thebigp

KRISTIAN HUGO---
Citing a 2017 Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme study Colgan worked on, he said the world has lost about 33,000 gigatons of ice since 1948. To put a gigaton in perspective, scientists estimate we’re losing 159 gigatons of ice from Antarctica each year, according to the Washington Post. That’s about a third of all the water in Lake Erie.
"The changes are so great with land ice, it’s like the poster child of c*****e c****e," Colgan said. "Everywhere you look, you see massive change."
Consider Glacier National Park, in Montana. In an undated post about the park, the U.S. Geological Survey says there were an estimated approximate 150 glaciers in 1850. Most of those glaciers were still there when the park was established in 1910. But by 2015, there were 26 remaining glaciers larger than 25 acres.
Glaciers are dynamic. They respond to temperature and precipitation. But they retreat when melting outpaces the accumulation of new snow. And, USGS notes, "worldwide glacial glacier recession is well documented."
"Early park visitors and scientists noted that glaciers were retreating as early as 1914," according to the post. "The climate was already warming and glaciers were responding, but the industrial revolution added more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, furthering glacier retreat."
All glaciers have reduced in size in the park since 1966, according to USGS, and some had retreated as much 85 percent by 2015. (You can see photos showing how the Shepard Glacier in the park has changed from 1913 to 2005.)
Our ruling
The Facebook post claims that there were 130,000 glaciers in 1948 and there are 130,000 glaciers today. We don’t know how many glaciers there were in 1948, and there are actually tens of thousands more glaciers worldwide today than the post says.
But context matters here, and the post suggests that glaciers haven’t changed in the 70 years since Al Gore was born. That’s also incorrect. As Walt Meier, the research scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center, told us, "the number of glaciers isn’t really relevant in terms of assessing c*****e c****e."
What matters, he said, is the change in mass.
"Are glaciers as a whole gaining or losing ice?" he asked. "On that question, the answer is very clear — glaciers are losing mass."
We rate this post as False.
"The day Al Gore was born, there were 130,000 glaciers on earth. Today, only 130,000 remain."
Monday, March 11, 2019
Our Sources
Facebook post, March 11, 2019
National Snow and Ice Data Center, Glaciers and c*****e c****e, visited March 29, 2019
Email interview with Jim White, interim dean, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, March 28, 2019
Email interview with Walt Meier, research scientist, National Snow and Ice Data Center, March 28, 2019
Interview with William Colgan, senior researcher, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, March 29, 2019
Durham University, "The Randolph Inventory: a globally complete inventory of glaciers," 2014
Nature, "Twentieth-century contribution to sea-level rise from uncharted glaciers," Nov. 21, 2018
U.S. Geological Survey, "Retreat of glaciers in Glacier National Park," visited March 29, 2019
Science, "Argentine scientist indicted over design of glacier inventory," Dec. 5, 2017
The Nobel Prize, Al Gore Facts, visited March 29, 2019
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, "Adapting to sea level rise in Miami-Dade County, Florida," visited March 29, 2019
The Washington Post, "Obama just explained what a ‘gigaton’ is. Here’s why that’s a big deal," Sept. 1, 2015

donrent Loc: SW Florida -Born Texas-Lived Panama & Alaska

Uh, well we're NOT in the ICE AGE any more are we ?????????????