Melting Kilimanjaro not from global warming
Jun 12th, 2007 by Moonage
It’s bad science to use Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro as a poster child for global warming’s nefarious effects, two researchers say, pointing to other mechanisms causing the melt of the tropical glacier at the mountain’s summit.
Kilimanjaro’s ice has been melting away for more than a century, and most of that melt occurred before 1953, prior to the period where science begins to be conclusive about atmospheric warming in that region, according to Philip Mote of the University of Washington and Georg Kaser of the University of Innsbruck in Austria…..
Instead, melt on Kilimanjaro is caused by sublimation, which turns ice directly into water vapor at below-freezing temperatures—essentially the glacier gets a giant case of moisture-sapping freezer burn.
That’s a far cry from the headlines that have been thrown at us for a few years:
- Mount Kilimanjaro Photo Wake-Up Call for Action Against Global Warming
- A 360 degree view of climate change ( featuring an ice-less Kilimanjaro )
- BBC: Kilimanjaro’s ice “archive” ( definitive link to global warming )
- By 2020, kiss the snows of Kilimanjaro goodbye
And of course, it’s a key fact supporting An Inconvenient Truth
On and on the list goes.
Now, although Livescience just ran this article today, scientists have known this for some time. And, although there are plenty of pictures showing a snowless Kilimanjaro, according to people there, the snow is back.
Makes ya wonder who much of the rest of the “slam dunk” evidence used to support the global warming argument is just as wrong or misinterpreted.
OK, Im on the global warming bandwagon. I do agree the earths climate is warming. Do I believe we alone are responsible? Hell no. Sure, we(humans) have probably had our own impact and it may be significant. Can we make a difference by reducing emissions? I suppose but what bothers me is that we could cut our emissions to zero and yet have a couple of major volcanoes blow and it would all be undone in seconds. So why bother?
Well, the exact opposite would happen if a few big volcanoes blew. It would cause the Earth to cool. It might even bring about the next ice age that was forecast in the 90’s.
I don’t believe man has had no effect on the climate, I just don’t think we have a clue what effect it is. People keep rushing to conclusions over what we need to do to fix a problem we don’t understand fully. In several cases, the “fix” has created more problems than what we had before. Until we do understand the mechanics of our climate, I think we just need to do the logical things to protect our environment that market forces will compel regardless of creating a whole bunch of panic leading to a whole bunch of rash and counter-productive actions.