Donate Bitcoin

Donate Paypal


PeakOil is You

PeakOil is You

THE Glacier Thread (merged)

Re: THE Glacier Thread (merged)

Unread postby Subjectivist » Sun 01 Jan 2017, 16:49:51

It isn't easy to say why a glacier might retreat or whether that retreat is a product of global warming. But a team led by Gerard Roe of the University of Washington in Seattle has found a way to look at the big picture.

The scientists studied the pattern of behavior of 37 glaciers spread around the globe, in Austria, in Washington State in the U.S., in New Zealand, in Sweden and so on, and matched them with local meteorological trends.

Ideally, researchers would like to know about the changes in the mass of ice in a glacier, but measurements of these don't stretch very far back. But the retreat of the world's glaciers—their terminals now compared with where they ended many decades ago—is well documented in paintings, photographs and alpine records.

http://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change- ... 10674.html
II Chronicles 7:14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Subjectivist
Volunteer
Volunteer
 
Posts: 4701
Joined: Sat 28 Aug 2010, 07:38:26
Location: Northwest Ohio

Re: THE Glacier Thread (merged)

Unread postby WildRose » Tue 03 Jan 2017, 03:38:23

I found this article about a recent (last month) climbing expedition into Athabasca Glacier in Jasper National Park. Will Gadd and his team are attempting to learn how climate change is affecting glaciers from within. Some interesting findings:

“The interesting thing was the moulin was packed with snow so the first thing we had to do was this kind of tunneling exercise for about 10 metres vertically, but what was weird was that there was this warm air coming up,” said Gadd.

“It was a difficult situation to dig that much snow to get where we wanted to go, but we got through it by following the warm air, which was odd,” said Gadd.

“Why would there be warm air coming out of a glacier?”



“There was liquid water in there, in the middle of winter at -30,” said Gadd, explaining the temperature reached a balmy three degrees Celsius.

“How is this possible? We were all kind of at a kind of loss.”



That wasn’t the only thing that surprised the group. The next thing they found was a form of algae.

“These biofilms have apparently not been seen below the surface of a glacier before either, so we need to go back and get samples of these biofilms and work with Parks to get permission to do that.”



And he describes the retreat of the Athabasca Glacier, saying that we're all familiar with what the retreat of the glacier looks like, but it's actually the vertical loss of ice that is the most amazing:

“It’s retreated massively since when I was a kid,” said Gadd. “I think everybody sees the glacier recession and that’s a big deal, but one of the things that I learned on this trip that surprised me, is that it’s actually the vertical loss that’s greater than the horizontal loss.”

“It’s not as obvious, but if you look along the sides of the Athabasca Glacier you can see it’s lost probably 100 metres or more of ice and if you think about that it’s like going from a very, very thick block of ice down to a relatively thin skating rink,” said Gadd.



http://www.fitzhugh.ca/ice-climber-expl ... a-glacier/
User avatar
WildRose
Heavy Crude
Heavy Crude
 
Posts: 1881
Joined: Wed 21 Jun 2006, 03:00:00

Re: THE Glacier Thread (merged)

Unread postby Tanada » Tue 03 Jan 2017, 04:12:11

Water has an astounding heat capacity. When they get ready to open the Sault Ste. Marie canal locks between Lake Superior and Lake Huron they just turn on a circulating pump in each lock chamber. As the bottom water at about 3 C gets pumped out on the surface of the ice it erodes the solid surface into liquid with no need to add expensive heating. They have used this method for a very very long time each spring. The water column is only about 55 feet, but that volume has enough stored thermal energy to melt a meter of surface ice when daytime air temperatures are barely above freezing for a few hours a day.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
User avatar
Tanada
Site Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 17050
Joined: Thu 28 Apr 2005, 03:00:00
Location: South West shore Lake Erie, OH, USA

Re: THE Glacier Thread (merged)

Unread postby dohboi » Wed 04 Jan 2017, 19:31:40

"Water has an astounding heat capacity"

Exactly. That's why it's so amazing and frightening that we are actually warming up, not just the atmosphere and the surface of the earth, but the vast deep oceans. Boggles the mind, really.
User avatar
dohboi
Harmless Drudge
Harmless Drudge
 
Posts: 19990
Joined: Mon 05 Dec 2005, 04:00:00

Re: THE Glacier Thread (merged)

Unread postby kiwichick » Thu 05 Jan 2017, 04:16:07

+ 1 d ...without the oceans we would have already heated up the planet by approx. 30 degrees C

this years arctic melt season could be very interesting
User avatar
kiwichick
Intermediate Crude
Intermediate Crude
 
Posts: 2267
Joined: Sat 02 Aug 2008, 03:00:00
Location: Southland New Zealand

Re: Climate Chaos Is Here Pt. 3

Unread postby dohboi » Mon 17 Apr 2017, 12:56:30

Those look interesting. Thanks, vox.

Meanwhile, more chaos:

Climate Change Reroutes a Yukon River in a Geological Instant

In the blink of a geological eye, climate change has helped reverse the flow of water melting from a glacier in Canada’s Yukon, a hijacking that scientists call “river piracy.”

This engaging term refers to one river capturing and diverting the flow of another. It occurred last spring at the Kaskawulsh Glacier, one of Canada’s largest, with a suddenness that startled scientists.

Much of the meltwater from the glacier normally flows to the north into the Bering Sea via the Slims and Yukon Rivers. A rapidly retreating and thinning glacier — accelerated by global warming — caused the water to redirect to the south, and into the Pacific Ocean.


https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/s ... river.html
User avatar
dohboi
Harmless Drudge
Harmless Drudge
 
Posts: 19990
Joined: Mon 05 Dec 2005, 04:00:00

Re: Climate Chaos Is Here Pt. 3

Unread postby dissident » Mon 17 Apr 2017, 15:57:07

dohboi wrote:Those look interesting. Thanks, vox.

Meanwhile, more chaos:

Climate Change Reroutes a Yukon River in a Geological Instant

In the blink of a geological eye, climate change has helped reverse the flow of water melting from a glacier in Canada’s Yukon, a hijacking that scientists call “river piracy.”

This engaging term refers to one river capturing and diverting the flow of another. It occurred last spring at the Kaskawulsh Glacier, one of Canada’s largest, with a suddenness that startled scientists.

Much of the meltwater from the glacier normally flows to the north into the Bering Sea via the Slims and Yukon Rivers. A rapidly retreating and thinning glacier — accelerated by global warming — caused the water to redirect to the south, and into the Pacific Ocean.


https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/s ... river.html


Yes, one more nail in the coffin of a cold Arctic Ocean. Even if this fresh water flux is a small part of the total amount, it will contribute to increasing surface water salinity.
dissident
Expert
Expert
 
Posts: 6458
Joined: Sat 08 Apr 2006, 03:00:00

Re: Climate Chaos Is Here Pt. 3

Unread postby dohboi » Mon 17 Apr 2017, 18:31:43

I hadn't thought about that feedback, dis.

And I think you're right about shifting goal posts. But that's the nature of these articles these days.

Squil would be right if it were just about ice cover, perhaps. But there are good proxies for global temps going back that far, I think.
User avatar
dohboi
Harmless Drudge
Harmless Drudge
 
Posts: 19990
Joined: Mon 05 Dec 2005, 04:00:00

Re: THE Glacier Thread (merged)

Unread postby WildRose » Mon 17 Apr 2017, 20:24:43

Check this out. This happened in the Yukon in the summer of 2016. Evidence of modern climate change, "an event not documented in modern times" called "river piracy", which occurs when glacier meltwater changes its direction of flow due to severe geological event, in this case, rapid climate change:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/clima ... -1.4070153

Shugar and colleague James Best, a professor of geology and geography from the University of Illinois, travelled to the Slims River in the Kluane National Park and Reserve west of Haines Junction, Yukon, last summer. It was his first summer as a professor, and Shugar had a grant to study changes to the flow of the Slims.

Retreating Yukon glacier makes river disappear

"We went there anticipating low flow and it turned out to be no flow," said Shugar.

Best said the change compared to their previous visit was "absolutely astonishing."



It looks like this happened much sooner than expected:

Their colleague and co-author John Clague had speculated in a 2006 study that the Slims River would eventually disappear, but none of them predicted the timeframe.

River gauges show there was an abrupt drop in the water level in just four days between May 26 and May 29, 2016.
User avatar
WildRose
Heavy Crude
Heavy Crude
 
Posts: 1881
Joined: Wed 21 Jun 2006, 03:00:00

Re: THE Glacier Thread (merged)

Unread postby Tanada » Tue 18 Apr 2017, 07:19:20

A more accessible article about the river course change you all are chatting about, with several pictures worth viewing.

The massive Kaskawulsh Glacier in northern Canada has retreated about a mile up its valley over the past century.

This canyon now carries almost all meltwater from the toe of the glacier down the Kaskawulsh Valley and toward the Gulf of Alaska.Jim Best/University of Illinois

Last spring, its retreat triggered a geologic event at relatively breakneck speed. The toe of ice that was sending meltwater toward the Slims River and then north to the Bering Sea retreated so far that the water changed course, joining the Kaskawulsh River and flowing south toward the Gulf of Alaska.

This capture of one river’s flow by another, documented in a study led by the University of Washington Tacoma and published April 17 in Nature Geoscience, is the first known case of “river piracy” in modern times.

“Geologists have seen river piracy, but nobody to our knowledge has documented it happening in our lifetimes,” said lead author Dan Shugar, a geoscientist at the University of Washington Tacoma. “People had looked at the geological record — thousands or millions of years ago — not the 21st century, where it’s happening under our noses.”

River piracy, also known as stream capture, can happen due to tectonic motion of Earth’s crust, landslides, erosion or, in this case, a change in a glacial dam. The new study documents one of the less-anticipated shifts that can occur in a changing climate.

Shugar and co-authors Jim Best at the University of Illinois and John Clague at Canada’s Simon Fraser University had planned fieldwork last summer on the Slims River, a geologically active system that feeds Kluane Lake in the Yukon. When they arrived in August, the river was not flowing. River gauges show an abrupt drop over four days from May 26 to 29, 2016.

By late summer, “there was barely any flow whatsoever. It was essentially a long, skinny lake,” Shugar said. “The water was somewhat treacherous to approach, because you’re walking on these old river sediments that were really goopy and would suck you in. And day by day we could see the water level dropping.”

The research team puzzled about what to do next. They got permission to use their mapping drone to create a detailed elevation model of the glacier tongue and headwater region. The resulting paper is a geological postmortem of the river’s disappearance.

“For the last 300 years, Slims River flowed out to the Bering Sea, and the smaller Kaskawulsh River flowed to the Gulf of Alaska. What we found was the glacial lake that fed Slims River had actually changed its outlet,” Shugar said. “A 30-meter (100-foot) canyon had been carved through the terminus of the glacier. Meltwater was flowing through that canyon from one lake into another glacial lake, almost like when you see champagne poured into glasses that are stacked in a pyramid.”

That second lake drains via the Kaskawulsh River in a different direction than the first. The situation is fairly unique, Shugar said, since the glacier’s toe was sitting on a geologic divide.

Clague began studying this glacier years ago for the Geological Survey of Canada. He observed that Kluane Lake, which is Yukon’s largest lake, had changed its water level by about 40 feet (12 meters) a few centuries ago. He concluded that the Slims River that feeds it had appeared as the glacier advanced, and a decade ago predicted the river would disappear again as the glacier retreated.

“The event is a bit idiosyncratic, given the peculiar geographic situation in which it happened, but in a broader sense it highlights the huge changes that glaciers are undergoing around the world due to climate change,” Clague said.

Less input from the Slims River has lowered the water level of Kluane Lake, the largest lake in the Yukon, exposing sediments and creating dust storms.

The geologic event has redrawn the local landscape. Slims River crosses the Alaska Highway, and its banks were a popular hiking route. Now that the riverbed is exposed, Dall sheep from Kluane National Park are making their way down to eat the fresh vegetation, venturing into territory where they can legally be hunted. With less water flowing in, Kluane Lake did not refill last spring, and by summer 2016 was about 3 feet (1 meter) lower than ever recorded for that time of year. Waterfront land, which includes the small communities of Burwash Landing and Destruction Bay, is now farther from shore. As the lake level continues to drop researchers expect this will become an isolated lake cut off from any outflow.

On the other hand, the Alsek River, a popular whitewater rafting river that is a UNESCO world heritage site, was running higher last summer due to the addition of the Slims River’s water.

Shifts in sediment transport, lake chemistry, fish populations, wildlife behavior and other factors will continue to occur as the ecosystem adjusts to the new reality, Shugar said.

“So far, a lot of the scientific work surrounding glaciers and climate change has been focused on sea-level rise,” Shugar said. “Our study shows there may be other underappreciated, unanticipated effects of glacial retreat.”

The Kaskawulsh Glacier is retreating up the valley because of both readjustment after a cold period centuries ago, known as the Little Ice Age, and warming due to greenhouse gases. A technique published in 2016 by UW co-author Gerard Roe shows a 99.5 percent probability that this glacier’s retreat is showing the effects of modern climate change.

“I always point out to climate-change skeptics that Earth’s glaciers are becoming markedly smaller, and that can only happen in a warming climate,” Clague said.

Other co-authors are Christian Schoof at the University of British Columbia, Michael Willis at the University of Colorado and Luke Copland at the University of Ottawa. The study was funded by the University of Washington Royalty Research Fund, Parks Canada, Yukon Geological Survey, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the University of Ottawa and the University of Illinois.


http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/04/ ... disappear/
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
User avatar
Tanada
Site Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 17050
Joined: Thu 28 Apr 2005, 03:00:00
Location: South West shore Lake Erie, OH, USA

Re: THE Glacier Thread (merged)

Unread postby Subjectivist » Fri 01 Sep 2017, 13:56:52

The Remains of 3 More Long-Missing Hikers Have Been Found in the Alps
For the third time this summer, melting Alpine glaciers have revealed the fate of missing hikers.

FOR THE THIRD TIME THIS summer, the bodies of long-lost hikers in the Alps have been discovered as the mountains’ icy peaks melt. In July, a worker discovered the remains of a Swiss couple who had been missing since 1942; earlier this month, two hikers climbing a Swiss peak came across a hand and a pair of shoes that turned out to belong to a hiker who went missing in 1987.

Now, a French climber has found the bodies of three climbers on Mont Blanc, the Alps’s highest mountain. Local police believe that the three climbers died in the mid-90s, AFP reports.

For the past few years, the remains of missing people have been appearing with some regularity in the Alpine region. In 2015, a climber on the Matterhorn glacier found the bodies of two Japanese climbers missing since 1970; the remains of a Czech man missing since 1974 were also discovered. In 2014, a helicopter pilot spotted the bones of a 27-year-old British hiker who disappeared in 1979. In the Andes, too, retreating glaciers have revealed the remains of long-lost pilots and other unfortunates.

The local police have been keeping a list of missing hikers in the region since 1925, the year after George Mallory and Andrew Irvine disappeared while attempting to summit Mt. Everest, in the Himalayas. During the time that Alpine police have kept their list, 280 people have gone missing in the area, National Geographic reports.

More of these bodies are being discovered as the glaciers start to melt faster than ever. As Deutsche Welle reports, the Alpine glaciers of Europe are half the size they were in 1900, and the rate at which they have been disappearing has been accelerating since the 1980s. In the course of just a few decades, Mont Blanc has lost about a quarter of its glacial ice. The ice is melting more quickly in the southern parts of the Alpine range, but it’s possible the glaciers in this part of the world will have disappeared almost entirely by mid-century.

As the glaciers disappear, more of those missing people’s remains will almost certainly appear; the glaciers may also contain traces of human life that date back far further than 1925. It was in the Alps, after all, that Ötzi the Iceman was discovered in 1991.


http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mo ... rs-melting
II Chronicles 7:14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Subjectivist
Volunteer
Volunteer
 
Posts: 4701
Joined: Sat 28 Aug 2010, 07:38:26
Location: Northwest Ohio

Re: THE Glacier Thread (merged)

Unread postby jawagord » Fri 01 Sep 2017, 14:38:41

Subjectivist wrote:
The Remains of 3 More Long-Missing Hikers Have Been Found in the Alps
For the third time this summer, melting Alpine glaciers have revealed the fate of missing hikers.

FOR THE THIRD TIME THIS summer, the bodies of long-lost hikers in the Alps have been discovered as the mountains’ icy peaks melt. In July, a worker discovered the remains of a Swiss couple who had been missing since 1942; earlier this month, two hikers climbing a Swiss peak came across a hand and a pair of shoes that turned out to belong to a hiker who went missing in 1987.

Now, a French climber has found the bodies of three climbers on Mont Blanc, the Alps’s highest mountain. Local police believe that the three climbers died in the mid-90s, AFP reports.

For the past few years, the remains of missing people have been appearing with some regularity in the Alpine region. In 2015, a climber on the Matterhorn glacier found the bodies of two Japanese climbers missing since 1970; the remains of a Czech man missing since 1974 were also discovered. In 2014, a helicopter pilot spotted the bones of a 27-year-old British hiker who disappeared in 1979. In the Andes, too, retreating glaciers have revealed the remains of long-lost pilots and other unfortunates.

The local police have been keeping a list of missing hikers in the region since 1925, the year after George Mallory and Andrew Irvine disappeared while attempting to summit Mt. Everest, in the Himalayas. During the time that Alpine police have kept their list, 280 people have gone missing in the area, National Geographic reports.

More of these bodies are being discovered as the glaciers start to melt faster than ever. As Deutsche Welle reports, the Alpine glaciers of Europe are half the size they were in 1900, and the rate at which they have been disappearing has been accelerating since the 1980s. In the course of just a few decades, Mont Blanc has lost about a quarter of its glacial ice. The ice is melting more quickly in the southern parts of the Alpine range, but it’s possible the glaciers in this part of the world will have disappeared almost entirely by mid-century.

As the glaciers disappear, more of those missing people’s remains will almost certainly appear; the glaciers may also contain traces of human life that date back far further than 1925. It was in the Alps, after all, that Ötzi the Iceman was discovered in 1991.


http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mo ... rs-melting


Glaciers move, people who fall into a crevice, get spit out decades later when the ice has moved the body to the toe of the glacier and summer melt exposes the body. Given the popularity of climbing in the 80's and 90's, expect a lot more bodies to be found in the coming decades.
Don't deny the peak!
jawagord
Lignite
Lignite
 
Posts: 313
Joined: Mon 29 May 2017, 10:49:17

Re: THE Glacier Thread (merged)

Unread postby Plantagenet » Fri 01 Sep 2017, 15:01:05

These bodies aren't being spit out at the toe of the glacier to normal glacier flow. They are being exposed because glaciers are thinning and disappearing due to global warming. As the glaciers thin due to global warming the glaciers basically stagnate in place and the bodies are exposed. Otzi, for instance, was not dumped out of the end of the glacier. He died high on the glacier and had been in the glacier for 5300 years, frozen in an area of stagnant ice on the side of the glacier that wasn't even moving.

Image
Otzi was exposed as ice thinned and melted down around him.
Never underestimate the ability of Joe Biden to f#@% things up---Barack Obama
-----------------------------------------------------------
Keep running between the raindrops.
User avatar
Plantagenet
Expert
Expert
 
Posts: 26616
Joined: Mon 09 Apr 2007, 03:00:00
Location: Alaska (its much bigger than Texas).

Re: THE Glacier Thread (merged)

Unread postby Tanada » Fri 01 Sep 2017, 18:54:10

Many years ago, sometime in the late 1980's possibly 1988, I recall reading an article about the mystery the park rangers at Glacier National Park had finally solved.

It seems that around June the wolves released into the park were being closely monitored and the monitoring program included rangers collecting scat samples scattered around the wolf roaming pattern. This was done to check the health of the wolves and to study their diet after they were reintroduced to the park. Suddenly the scat turned out to contain significant insect protein and careful study proved that the undigested insect material in the scat were from a species of Locusts that were no longer present in North America having become extinct decades earlier when widespread insecticide use by farmers on the great plains made them disappear from the American ecosystem. Now they were showing up, in quantity, in wolf scat in Glacier National Park.
The Park Rangers started closely tracking the wolves and after a week or two they discovered that at some time in the 1800's a swarm of locusts had been caught in a freak snow storm had blown the swarm up the mountainside and incorporated them them into the fresh snow layer on the glacier high up the mountain. Eventually in the 1980's the toe of the glacier was retreating fast enough that every day another few hundred locusts would melt free of the glacier. The wolves being smart predators were also scavengers and were swinging by the toe of the glacier every day to eat the free insect protein to their fill and drink the pure melt water. After a few weeks the glacier had retreated far enough that the swarm had all been released and presumably eaten by wolves and other animals so the wolves went back to eating their 'regular' diet of prey animals they could catch.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
User avatar
Tanada
Site Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 17050
Joined: Thu 28 Apr 2005, 03:00:00
Location: South West shore Lake Erie, OH, USA

Re: THE Glacier Thread (merged)

Unread postby jawagord » Fri 01 Sep 2017, 19:31:05

I think the moving glacier mechanism exposes more bodies by bringing them to the melt edge than cases where bodies are trapped in place and waiting for the glacier to melt back. Least that's the way it works in Canada. The iceman was a special case buried in a dip, and it took what 5000 years for the ice to melt.

Holland's body had moved down the mountain with the glacier, Lemke told The Canadian Press. "Glaciers are constantly moving," Lemke explained. "What starts at the top will eventually work its way out at the bottom."

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38900691/ns/w ... anqm-vOerU
Don't deny the peak!
jawagord
Lignite
Lignite
 
Posts: 313
Joined: Mon 29 May 2017, 10:49:17

Re: THE Glacier Thread (merged)

Unread postby Plantagenet » Sat 02 Sep 2017, 11:18:29

jawagord wrote: Otzi .... special case...


Otzi is a "special case"? What a strange statement.

Science doesn't work that way. Otzi isn't a "special case." Everything that happens in nature can be explained scientifically---no exceptions or special cases. Otzi was exposed high on the glacier as the surface of the glacier melted and thinned. And thats precisely the point I'm making here.

jawagord wrote: "Glaciers are constantly moving," Lemke explained. "What starts at the top will eventually work its way out at the bottom."[


Of course. But the lower parts of glaciers are also constantly melting down as they thaw at the surface. The amount of surface melt can be huge---. As the surface of the glacier melts down it will expose things that have been incorporated in the glacier ..... like bodies.

I suppose its possible for a body to be carried down to the terminus and melt out of the toe of the glacier there, but so far they are mostly melting out on the surface of the ice as the glacier ablates and thins, just as Otzi did.

Image
Guess how much the surface of this glacier has melted downward in just one melting season (HINT---look at the rock---why is it on top of an ice pedestal?).

Cheers!
User avatar
Plantagenet
Expert
Expert
 
Posts: 26616
Joined: Mon 09 Apr 2007, 03:00:00
Location: Alaska (its much bigger than Texas).

Re: THE Glacier Thread (merged)

Unread postby jawagord » Sat 02 Sep 2017, 12:10:29

How do you think the rock got there? It fell further up the mountain and got carried by the moving ice to a point where the ice beneath it melted in a single summer. I'm not arguing this glacier isn't retreating, its the premise that the lost climbers were buried in place that's faulty. Your picture is used as an example in the link below. Scientifically explainable does not preclude something being special.

Cheers!

As the glacier is like a conveyer belt for the rock debris it carries, the debris is concentrated, and becomes thicker towards the end of the glacier, ...

http://lindseynicholson.org/2015/06/int ... -glaciers/


http://www.history.alberta.ca/okotoks/
Don't deny the peak!
jawagord
Lignite
Lignite
 
Posts: 313
Joined: Mon 29 May 2017, 10:49:17

Re: THE Glacier Thread (merged)

Unread postby Plantagenet » Sat 02 Sep 2017, 18:47:49

jawagord wrote: its the premise that the lost climbers were buried in place that's faulty.


That premise exists only in your imagination. I never said that.

jawagord wrote: [i]As the glacier is like a conveyer belt for the rock debris it carries, the debris is concentrated, and becomes thicker towards the end of the glacier, ...


Yes, thats exactly my point. As the glacier surface thaws and melts in the ablation zone, the debris being carried within the glacier----rocks and bodies alike ----will gradually be exposed at the surface as the ice melts. Thats why Otzi and most if not all other bodies have been found at the surface of the glacier ice where it is melting, rather then being carried all the way to the terminus and dumped out of the toe as you earlier suggested.

Another way to visualize this is to consider the path that snow (or bodies or rocks or whatever) take through valley glaciers. The flow path of ice and other things within the ice tends to move UPWARDS within glaciers through a broad area of the lower glacier known as the ablation zone. This will bring bodies to the surface rather than to the toe of the glacier.

Image
Note that ice flow is actually UPWARDS within the ablation zone. This will bring bodies and rocks UPWARD to the surface of the glacier where they can be exposed by melting and ablation.

Get it now?

CHEERS!
User avatar
Plantagenet
Expert
Expert
 
Posts: 26616
Joined: Mon 09 Apr 2007, 03:00:00
Location: Alaska (its much bigger than Texas).

Re: THE Glacier Thread (merged)

Unread postby Subjectivist » Sat 02 Sep 2017, 19:21:56

Tanada wrote:Many years ago, sometime in the late 1980's possibly 1988, I recall reading an article about the mystery the park rangers at Glacier National Park had finally solved.

It seems that around June the wolves released into the park were being closely monitored and the monitoring program included rangers collecting scat samples scattered around the wolf roaming pattern. This was done to check the health of the wolves and to study their diet after they were reintroduced to the park. Suddenly the scat turned out to contain significant insect protein and careful study proved that the undigested insect material in the scat were from a species of Locusts that were no longer present in North America having become extinct decades earlier when widespread insecticide use by farmers on the great plains made them disappear from the American ecosystem. Now they were showing up, in quantity, in wolf scat in Glacier National Park.
The Park Rangers started closely tracking the wolves and after a week or two they discovered that at some time in the 1800's a swarm of locusts had been caught in a freak snow storm had blown the swarm up the mountainside and incorporated them them into the fresh snow layer on the glacier high up the mountain. Eventually in the 1980's the toe of the glacier was retreating fast enough that every day another few hundred locusts would melt free of the glacier. The wolves being smart predators were also scavengers and were swinging by the toe of the glacier every day to eat the free insect protein to their fill and drink the pure melt water. After a few weeks the glacier had retreated far enough that the swarm had all been released and presumably eaten by wolves and other animals so the wolves went back to eating their 'regular' diet of prey animals they could catch.


I was intruiged so I searched around and found these. Nothing in them about wolves, but lots to say about locusts and grasshopper swarms frozen in glaciers.

http://formontana.net/grasshopper.html

http://nandugreen.typepad.com/chasing_t ... acier.html
II Chronicles 7:14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Subjectivist
Volunteer
Volunteer
 
Posts: 4701
Joined: Sat 28 Aug 2010, 07:38:26
Location: Northwest Ohio

Re: THE Glacier Thread (merged)

Unread postby Plantagenet » Sat 02 Sep 2017, 23:57:26

Its not just glaciers. You can find interesting things melting out of perennial snowfields aka "ice patches". As global warming causes some of these snowfields to melt and shrink and disappear, all kinds of archeological materials are turning up in alpine areas across the western USA, Canada, and Alaska, including arrowheads, baskets and other native American artifacts.

glaciericepatch.org

In northwestern North America, researchers have conducted systematic investigations of ice patches in the Yukon and Northwest Territories in Canada, and in Alaska (including Denali, Gates of the Arctic, Katmai, Lake Clark and Wrangell-St. Elias National Parks, the Chugach National Forest, and the Tangle Lakes area south of the Alaska Range). In the conterminous United States, investigations have occurred in the Colorado Front Range, including Rocky Mountain National Park, within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem of Montana and Wyoming, and Olympic National Park in Washington.

Archaeological remains from alpine ice in western North America include ancient wooden dart shafts and fragments, fletched wooden arrows, antler foreshafts, baskets, numerous wooden artifacts of uncertain function, butchered animal remains, and chipped stone artifacts. Fragments of weapons ranging in age between 10,400 cal BP and 200 cal BP.


Image
ice patch archeology
User avatar
Plantagenet
Expert
Expert
 
Posts: 26616
Joined: Mon 09 Apr 2007, 03:00:00
Location: Alaska (its much bigger than Texas).

PreviousNext

Return to Environment, Weather & Climate

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 51 guests