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Glacier Dynamics and Why Greenland Not in Danger of Collapse

By jennifer
November 10, 2007

Dear Jennifer,

Professor Ollier takes on James Hansen's claim that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are in danger of collapse due to global warming. Hansen's claims are the basis for Al Gore's suggestion, in An Inconventient Truth, that the seas may rise by 20 feet in the near future.

Professor Ollier argues that, "Hansen's seeming ignorance of the mechanism by which glaciers flow leads him into major errors."

You may have seen Professor Cliff Ollier's write up of glacier dynamics originally circulated by Benny Peiser's excellent CCNet newsletter. The Center for Science & Public Policy has published a paper adapted from the original article with expanatory footnotes and diagram added to clarify some of the more technical parts of the article.

This paper describes glacier dynamics, such as the glacier budget, how glaciers flow (through a process known as "creep"), how creep is related to temperature and stress, and how the simple rules of creep allow us to understnad some observations of glaciers.

We hope you find this paper useful.

http://ff.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=396&Itemid=77

Paul Georgia
Center for Science & Public Policy
Frontiers of Freedom

Good Causes

Comments

  1. Luke

    In case you are still following this thread, then an interesting take is here:

    http://thatstrangeweather.blogspot.com/

    Obviously Julien (Emile-Geay) has had a very quick stab at it - and I think is downplaying the point that all the reconstructions in Lohle (well maybe all but one) have been used in previously published works where they have been calibrated to temperatures - i.e. eight of the 18 are used in Moberg et al.

    The argument that they are not "correctly weighted" is to me irrelevant. Loehle assumes no bias for any one proxy over any other. Which I think is fair.

    As I said above, this is the first point of criticism that will be levied.

    As to the lack of verification r2 statistics - this is where I think the paper will be ultimately ripped appart by the team. However, one may hope that a new paper will rise out of the ashes... Loehle's hinting at this.

    I would have just copied the paper structure identical to say this and then laughed out loud if it was criticised...
    http://eas8001.eas.gatech.edu/papers/Mann_et_al-JGR07.pdf

    cheers

    Arnost

  2. By the way, GRL sent it back unreviewed because they were "tired of seeing reconstructions". Form Craig Loehle post 6 on the CA thread for this. Read into this what you want...

  3. Thanks Luke,

    Yes, I'm also interested in SM's response. There are already a couple of interesting points raised on CA WRT to this.

    My biggest issue is that it's only 18 proxies - which really is not a large number - on the other hand they do seem to be consistent with each other so that is a plus...

    What seems to be missing from the paper - and somthing which would make it more robust - is some sort of discussion re WHY these proxies represent temperature. I am not really familiar with the papers where they first were used - will have to have a trawl through Google Scholar - but I reckon that the argument against this paper will principally come from this direction.

    It also will be interesting to see how long before RC posts up a rebutal. The longer this takes will be a guide as to how difficult a rebutal will be... If they are silent on this - (well they can't really be can they) - it will be a tacit acceptance. After all - the paper really puts to question the validity of using treerings as a temperature proxy and thus challenges tje accuracy of a lot of mainstream reconstructions.

    WRT to the plots ending in the 70's - well if that's when the proxies end, that's where the plots end. One of the key methodologies of the paper (and why there's only 18 proxies used) is that you are not splicing / combining proxies.

    Be good to keep an eye on this.

    (Paul/Jennifer - it may be worthwhile to do a post around this one in a couple of days - especially if both Steve Mc and Gavin/Mike at RC post up on it).

    cheers

    Arnost

  4. Methinks little chicken hawk doth protest too much. At this point you're hooked and have been dragged all over the harbour. You're responding to me not me to you. You're "gooooone".

    Mate you're blathering - wipe the froth from your mouth - the arguments have been clearly made by all authors - don't try your fraudulent methodology of dissectionism to bulldust your way out.

    Arguments have been made from authors conclusions not half the story mate. And those conclusions are far from your skanky selective denialist interpretations aren't they. I now know you're an abstract only cherry picker.

    You had your chance for a serious discussion and decided to wing it. Serious mistake. You're a flake.

    Chicken hawk swallowed by marlin. No trace....

    P.S. If you're a fan of Louis - just do one thing - just say his scientific views have your full support. We just like to hear supporting comments from friends. 🙂

  5. Now on to Mr Hissink’s hypothesis…

    It’s clear Lil’ Lukefish also demonstrated ignorance and (likely) deception, when he accuses me of abstract-only posts, without reading the actual papers. Ironically, this is something that is suspiciously like what he did with Shepherd’07 (abstract only), then deceptively appended Edwards’06, unattributed -- a copyright sleight of hand? Maybe we’ve all come to expect such things from the desperate Lil’ Lukefish? Anyway, Lil’s abstract-only fantasy is easily dispelled to all (except perhaps Lukefish?), when one goes back to just one quote in my Velacogna critique post of November 15, 2007 12:32 PM, see

    “… when her ~11cm/year reduction was already surpassed in reported year-to-year fluctuations in Johannesen'05 that detailed Greenland Ice Sheet GROWTH!”

    This post refers directly to a paragraph*, more than ½-way through the Johannessen’05 paper:

    “Regional temperature and precipitation are both influenced by the NAO (15)... (my emphasis) THIS IS EXEMPLIFIED BY THE CHANGES OBSERVED FROM 1994/1995 (–10.1 cm) TO 1995/1996 (+11.6 cm), ASSOCIATED WITH A RECORD POSITIVE-TO_NEGATIVE NAO REVERSAL (2.4 to –3.1) (Fig. 3).”

    Note: tightly quoted, the last sentence in this paragraph, is operative support for my “year-to-year fluctuations” critique of Velicogna’s short-year study alarmism. And it definitely did not come from the abstract, as is so idiotically charged by Lil’ Lukefish. Odd how this paragraph was missing from the massive Johannessen’05 extraction that Lil’ cut’n’pasted for us – nah, the deceptive Lukefish wouldn’t have omitted it intentionally, would he? I'll just let the rest of you judge that…

    So Q.E.D. Mr Hissink, as well! Lil’ Lukefish is a “blathering idiot” – a deceptive (& perhaps copyright fraudulent) one at that!

  6. Re: Lil’Lukefish at November 15, 2007 09:16 AM …

    Wow! You can’t be that dumb; one hopes you warmed up, before you made that freaking stretch? A fantasy gotcha on my, “BTW, hilariously predictable try with the giant Shepherd "Cut & Paste" shifting away from Davis, Johannessen, and Velicogna...”post; have you always had difficulty reading/understanding English? And I mistakenly thought Mr Hissink was exaggerating (well, more about that hypothesis later).

    First a little intro to help frame Lil’ Lukefish’s claim, “I have posted from Davis and Johannessen” -- refers to the post:
    Lil’ Lukefish at November 15, 2007 09:54 PM – a.k.a. THE MOTHER OF ALL CUT”n”PASTE (CnP) POSTS!

    CnP 1: begins “Nonetheless, as mentioned, the NAO can…” Lil’s long ~50% CUT’n’PASTE from Johannessen’05
    Science 11 November 2005: Vol. 310. no. 5750, pp. 1013 – 1016 NOTE: more on this below!

    CnP 2: begins “Our results show that the East Antarctic…” Lil’s short summary paragraph cut’n’paste of Davis’05
    Science 24 June 2005: Vol. 308. no. 5730, pp. 1898 - 1901

    CnP 3: begins “After a century of polar exploration…” repost of Lil’s earlier Shepherd’07 abstract-only cut’n’paste
    Science 16 March 2007: Vol. 315. no. 5818, pp. 1529 – 1532

    CnP 4: begins “At the same time, the very variability that…” Lil’s long ~40% CUT’n’PASTE from Edwards’06
    Progress in Physical Geography 30, 6 (2006) pp. 785–796

    Note 1: for clarity, references for CnP’s 1, 2, and 4, were added by me! Lil’ Lukefish did attribute cut’n’paste 3 earlier in thread, and simply reposted after Mr Mott filleted him. It’s obvious that Lukefish understood neither the paper, nor Mr Mott’s arguments.

    Note 2: Lil’ Lukefish sets record – serial-parroting 4 cherry-picked cut’n’pastes in one post, all while failing to grasp their linkage.

    Now back to my post of, “BTW, hilariously predictable try with the giant Shepherd "Cut & Paste" shifting away from Davis, Johannessen, and Velicogna...” that Lil’ went “gotcha” on? This sentence clearly refers to the Shepherd’07 CnP 3, plus what turns out to be Edwards’06 CnP 4! The “BTW” (“by the way,”) and “GIANT SHEPHERD” are clues, Lil’ Lukefish – as I hinted earlier, perhaps help in reading/understanding English would prevent such fantasy jumps.

    However, I will correct one phrase, due to Lil’ Lukefish’s (Shepherd’07 abstract-only + Edwards’06) cut’n’paste deception:
    “Shepherd expressed the weather vs. climate flaw (of Veligona…” gets changed to
    “Edwards expressed the weather vs. climate flaw (of Velicogna…”

    Obviously, everything else stands – including Q.E.D. Mr Mott! Corner an AGW zealot, expect big cut’n’pastes in response.

  7. Nope - but have now - very interesting.
    But we must wait for McIntyre's approval and total audit !!

    Hard to say Arnost without contemplating a while and without seeing some paleo community reaction.

    I did note:

    "I am also curious why your plots seem to end around 1970 instead of 2000."

    and

    "Now the real question is – how robust is your reconstruction? Without seeing the individual constituent proxy records, it is difficult for a reader to make a site-by-site assessment of MWP vs. present conditions. Also – as #9 notes above, the method you used could introduce bias when comparing MWP and present conditions. As I am sure Steve will tell you, some of your proxies may not be ‘true’ temperature proxies either.

    If your series is robust, it would have major implications for attribution studies. However, by “giving” up after rejection from GRL and going for E+E, it is quite likely that your series will never be taken seriously."

    E & E sigh ... wonder what GRL's objection was?

    Anyway Arnost you tell me !

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