More Signs Of Accelerating Sea Level Rise - what signs?

Maybe it's me, maybe there's some other meaning of the word "signs" I was previously unaware of. Maybe Forbes writer John McQuaid picked no.243 instead of no.244 from his collection of alarmist headlines. I leave you to judge - here's the entire piece.

More Signs Of Accelerating Sea Level Rise

Evidence continues to mount that recent estimates of sea level rise from global warming were wrong, and that the potential inundation to come may be much worse than previously contemplated, possibly exceeding an average of 3 feet worldwide. This from a new study published in Nature Climate Change focusing on the latest opinions of scientists studying the world’s largest ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, where recent, unexpectedly fast melting has raised alarms:

The study found that the ice sheets are likely to contribute a median estimate of 29 centimeters (11.4 inches) of sea level rise by 2100, with a 5 percent chance that it could exceed 84 centimeters (33 inches). When combined with other contributors to sea level rise, such as melting mountain glaciers and thermal expansion of seawater, this implies a “conceivable risk” that sea levels could rise more than 1 meter by 2100.

What’s significant here is that the 1 meter figure, once a highly unlikely, worst-case scenario, has moved decisively into the realm of possibility. It’s still unlikely, according to the scientists surveyed. But current alarming trends mean it has become a lot less so. That said, a lot of uncertainty remains; scientists are unclear on why the melting has accelerated, or if that trend will continue. But given what we’ve seen so far, it’s the official IPCC estimates for sea level rise will likely be revised upward, putting additional pressure on governments to act.

It’s still early in the century, of course, and some urban areas are starting to grapple with changes to infrastructure, coastal settlement, and other issues. But the evidence suggests that the march of disaster will probably continue to outrun attempts to prevent it.

The last sentence of the abstract of the "new study" says

On the critical question of whether recent ice-sheet behaviour is due to variability in the ice sheet–climate system or reflects a long-term trend, expert opinion is shown to be both very uncertain and undecided.

So John McQuaid has decided that "the potential inundation to come may be much worse than previously contemplated" even though the scientists themselves say they don't know whether the trends they identified did indeed reflect a long-tern trend or (natural) variability in the ice-sheet climate system. They updated the ice-sheet component in predictions in AR4 - they didn't validate them. They even say "It's still unlikely" but John (Now working on a book about the science of taste, to be published by Scribner) McQuaid knows better because "current alarming trends mean it has become a lot less so".

What trends (note the "s")? WashPo bleats "2012 hottest year on record in contiguous U.S., NOAA says". Apparently the egg-heads (hard-boiled in the extreme heat perhaps) at NOAA "described the data as part of a longer-term trend of hotter, drier and potentially more extreme weather". Hang on - I was promised "more signs" and I'm served with just one. I was assured of "alarming trends" but have a single dusted off, polished-up old (but somehow confirmed) trend dished up? Aren't short-servings illegal in the good-old US of A?

Those egg-heads seem to think that one warm year "confirms a trend". Don't take any advice on stock-market investments from these guys - they'd have you shivering and hungry on a street-corner in no time flat. Wait - there are still people hungry and shivering on street corners since Sandy struck NY. Sandy confirmed a trend too - a reducing trend in land-falling hurricanes on the eastern seaboard. Short-order writer McQuaid takes this weeks cake for hyperbole. I'd better rephrase that - hyperboles - he wouldn't understand that word if I omitted the "s".

Pine Beetles at it again - causing warming this time!

Yale Environment 360 tells us that Pine Beetle Attacks Cause Temperature Rise in Canadian Forests. Is it the beating of all those tiny wings creating heat? Their black carapaces (the shiny bits) absorbing more heat from the sun? No it's because trees naturally cool their environment. More beetles, fewer trees; fewer trees less cooling; less cooling, higher temperatures. Simple really, or so the researchers would have us believe. I just had to put down my dog-eared copy of "Only 100 days left to save the World - 101 things you didn't know about Global Warming" and read on.

The decimation of trees by mountain pine beetles in British Columbia has caused air temperatures in affected areas to climb by an average of 1 degree Celsius during the summer months, according to a new study. In an analysis of satellite and forest data collected between 1999 and 2010, scientists from the University of Toronto and University of California, Berkeley calculated that areas hit hardest by widespread pine beetle infestations have experienced even sharper temperature increases of several degrees Celsius, as regions are increasingly deprived of the natural cooling effect of trees. Since the evaporation of water through leaves prevents some of the sun’s radiation from heating the ground surface, the widespread loss of trees causes the temperature increases, said Holly Maness, a researcher at UC Berkeley and co-author of the study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience. And because warming temperatures and milder winters have helped pine beetles to flourish, these infestations are creating a feedback effect that is making the forests even more vulnerable. According to scientists, mountain beetles have affected 66,000 square miles in British Columbia, or 20 percent of the province’s total area.

That's pretty straightforward and convincing isn't it? What possible criticisms could I have? Well, for a start there's the chicken and egg business. (What's he talking about? - ed.). Did the pine beetles cause the warming or did the warming encourage the pine beetles to do what pine beetles do best (reproduce and eat, not necessarily in that order)? I ask only because "Global warming threatens pine forests, forcing federal officials to shift strategy" which I'd interpret as chicken -> egg whereas this paper seems to be claiming egg -> chicken -> bigger egg -> bigger chicken (feedback).

The thing that caught my eye was the apparently plausible warming mechanism outlined by Holly Maness - "Since the evaporation of water through leaves prevents some of the sun’s radiation from heating the ground surface, the widespread loss of trees causes the temperature increases". Now call me a sceptic, but I understood, as do many (most?) scientists and authors, that it was evapotranspiration wot dun it? Also, it's the leaves themselves which shade the ground below (simple really), and green chlorophyll absorbs sunlight, especially ultraviolet and infrared - the leaves are darker than grass, it's called the albedo effect. In a nutshell (how appropriate!)

Forests also influence local climate. Dependant on the latitude forest influences the temperature in a region: in the tropics forest have a net cooling effect through evapotranspiration while at higher altitudes, mainly boreal forests, there is a net warming effect because the relative dark colour of the canopies absorbs warmth from the sun (albedo effect).

When water evaporates through leaf pores, it absorbs heat (a lot of heat) thus cooling the leaves and the tree (and forest) canopy. Holly seems to think otherwise. It's true that the evaporated water vapour would absorb some short-wave infra-red from the Sun, but there's not a great deal of that radiation left by the time sunlight reaches the treetops; most is absorbed on its way through the atmosphere - by water vapour - lots more water vapour than the trees expire. Secondly, water vapour is the most abundant greenhouse gas (hasn't Holly heard that?), and absorption and emission of upward radiation from the forest canopy would certainly outweigh the small absorption of solar infra-red by the evaporated water vapour.

just a minute - surely the paper itself can't possibly say this can it?

The present mountain pine beetle infestation in forests in British Columbia ranks among the largest ecological disturbances recorded in Canada so far. These recent outbreaks are thought to have been favoured by large-scale climatic shifts, and may foreshadow outbreaks of a similar magnitude in North American forests over the coming decades. The associated forest dieback could result in substantial shifts in evapotranspiration and albedo, thereby altering the local surface energy balance, and in turn regional temperature and climate. Here we quantify the impact of the Canadian pine beetle disturbance on the local summertime surface energy budget, using measurements of evapotranspiration, albedo and surface temperature, obtained primarily through remote sensing. 

We show that over the 170,000 km² of affected forest, the typical decrease in summertime evapotranspiration is 19%. Changes to the absorbed short-wave flux are negligible, in comparison. As a result, outgoing sensible and radiative heat fluxes increased by 8% and 1%, respectively, corresponding to a typical increase in surface temperature of 1°C. These changes are comparable to those observed for other types of disturbance, such as wildfire, and may have secondary consequences for climate, including modifications to circulation, cloud cover and precipitation.

That would seem to set the record straight. Perhaps the article's author and one of the co-authors should have read the paper, or at least the abstract.

Mother Nature Network on Sandy - hyperbole too small a word for it

While perusing the alarmist and inaccurate claims about the cause(s) of hurricane-for-a-while Sandy, I came across an article on Mother Nature Network, not a site I visit regularly, if at all. Hurricane Sandy wreaks agricultural havoc wails the headline - not something I'd generally been aware of.

While it mostly missed the fall harvest, Sandy still decimated crops from Cuba to Canada, including major damage to some urban farms in New York City.

2012 has already been a rough year for farming in North America, as crops withered under record heat, drought and wildfire, while others washed away in Hurricane Isaac's torrential rains. This followed similar problems in 2011, ranging from the historic Texas drought to Mississippi River floods and Hurricane Irene.

I hadn't heard of many crops being grown in the forests hit by wildfires in the 'States so far this year (mushrooms maybe?), but we'll let that one lie (appropriate word?) there, as the writer relates his tale of woe.

Despite all the recent setbacks, however, farmers were dealt yet another blow this week as Superstorm Sandy flogged and flooded a swath of crops along its 2,000-mile path. The post-tropical cyclone hit in late October, when many U.S. growers have already harvested summer produce, but it still found ways to wreak havoc.

I'm learning such a lot from this article - first it's farms in the middle of forests, now it's farms hundreds of miles off the coast "along its 2,000-mile path". Isn't the 'net wonderful? The blogger even has a neat satellite pic of Sandy hitting those farms some 600 miles off the US coast.

Source: MNM

The caption btw, says "Hurricane Sandy slams the U.S. East Coast, as seen by NASA's GOES-13 satellite". I think not - The eye is well to the east, and clouds don't equal hurricane, not by a long swath.

Damage assessments remain underway in the U.S., with many areas still in disaster-relief mode. At least 70 deaths are confirmed so far, and some estimates suggest damage could reach $50 billion. Yet the overall impact on U.S. agriculture may be less severe than in the Caribbean, since the summer growing season is over in cooler climates and many farmers sped up harvesting ahead of the storm. "Sandy is a big weather story, but it's mainly a human life issue on the East Coast — no real impact on crops or harvest," John Dee of Global Weather Monitoring tells the Economic Times.

That doesn't sound much like "agricultural havoc" to me - in fact the story gets thinner line-by-line.

Yet the overall impact on U.S. agriculture may be less severe than in the Caribbean, since the summer growing season is over in cooler climates and many farmers sped up harvesting ahead of the storm. "Sandy is a big weather story, but it's mainly a human life issue on the East Coast — no real impact on crops or harvest," John Dee of Global Weather Monitoring tells the Economic Times.

"no real impact on crops or harvest" - does that equal "agricultural havoc"? So what's the extent of the damage discovered by this intrepid seeker-after-truth?

That's not the case everywhere, though. Localized crop damage has been severe, including at some New York City outfits like Red Hook Community Farm and Battery Urban Farm, which were flooded by several feet of seawater.

A couple of urban farms? That's it? What about the rest of the 2,000-mile swath from "Cuba to Canada"? Cuba took a hit, so did Haiti, and the Bahamas reported some damage. that leaves a rather big gap between those islands and New Jersey and the "Localized crop damage" at the urban farms. There's a fairly big gap between the farms in NY and Canada too. What's the real message this article is peddling?

While no one can directly link a single storm to global warming, the wild weather of 2011 and 2012 is exactly what climate models have been predicting for years: longer droughts and stronger storms. "Before, climate change was talked about as an abstraction, something that would happen in the future," Apfelbaum says. "But the changes we're experiencing now are not abstract at all. They're very real."

And there we have it - US crops not "flogged and flooded" along a "2,000-mile path", not even the part of that path over the NE states, but in a few urban farms, and some other undocumented damege, and a photo which doesn't show what is claimed - it shows Sandy hundred of miles out to sea. Climate models haven't been predicting stronger storms at all - that's a lie, pure and simple. Climate models don't predict storms, they predict (or rather are claimed to predict) climate - doh! Steven Apfelbaum is an ecologist - what does he now about climate science? He has apparently been involved in "industrial projects and parks that help clients save money while increasing ecological functionality", whatever "ecological functionality" means. What does the "alternative stormwater management" he's been involved in entail exactly? Digging big holes? And no, climate change was not "talked about as an abstraction" - it's been happening since our Earth had a climate, it's happening now, and it'll continue long after our civilisation has returned to the dust from whence it came.

This article is just an excuse for presenting the "weather is climate" message at the end. As my title says "hyperbole too small a word for it" - I can't think of a single word for this kind of "journalism" - any suggestions?

Global warming threatens pine forests, forcing federal officials to shift strategy

Really? It's global warming threatening pine forests? The ever-balanced and conclusive report in the Washington Times has all the facts:

A bag, a beetle and a warming threat to trees: A plastic bag that fights a beetle infestation on a western conifer is an emblem of how federal researchers are working to steel high-elevation pine forests in the West against the onslaught of climate change.

A beetle? A beetle is climate change? Seems the "federal researchers" are working to "steel high-elevation pine forests" against a beetle, not climate change. Are the beetles caused by climate change? There are plenty of links in the second paragraph to seemingly provide additional information from the WP archives of truth and light for those who bother to click on them. Most people don't of course, I do, I'm an inveterate link-clicker.

The conifer, with its accoutrements, represents a small salvo in the battle against a beetle infestation, fueled partly by warmer temperatures. But it is also a larger symbol of how researchers from the Forest Service — in concert with National Park Service officials and other scientists — are working to steel high-elevation pine forests in the West against the onslaught of climate change.

Let's take them in order, first the "beetle infestation".

The death rates of trees in Western U.S. forests have doubled over the past two to three decades, according to a new study spearheaded by the U.S. Geological Survey, driven in large part by higher temperatures and water scarcity linked to climate change.

Beetles feature in that report, but the emphasis is on other factors, the "driven in large part" factors, the immediate threat being from beetles, as one might expect.

What about the "Forest Service" - lots of information about that august body, their policies and their strategy? No, it's titled "Obama administration issues major rewrite of national forest rules", and it's about how the Forest Service will respond to that "rewrite". Two down two to go, so how about the "high-elevation pine forests" link? All about pine forests? No, it's about bark beetles, and there's a lot more about beetles in this article, supposed to tell us about forests, than on their "beetle infestation" link. Confused yet? Here's what it says about the main reason for the beetle-fest

In a natural forest, wildfires keep the percentage of prime beetle fodder at around 25 percent, says Allan Carroll, one of Canada’s foremost insect ecologists at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. But thanks to dedicated firefighting and other factors, aging pines made up more than half of some forests by 1990. In other words, human management of the forests has turned them into an incredible smorgasbord for beetles.

That's the main reason for forest fires also, the increase in older, diseased and dead trees, which the "join the dots" brigade ignore totally in blaming an increase in fires on "climate change". Try lighting a fire with green twigs.

The best is to come, the "climate change" link surely must do better, and explain climate change and what's causing it, and what the terrible outcomes will be? No, it's about the threat of rising sea level on Louisiana's Highway 1. Wait, what? The report blames climate change for the apparently imminent demise of one of the world's iconic species, a strip of concrete and tarmac. What does it have to say about the real reason for Highway 1's fate?

The land is sinking, in part because engineers have redirected sediment flowing from the Mississippi River more directly into the Gulf of Mexico, improving navigation but no longer shoring up the wetlands.

Score for this link: climate change 0, facts 1

That's the "informative" links done and dusted, ridiculed and debunked, so back to the reason for this post. The beetle infestation is "fueled partly by warmer temperatures":

Scientists know that global warming will reshape these forests, which provide crucial habitat and food for key species, curb soil erosion and slow melting snow destined for local water supplies. What they don’t yet understand is which trees are best poised to survive under these changed conditions and how they can help them adapt in the decades to come.

If they don't know which trees are "best poised to survive", then they clearly don't know which trees are "least poised to survive" either (if you know one, you must know the other), and by extension what the effects of "climate change" will be on pine trees in general (but they know a lot about beetles, so that's alright).

Now, some regions of the Northern Rockies have experienced an 80 percent die-off of whitebark pines, and the Natural Resource Defense Council projects that between 80 and 100 percent of remaining trees in some areas will be killed by mountain pine beetles, whitepine blister rust or a combination of the two.

Not "global warming", not "climate change"?

“It’s not as if after these threats come through and climate change continues that these ecosystems will return to what they were,” Schoettle said, “but they will persist and will continue to function.”

So it's not "global warming" that's the real threat, it's pine beetles and bark rust(aided by people nailing plastic bags to thousands of trees maybe?). From that last comment, the imminent demise of North America's pine forests has been greatly exaggerated. When has the Washington Post ever printed any good news? (It's a rhetorical question btw, but if you know of any, the comment box is below.)

For a factual and detailed of the mountain pine beetle, check out this on the Colorado State University site (beware, the linked pdf is 10mb, and takes an age to download)

Big numbers impress little minds - Fracking, exaggeration and hyperbole

Guardian blogger Robert Newman says This is the fracking truth, but as is often the case, the truth isn't included below the headline.

Just when we're told drought has become endemic in the UK, the Department of Energy and Climate Change has given the go-ahead for a process that will desiccate us more than any we've tried before on these islands: hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

High-volume fracking needs between 1.6m and 2.5m gallons (between seven and 11m litres) of water for a single well. All that water is smashing rock. All those millions of litres are giving the shale rock a BTEX injection; BTEX is benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene.

My word, that's a big number! Millions of litres - these water-hogs must be stopped at once! 11,000,000 litres for a single well must be a drain on our valuable water supplies, but my calculating brain tells me that's just over 4 Olympic-sized swimming pools. A quick Google check (do these people ever use Google except to reinforce their distorted perception of reality?)  reveals that UK water companies s supply a total of 18,000,000,000 litres (or 18,000 Megalitres) per day. That means his single well will use, in its lifetime, the equivalent of 0.06% of the daily UK water supply. But he doesn't stop there:

Even in the best-case scenario in which the frackers don't, by some miracle, rupture aquifers and pollute drinking water, the process itself will drain us dry in the vain hope that it might earn us enough foreign capital to pay for the imports of Volvic and Evian that we will need to put on our crops.

 "The process itself will drain us dry" - yeah, right. It would take 1636 wells to consume, over their lifetime, one days worth of UK water.

It's not worth my time or yours to skewer the rest of his unsubstantiated rant, suffice to say he recommends viewing the Gasland documentary.

          

Making it up (1) - "Study finds Greenland's ice cover is sliding into the ocean"

This is the start of a new series to run in parallel with "Disconnects in Logic". Both have and will be a source of amusement and debunking hyperbole, unjustified conclusions and predictions, and plain outright lies at the same time.

"Click Green" (you're ahead of me, I can tell) trumpets the apocalyptic headline "Study finds Greenland's ice cover is sliding into the ocean" . The contradiction between headline and article is striking - it's becoming common when the environment, wildlife, "climate change" or "global warming" are discussed, or new research summarised. Apart from the fact that most of the Greenland ice sheet covers the depressed interior of the landmass, and has as much chance of "sliding into the ocean" as a pool ball in a pocket has of "sliding onto the table", what does the first paragraph actually say?

Like snow sliding off a roof on a sunny day, the Greenland Ice Sheet may be sliding faster into the ocean due to massive releases of meltwater from surface lakes, according to a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder-based Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.

As usual, the caveat is "may be", which as so often is the case in alarmist articles, becomes "is" in the headline.

During a typical catastrophic lake drainage, about 1 million cubic meters of meltwater - which is equivalent to the volume of about 4,000 Olympic swimming pools - funnels to the ice sheet's underside within a day or two. Once the water reaches the ice sheet's belly that abuts underlying rock, it may turn the ice-bed surface into a Slip 'N Slide, lubricating the ice sheet's glide into the ocean. This would accelerate the sea-level rise associated with climate change.

Alternatively, however, the lake drainages may carve out sub-glacial "sewers" to efficiently route water to the ocean. "This would drain the ice sheet's water, making less water available for ice-sheet sliding," Colgan said. That would slow the ice sheet's migration into the ocean and decelerate sea-level rise.

"Alternatively, however..." means they don't know, and what's more, the researchers openly admit it.

"Lake drainages are a wild card in terms of whether they enhance or decrease the ice sheet's slide," Colgan said. Finding out which scenario is correct is a pressing question for climate models and for communities preparing for sea-level change, he said.

So they, we, (and the "Click Green" author) don't actually know what's happening. All that is known is that the meltwater "lakes" suddenly disappear, and it's assumed they've drained away. I say assumed, because

For the study, the researchers developed new feature-recognition software capable of identifying supraglacial lakes in satellite images and determining their size and when they appear and disappear. "Previously, much of this had to be double-checked manually," Colgan said. "Now we feed the images into the code, and the program can recognize whether a feature is a lake or not, with high confidence and no manual intervention."

If such a lake "disappears" then, it might be because the water's drained away, as postulated, or possibly it's refrozen, and wouldn't be recognised by the software. First they don't know what the drainage mechanism is, whether meltwater is actually "lubricating" the base of the ice, and the real "sceptic in the room", don't even know if the lake hasn't simply refrozen. Headline fail, alarmism alert, interesting study, shame about the lack of any firm conclusions.

I really aught to start a third new series "Displaying Your Ignorance", 'cos I LOL when I saw this "schoolboy howler" on redOrbit - "Greenland Slipping Away"

Massive releases of meltwater from surface lakes may be causing Greenland to slide ever faster into the ocean, according to a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder-based Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES).

What's Greenland sliding on I wonder, Santa's Sleigh? Hold on tight, Greenlanders! Wheeee!

Matterhorn scientist disintegrating in the face of global warming - the true story?

Four days ago, I expressed my astonishment (I was more than just surprised) that a scientist could think that he and his team had done groundbreaking (it's a pun) research on how thawing/freezing processes were cracking rock and creating rockfalls on Switzerland's iconic Matterhorn. Those processes are well understood, and have been for at least a hundred years, Yesterday, while searching for more Matterhorn images for my collection, I came across a real gem on ABC News - Is the Mighty Matterhorn Mountain Crumbling?

To understand how climate change is helping destabilize one of the world’s most famous mountains, Stephan Gruber of the University of Zurich offers a culinary visualization.

Imagine a piece of bread – or perhaps even better, a thick cut of raw steak – in an oven. Put a stick of frozen butter on top of it. And then turn the oven on.

Apart from the fact that I can't imagine anyone in their right mind putting a slice of steak, let alone bread in an oven with frozen butter on it, I'll go along with the analogy for now. I'm like that, broad-minded and receptive. Read on (my bold)

Two things happen:

The outside of the steak begins to cook relatively quickly. The inside stays raw for longer.

At the same time, the butter begins to melt – and seep into the steak.

Now, imagine that the steak is the mighty Matterhorn mountain, one of the most picturesque in Europe (and, yes, some of you may know it better as Disneyland’s original rollercoaster).

Climate change works in three ways:

As the world gets warmer – as the oven heats up – the outside of the Matterhorn heats up (the outside of the steak cooks). That, by itself, slowly breaks apart the ice that holds the mountain’s exterior rock surface together. So we are beginning to see more rock falls than ever before. (In 2003, a massive rock fall stranded 50 climbers.)

Does heat "break apart ice"? No, it melts it, and climate change can work in another way which doesn't even enter the closed minds of some - the world might get colder. At this point we should remind ourselves what the heated-up "outside" of the Matterhorn looks like in summer, when Herr Gruber's limited view of "climate change" is heating it up. This photo is from 2007.

The Matterhorn - East face. Source: Free Wallpaper Pic

It's clearly summer, which can be deduced from the high Sun angle. What's all the white stuff clinging to the "heated up" rock faces? Is it frozen butter? I'm keen to hear more:

Then, the butter starts melting. The butter is actually that same ice that holds much of the mountain together. As it melts, it seeps down into ice that doesn’t see the sun – say, the center of the steak – and helps cook it from the inside.

Thirdly, slowly but surely, the oven heat finally reaches the middle of the steak. Climate change finally helps warm the inside of the mountain.

And slowly but surely, the integrity of the mountain starts to diminish, both from the outside and from the inside-out.

In my total ignorance I thought it was rock that "holds much of the mountain together", but what do I and geologists know? There's more:

Before you think that this is some obscure thing that happens in places with very, very high elevations, consider this: The mountains where this is happening are located where millions of people – many in Asia – actually live.

Gruber recently released a study of how this happens – the first to show that typical patters[sic] of movement of ice exist on mountains like the Matterhorn.

That last sentence is a real killer - "the first to show that typical patterns of movement of ice exist on mountains like the Matterhorn". If they're "typical patterns" then they're already well known to exist, and they're well documented, so his study cannot be the "first". It's not "climate change" which melts ice in crevices on high mountains, it's the Sun, and it's the re-freezing at night in the summer, and in the winter which widens the cracks. Ice has a larger volume that the water which forms it. The writer himself needs a geography lesson - exactly how many of the "millions of people" are threatened in some way by rock falls at altitude?

Matterhorn disintegrating in the face of global warming - this is news?

The Independent, and cited researchers, have just discovered that freezing water weathers mountain rocks. This apparently is news. It is of course part of the Global Warming meme; perfectly natural and well-known processes that have been occurring since the earth solidified from a molten sphere are cited as evidence for "Global Warming" or "Climate Change". Not just any old "Global Warming" or "Climate Change", of course, which the earth has seen over it's non-molten history, but a new and dangerous kind which, if unchecked, will kill us all.

Matterhorn disintegrating in the face of global warming

With its four steep faces reflecting the compass points, the mighty Matterhorn has proven an irresistible and often deadly challenge to mountaineers.

But now, the mountain – one of Europe's tallest and most celebrated peaks – is falling to bits due to climate change, according to a new scientific report.

As with other Alpine mountains, experts have already documented the retreat of the peak's glaciers and the thinning of its permafrost in the wake of rising temperatures.

But scientists now say they have evidence that these rising temperatures are also prompting the physical disintegration of the mountain itself.

I first learned of frost-weathering of mountain rocks in primary school. I've been familiar with the term "frost-shattered rocks" for many decades. I've walked over mountain screes thousands to hundreds-of-thousands of years old. Scotland's mountains were once as high as the Matterhorn. The Matterhorn is ultimately destined to become deep-sea sediment. I love the "With its four steep faces reflecting the compass points" bit - how do they think the mountain got to be that shape? My school atlas from many decades ago has a picture of the Matterhorn, and an explanation for that shape - glaciers, ice, and freezing water. The normal becomes unprecedented, and history and past knowledge are dumped in favour of the "new discoveries". Not new, and you can't claim to have discovered something that's been common knowledge for several generations if not longer.

"There has been a big increase in the number of rock falls in the past decade that can't be explained simply by the fact that we're looking out for them more now," the lead researcher, Stephan Gruber, told The Independent.

His team's discovery of the key role that icy crevices play in the Matterhorn's decay suggests that global warming's deleterious effect on mountain ranges is greater than previously thought.

"We have shown the importance of icy crevices and the melting water entering them, in the process of rock falls," Mr Gruber said. "Unlike rock itself – changes to which take place over a very long period of time – just a few decades of temperatures rising by a degree or so are enough to affect the ice and water on the mountains."

"It's reasonable to expect the same processes are widespread elsewhere in the Alps at the same altitude," he added.

It's reasonable to expect the same processes are widespread elsewhere in the world and have been continuing since mountains and water and freezing temperatures came together in the same place at the same time. Climbers have been wary of ice-weakened rocks on the Matterhorn, in the Swiss Alps, and on mountains worldwide since people had the inclination to climb mountains other than to travel long distances. Here's the North face of the Matterhorn

The Matterhorn - east face. Source: Free Wallpaper Pic

See those grey mounds and slopes in the middle and foreground? They're screes - heaps of frost-shattered rock. Here they are in closeup

Screes on the slopes of the Matterhorn

They're covering the entire lower slopes of the mountain. There are buildings on them. A stream has cut its way through them. They've been growing for centuries at least. The mountain has that "four steep faces" pyramidal shape as a result of ice-weathering over millennia and longer.

"There has been a big increase in the number of rock falls in the past decade that can't be explained simply by the fact that we're looking out for them more now," the lead researcher, Stephan Gruber, told The Independent.

If they weren't "looking out for them" much in the past, how do they know there's been a "big increase"? There's been a big increase in unsubstantiated claims of the abnormal and unprecedented over the last decade too, but unlike these researchers and the Independent, I have been looking out for them. These guys need a reality pill. Reach for the Button:

The Sydney Opera House is bigger than you think

The Independent, that ever-reliable source of well-researched information dished up with a total lack of hyperbole, reports on "Earth Hour"

Sydney switches off lights for 60 minutes

Landmarks and buildings around the world were plunged into darkness yesterday as part of a campaign against climate change. 

For Earth Hour, organised by WWF, attractions such as Sydney Opera House turned their lights off for 60 minutes at 8.30pm. The event invites people to switch off all non-essential lighting to highlight the impact climate change is having on the globe.

It seems the "clam-shell" building now encompasses the whole of that great city. An analysis of electricity consumption for Sydney over the period which included Earth Hour 2012 shows no discernible reduction in consumption, nor for New South Wales, nor the entire country. This short article highlights the impact hyperbole and extreme exaggeration is having on the truth. This graphic highlights the reaction of most sensible people to such stretching of the truth