate that glacial melt is “accelerating.”…

The ‘gone by 2020’ claims were repeated in the New York Times, National Geographic, and other international news sources. But no mainstream news outlet has done any meaningful reporting regarding the apparent stabilization and recovery of the glaciers in GNP over the past decade.

The article says that glaciers grow for nine months, and then melt for three months. Is it saying that the glaciers are 25% larger after the melting season? Or is the 25% claim based on the grown from the end of a melting season to the end of a growing season? How much have the glaciers at Glacier National Park receded or grown over the past, say, 30 years? (i.e., what is the net change?)

[Grey]

Glacier margin time series from the USGS - need to figure out how to read it but it would be considered a default starting point.

Another caveat is that, for some glaciers, continued warming temperatures begin to have less influence on glacier size once the (now smaller) glaciers retreat to the upper confines of a cirque basin. These glaciers are now positioned under steep slopes and headwalls where there is more shade to slow melting, greater occurrence of snow avalanches which add mass to the glacier, and wind deposition of snow from other areas. Although these factors were contributing to ice accumulation in the upper portions of the glacier when the glacier was much bigger, they were minor factors in overall ice formation and melting. Now these factors are impacting a much larger percent of the glacier area even as the overall glacier area shrinks. The net result is that ice retreat and glacier area contraction can slow down, because of these compensating factors, even as regional air temperatures continue to increase. This complicates the simplistic assumption that more warming equals faster ice melt. The last caveat is that, because of the complicating circumstances described above for small glaciers, the best measure of glacier response to warming temperatures is to look at the entire population of glaciers in Glacier National Park

[racer72]

I was at Glacier National Park last September, spent 5 wonderful days exploring the park. Based on pictures at the Logan Pass visitor’s center, the glaciers are getting smaller. Many are not called glaciers any more, they have shrunk enough they no longer move on their own. Those are now just ice fields. There are also claim the park has lost a number of glaciers recently too. The driver for our red bus tour said he had seen the loss too, he has been driving the red buses in GNP for over 20 years.

[wevets]

I’m planning on getting out to Glacier National Park this summer, but the National Park Service and the US Geological Survey seem to think the glaciers in the park are shrinking: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/retreat-glaciers-glacier-national-park?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects

@US Geological Survey

In 2017, the USGS published a time series analysis of the glacier margins of the named glaciers of Glacier National Park . The areas measured are from 1966, 1998, 2005 and 2015/2016, marking approximately 50 years of change in glacier area. Scientists used aerial photography and satellite imagery to measure the perimeters of the glaciers in late summer when seasonal snow had melted to reveal the extent of the glacial ice. The data table shows that all glaciers have been reduced in area since 1966 with some glaciers having been reduced by as much as 85% by 2015. The average area reduction over the approximately 50-year period is 39%. Currently, only 26 glaciers are larger than 0.1 square kilometers (25 acres) which is used as a guideline for deciding if bodies of ice are large enough to be considered glaciers.

From the National Park Service, this site has side-by-side historical photos showing the same terrain in the past and more recently - you can slide the photo from one side to the other to see the changes.
I’m not sure it’s worth clicking through to a low-quality site like Wattsupwiththat - are they restricting their claim of glaciers growing to only 2 of the park’s 26 glaciers? And over what period of time?

[TriPolar]

@Grey

Glacier margin time series from the USGS - need to figure out how to read it but it would be considered a default starting point.

Another caveat is that, for some glaciers, continued warming temperatures begin to have less influence on glacier size once the (now smaller) glaciers retreat to the upper confines of a cirque basin. These glaciers are now positioned under steep slopes and headwalls where there is more shade to slow melting, greater occurrence of snow avalanches which add mass to the glacier, and wind deposition of snow from other areas. Although these factors were cvf glaciers in Glacier National Park

There should be some balance between melting and growth all the time. It sounds like the glaciers could be covering less area but building up the volume inland.

Couldn’t warming temperatures result in more snowfall in the area from the greater capacity of the warmer air to hold water? As long as it’s cold enough to snow at the upper region of the glacier they continue retreating and growing in volume for a long time.

[Chronos]

Have we ruled out the simplest possibility, that they’re just plain lying, without any grain of truth at all?

[2nd_Law]

@Chronos

Have we ruled out the simplest possibility, that they’re just plain lying, without any grain of truth at all?

This should not be discounted. If one looks at the link in the OP, and does a google search on the name of the author of that piece, he appears to be a libertarian loon with what I’d consider to be a checkered past, and not as much knowledge about climate science as my rose bush. Not going to mention his name, seeing as he impresses me as the sort who does vanity searches for his name on a daily basis.

[Johnny_L.A]

What actually triggered the question was a political cartoon. The cartoon is signed ‘Braco’ and ‘Americans for Limited Government’ though. The link in the OP was just an example I found.

[wevets]

@Johnny_L.A

What actually triggered the question was a political cartoon. The cartoon is signed ‘Braco’ and ‘Americans for Limited Government’ though. The link in the OP was just an example I found.

It seems to me an outright lie is even more likely in a political cartoon, where sources for the shrinking glacier claim are completely absent (but that’s normal for cartoons, where citing sources are unusual.)

[CookingWithGas]

These reports seems to have their roots in something published by Lysander Spooner University.

A major flaw in the government’s ‘before’ and ‘after’ approach is the omission of precise calendar dates. Every Montanan knows that mountain glaciers grow for 9 months of the year and then melt for 3 months. Thus a picture of a glacier taken in June or July will always show the glacier much larger than will a photo taken in early September. Comparing one year (“circa 1952”) to another year (“2005’) can be highly manipulative. Only a year-by-year, date-by-date comparison of photos taken at the end of the melt season (generally around the second week of September) will establish whether a glacier is growing or shrinking.

This year (2018) it quickly became clear that the glaciers have grown substantially in recent years. A startling example is seen at the Jackson Glacier overlook on the Going-to-the-Sun Road. The government has erected a sign with two photos: (1) the Glacier in 1911; and (2) the Glacier in 2009. The display shows the Jackson Glacier melting away to perhaps 10 or 20 percent of its 1911 size. But visitors to the marker in 2018 are able to look up above in the distance and see that the Jackson Glacier has grown significantly since 2009. The Glacier’s growth may be as much as 30 or more percent since 2009.

The wording in the article is not academic or neutral–it is clearly biased. It closes with

Lysander Spooner University is the only research institution challenging the government’s Glacier Park climate hysteria. Literally, no one else—not the local newspapers, not the think tanks, not the government-supported universities or even the Boy Scouts—are doing this vital work.

I cannot find anything about this “university” except on its own web site.

[CookingWithGas]

This “university” is bullshit. Check out its Faculty page for a good laugh.

[Johnny_L.A]

So a fake cartoon based on fake news from a fake study at a fake university.

Thanks.

[Rhodes]

@CookingWithGas

This “university” is bullshit. Check out its Faculty page for a good laugh.

The Costs page is amusing too. It’s FREE, and also ex-convicts get a 25% discount.

[Johnny_L.A]

@CookingWithGas

This “university” is bullshit. Check out its Faculty page for a good laugh.

Ahahahahahahaha!

[septimus]

I Google “Climate change is fake” and get 87 million hits. Google “Climate change is genuine” gets only 53 million hits. Seems pretty conclusive.

I guess this result would be even more authoritative if I restricted Google to pages with cartoons, but I don’t know how to do that.