While this may not produce more than a few ripples on the pond of the global warming discussion, I wanted to point everyone to a great article from our friend Jeff Dunetz that touches on this subject. For some time now (dating back to the Obama administration) there were signs posted at Glacier National Park warning tourists that they would need to snap their glacier selfies quickly because the massive ice formations would all be gone by 2020. Well, it’s nearly the middle of 2019 and not only are the aforementioned glaciers not gone, most of them are actually growing.
With that in mind, the signs had to go. But they’ve been replaced with some new ones that are equally alarmist, but a bit less specific.
SHHHHHHHH!!! The National Park Service has quietly removed all the signs put up by the Obama administration that told visitors that the glaciers would “all be gone” by the year 2020 due to global warming… because… it’s 2019, and the glaciers are all still there and have been growing.
Glacier National Park quietly removed a sign at its visitor center saying the glaciers will disappear by 2020 which were originally placed because former President Obama believed the predictions pushed by the left’s climate change hypothesis.
According to federal officials, several years in a row of high snowfall and cold temperatures totally obliterated a computer model that authorities relied on to claim that the glaciers would all be melted by 2020, Daily Caller reported.
This signs had obviously become something of an embarrassment by this point, as Jeff points out, so they were “quietly” removed and replaced. He also points us to a good explanation from an expert in the field as to why the glaciers stubbornly continue to not only exist but seasonally expand at times.
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.
As I’ve said here repeatedly, I personally do believe the data showing the overall climate is undergoing a significant warming trend. But it started at the end of the Little Ice Age in the 1800s and applied to the entire planet. (Not exactly the era of massive industrialization.) I also believe that billions of humans impact the planet’s environment, though to what extent remains uncertain. The planet has demonstrated that it’s capable of freezing into a snowball and warming to the point where not a single particle of ice exists anywhere, over an over again for as long as we can study the geological record.
So are the glaciers receding or expanding? The answer obviously changes every few years. But the warning signs prompted by some of Al Gore’s predictions demonstrate the peril of assuming that we have all of the answers in such a complicated debate. Read the rest of Jeff’s post. He has a ton of good background material above and beyond the obvious humorous value of the changes in signage at Glacier National Park.
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