Klimaat- en andere gekte

[Henk Elegeert]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Op 8 februari 2010 14:53 heeft Cees Binkhorst <ceesbink at xs4all.nl> het
volgende geschreven:
> REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl
>
> Ik zou zeggen, je kunt van mij de Kilimanjaro op ;)
>
> Kun je gelijk checken of de details en cijfers die ik eerder gaf correct
> zijn!

Nog wat details en cijfers, Cees. ;)

http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/14287/Nature_Study_Debunks_Kilimanjaro_Glacier_Myth.html
"
Nature Study Debunks Kilimanjaro Glacier Myth - by James M. Taylor -
Environment & Climate News
Nature Study Debunks Kilimanjaro Glacier Myth

Environment & Climate News > February 2004
Environment
Environment > Climate: Glaciers
Email a Friend
Written By: James M. Taylor
Published In: Environment & Climate News > February 2004
Publication date: 02/01/2004
Publisher: The Heartland Institute

“The icecap atop Mount Kilimanjaro,” reported a 2001 New York Times
article, “which for thousands of years has floated like a cool beacon
over the shimmering equatorial plain of Tanzania, is retreating at
such a pace that it will disappear in less than 15 years, according to
new studies.” The article created a media sensation with its alarmist
claim and with its emphasis that global warming was surely to blame.

In truly poetic language, the Times reported, “The vanishing of the
seemingly perpetual snows of Kilimanjaro that inspired Ernest
Hemingway, echoed by similar trends on icecapped peaks from Peru to
Tibet, is one of the clearest signs that a global warming in the last
50 years appears to have exceeded typical climate shifts.”

Global warming, however, is not to blame for the retreating
Kilimanjaro ice cap, according to a November 24, 2003, article
published in Nature magazine.


Deforestation “More Likely Culprit”

According to Nature’s Betsy Mason, “Although it’s tempting to blame
the (Kilimanjaro) ice loss on global warming, researchers think that
deforestation of the mountain’s foothills is the more likely culprit.”

Forests at the base of Kilimanjaro have been steadily disappearing for
decades. “Without the forests’ humidity,” Mason reports, “previously
moisture-laden winds blew dry. No longer replenished with water, the
ice is evaporating in the strong equatorial sunshine.”

“Why has [the Kilimanjaro ice cap] been melting so relentlessly?”
asked climatologist John Daly. “The greenhouse industry say ‘global
warming,’ but then they would say that, wouldn’t they?

“The only problem with that knee-jerk explanation is that there has
been no measurable atmospheric warming in the region of Kilimanjaro,”
noted Daly. “Satellites have been measuring temperature since 1979 in
the free troposphere between 1,000 and 8,000 meters altitude, and they
show no tropospheric warming in that area. None.”

According to Daly, human-induced global warming should not have been
named the primary culprit, even before a connection to deforestation
was made.

Said Daly, “Kilimanjaro is above most of the weather and is thus
exposed to the equatorial sun, a sun that has been hotter during the
twentieth century than at any time since the medieval period. That
would be a sufficient explanation in itself for the depletion of the
ice cap.”

“The advance/buildup or retreat/melting of glacial ice is often
interpreted as a sign of climate change,” reports the Center for the
Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change (http://www.co2science.org).
“Climate alarmists have already rendered their verdict: There has been
a massive and widespread retreat of glaciers over the past century,
which they predict will only intensify under continued CO2-induced
global warming. This assessment, however, may be a bit premature.”

According to the Center, “Following the peak of Little Ice Age
coldness, it should come as no surprise that many records indicate
widespread glacial retreat, as temperatures began to rise in the mid-
to late-1800s and many glaciers returned to positions characteristic
of pre-Little Ice Age times.


Some Glaciers Shrinking, Others Growing

“What people may find surprising, however, is that in many instances
the rate of glacier retreat has not increased over the past 70 years;
and in some cases glacier mass balance has actually increased, all
during a time when the atmosphere experienced the bulk of the increase
in its CO2 content.”

A study published in Progress in Physical Geography (Braithwaite,
R.J., 26: 76-95 (2002)), analyzed mass balance measurements of 246
glaciers from around the world between 1946 and 1995. According to the
study’s author, “there are several regions with highly negative mass
balances in agreement with a public perception of ‘the glaciers are
melting,’ but there are also regions with positive balances.”

Within Europe, for example, “Alpine glaciers are generally shrinking,
Scandinavian glaciers are growing, and glaciers in the Caucasus are
close to equilibrium for 1980-95,” according to Braithwaite.
Significantly, regarding this most recent 15-year period of time,
Braithwaite noted “there is no obvious common or global trend of
increasing glacier melt in recent years.”

Daly predicts that because of mountain base deforestation, and all
other things being equal, “What happens on Kilimanjaro will also be
happening on countless mountains all over the world where forests on
lower slopes have been replaced by open pasture.

“Blaming it all on ‘global warming’ was just too glib and convenient
for an industry desperate to convince a skeptical public that the end
of the world was nigh,” said Daly. “With a more down-to-earth cause
like this identified, other ‘global-warming-did-it’ phenomena should
be looked at again for simple local causes like this.”


“Not a Thermometer”

“The Kilimanjaro ice cap is not a thermometer,” said S. Fred Singer,
professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of
Virginia and president of the nonprofit Science & Environmental Policy
Project in Arlington, Virginia. “It may well be melting, but this is
simply a delayed consequence of a natural climate warming during the
early part of the twentieth century. Moreover, it will continue to
melt as long as the climate doesn’t return to the temperatures of the
Little Ice Age of past centuries.”

Added Singer, “The National Academy of Sciences published a report (in
2000) that defines the geographic regions of warming and cooling
during the last 20 years. Surface measurements of East Africa show no
warming trend. Weather satellites show a pronounced cooling trend of
the atmosphere there. No one has questioned these data.”

“One of the endlessly fascinating aspects of modern journalism is the
absolute lack of critical insight tendered towards environmental
scares,” said Pat Michaels, research professor of environmental
sciences at the University of Virginia and a past president of the
American Association of State Climatologists. “A cursory inspection of
(Kilimanjaro) data shows that Kilimanjaro’s glaciers would be dying
even if Homo sapiens were still just hanging around the trees of the
Rift Valley, a few hundred miles to the West.

“From 1953 through 1976, 21 percent of the original (ice cap) area was
uncovered. This was during a period of global cooling--yes,
cooling--of 0.13º F,” said Michaels. “Around Kilimanjaro, satellite
data show a cooling of 0.40º F since 1979 Still, Kilimanjaro’s
glaciers continued to shrink.”

Added Michaels, “Kilimanjaro turns out to be just another snow job,
precipitated by a journalistic community that has lost its desire for
critical factual investigation when it comes to our globe’s
environment.”

James M. Taylor is managing editor of Environment & Climate News. His
email address is taylor at heartland.org.

See more articles by James M. Taylor
"

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