Comments on: More on Kilimanjaro

By: Hans Erren

Hans Erren — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 13:42:12 +0000

The glacier melts, so what?
Hans Oerlemans (and Georg Kaser) in Vrij Nederland 3 dec 2005

http://www.vn.nl/vn/show/id=45983

Using Babelfish http://babelfish.altavista.com/

A tough anticyclone
Barbara van Erp
The Dutch meteorologist Hans Oerlemans has managed a station on the Morteratschgletscher for ten years. The ice tongue shortened in that period three hundred meters. But if man is guilty to that?

“The discussion concerning climate change is getting hysterical show signs,’ says Hans Oerlemans , meteorologist and geophysicisist. The professor is already thirty years in the profession. In 2001, he got the Spinozaprijs, the most important science prize in the Netherlands. He enjoys high esteem also internationally. He publishes in Science and in Nature. But now he must nevertheless admit something. “Much nonsense concerning the climate is reeled off. People who come with spectacular theories whereas they do not know the basic principles of the climate system.’

By: John A

John A — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 11:23:42 +0000

Put those two cores together, Steve. Now tell me if that thing can be distinguished from noise.

By: Willis Eschenbach

Willis Eschenbach — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 05:36:42 +0000

Steve, according to the scale on the map, KNIF1 and KNIF2 are about 85 metres apart, and KNIF2 and KNIF3 are about 110 metres apart. So yes, you’d expect them to be very closely related, certainly nothing that would require such a radical “rescaling”.

Also, the contour lines on the map don’t make any sense … unless half of the 5000m line has been erased, which is of course quite possible.

By: Steve McIntyre

Steve McIntyre — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 04:54:33 +0000

RE #1: James, sounds quite possible. I’m not making much of this particular point; the shrinkage of the glacier is inarguable. On the other hand, Thompson cites the role of particularly heavy snowfall in 1961-2 as having some explanatory value in explaining the non-ablation of the 1952 layer in KNIF2. I’m going to post up some info saying that 1961-62 was a strong El Nino. 1983 was a strong El Nino, so it would be very likely that there was heavy snowfall in the year of this picture. That would be consistent with your post. I’ll edit this up to reflect this.

By: James Lane

James Lane — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 03:50:40 +0000

Couldn’t the anomolous 1983 photo simply represent recent heavy snowfall? You could take similar photos of any high mountain in the Australian alps in different months (or even the same month on different years), and there aren’t even any glaciers there.