Saturday, February 16, 2008

Perito Moreno - The Politically Incorrect Glacier and the Cult of "Global Warming"

NOTE: Al Gore used images of Perito Moreno Glacier in his film "Inconvenient Truth" as "evidence" of Global Warming. The Neocon Express traveled to Southern Patagonia in January of 2008 (mid-summer) to observe the issue first hand:

Perito Moreno Glacier in March of 2004:
Now look at my video of Perito Moreno glacier from January of 2008, filmed from the exact same spot:
Please notice how the glacier has grown in the last four years, and ice has sealed the gap and separated the two bodies of water that are clearly joined in the first video from four years earlier. A cycle that can sometimes take decades.

These video's are priceless on a number of levels and is another reason why Perito Moreno is may favorite glacier in the world. I have had the opportunity to study this carefully. I love the Perito Moreno glacier because of:

1) Its Sheer beauty!
2) The fact that it is a "politically incorrect" glacier, a stubborn, defiant, growing glacier that refuses to conform to the demands of "global warming" activists to recede.
3) The fact that it causes some folks to look at the first video and assume “global warming” when they have absolutely no clue what they are looking at and leave ignorant messages about how the collapsing ice is "tragic" evidence of global warming and we're all going to die.

Facts as described in my video: Over years the Ice expands and separates two large bodies of water by creating a natural dam; one body of water then raises a few centimeters higher every day above the other body of water, separated by the ice. Eventually, once every few years (sometimes decades), the pressure from the rising body of water builds to the point where it finally breaks through the ice and rushes into the other body of water; creating a gap (a giant arch) in the ice which then collapses in on itself (as seen in the first video). The entire cycle then begins over again, as it did since the first video was taken (and as you can see from my video, the 2nd one from this January). It has absolutely nothing to do with global warming (and indeed is evidence of no warming, at least in this region) and the fact that folks insist on making the link to GW (as you can see from the comments section of the first video) only exposes the whole movement for what it is, a political ideology not based in science. Please remember that Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" was full of images of dramatic collapsing glacial ice (natural cleaving) as visual "evidence" of global warming. Purposely and deceptively using images to mislead the ignorant.

Side note: Geologists are able to generally predict when the water breakthrough may occur. When I visited a few months ago, the ice had again expanded to cover the whole area of the arch. The pressure is now building and the clock is ticking for a new breakthrough and collapse. Imagine being the lucky visitor who shows up on the exact same day as the breakthrough. Well, the first video is what it looks like. Geologists believe that there is a good possibility that a water breakthrough and ice collapse will occur this year, sometime around March. Buy your flights now and remember, it has nothing to do with "global warming"!

Joe Gelman

Newsweek 1975: Scientists Predict Massive Global Cooling

Time, Like Newsweek, Predicted a coming Ice age in the 70's. Now it's "global warming" that's in fashion

'A Short History Of Nearly Everyting' and "Global Warming"

Basic Climate History 101:

7 comments:

  1. July 8, 2008 "BUENOS AIRES (AFP) - A natural ice dam in southern Argentina broke open spectacularly on Wednesday -- the first time it has burst in winter, prompting experts to say climate change was the reason.

    The glacier's ice dam does not break with any regularity, on average just once every four to six years.

    Francisco Ferrando, a geographer and glaciology professor at the University of Chile, said global warming was probably causing the ice dam to become thinner."

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  2. This is a ridicules comment on a number of levels: “Experts” also believed that the Perito Moreno break would occur in March of this year. It actually happened four months later than what they expected. Is that evidence of global cooling? Of course not! If the opposite had happened and the break came four month early, you would certainly have pointed to the earlier break as evidence of global warming. You can’t win with the “Global Warming” crowd.

    Facts:

    1) Perito Moreno Glacier has only been monitored since 1917, a millisecond in geologic terms. We have absolutely no idea if this is the “first time” the glacier has broken in winter. That is an absolute fact and to state with authority that this is the “first time” it ruptured in winter is unscientific and misleading.

    2) The fact that it has only been a little over two years since the last collapse and water breakthrough, means that the ice expanded to separate the two bodies of water more rapidly than we have observed since 1917. Does that mean “global cooling? Again, no it doesn’t. But if the opposite were true and it took the ice longer to expand and close the two bodies of water…the GW crowd would be pointing to global warming.

    truely pathetic.

    What this all means is that the earth’s climate changes all the time, and there has NEVER been such a thing as “perfect” weather. 20,000 years ago (a very short time in geologic terms) Ice covered most of North America. There have been times on earth when there was no Ice at all. These changes have occurred without human intervention and will occur again. “Global Warming” has taken on a “political” and ideological taint. It is presudo-“science” in the name of a political ideology.
    Joe Gelman

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  3. I've just stumbled on this site searching for an article on the coming ice age I feared as a child. I teach high school and our school in all it's wisdom is developing an international studies program (Loves the UN, we are responsible for Haiti cutting down their forest, and global warming) Please recommend a place where I can get honest, simple information about the earth having been warm before so that I can recall these facts when I blow my lid at the next staff meeting. Thanks.
    Carol

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  4. Thanks for the contact. I would recommend a Book called "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson; one of the greatest writers of our time:

    'A Short History of Nearly Everything,' is a book the New York Times Book Review describes as "destined to become a modern classic of science writing."

    It is packed with cool facts about our planet and I highly recommend it. I found Bryson's observations about climate change on pages 426 and 427, particularly factual:

    "It is mildly unnerving to reflect that the whole of meaningful human history - the development of farming, the creation of towns, the rise of mathematics and writing and science and all the rest - has taken place within an atypical patch of fair-weather. Previous inter-glacials have lasted as little as eight thousand years. Our own has already passed its ten thousandth anniversary.

    The fact is, we are still very much in an ice age: it's just a somewhat shrunken one - though less shrunken than many people realize. At the height of the last period of glaciation, around twenty thousand years ago, about 30percent of the Earth's land surface was under ice. Ten Percent still is - and a further 14 percent is in a state of permafrost. Three-quarters of all the fresh water on Earth is locked up in ice even now, and we have ice caps at both poles - a situation that may be unique in Earth's history. That there are snowy winters through much of the world and permanent glaciers even in temperate places such as New Zealand may seem quite natural, but in fact it is a most unusual situation for the planet.

    For most of it's history until fairly recent times the general pattern for Earth was to be hot with no permanent ice anywhere. The current ice age - ice epoch really - started about forty million years ago, and has ranged from murderously bad to not bad at all. Ice ages tend to wipe out evidence of earlier ice ages, so the further back you go the more sketchy the picture grows, but it appears that we have had at least seventeen severe glacial episodes in the last 2.5 million years or so - the period that coincides with the rise of Homo erectus in Africa followed by modern humans."

    My comment:
    With "17 glacial episodes" in the last 2.5 million years, you can also bet that there were at least 17 "global warming" episodes between the "glacial episodes". But it is particularly interesting that Bryson points out that the current situation of polar ice caps is relatively unique for our planet, and that the more "normal" situation (historically speaking from an Earth science point of view) is that there is "no permanent ice anywhere.

    The Earth is known to be billions of years old. 25,000,0000 years is not an extreemly leanghy period of time from an earth science point of view. When viewed from the wider perspective, "global warming" seems like a funny religion of sorts.

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  5. Look, unless you can list citations for your information, I am much more willing to believe the evidence presented by over 900 scientists on the topic of global warming, rather than some pious, Bill O'Reilly-wannabe, who has enough time and money to go to a beautiful glacier in patagonia, and instead of appreciating for its beauty, tries to use it as some sort of "God-send" that says science and scientists the world over (not JUST in the U.S.), who have no political aspirations or ambitions, are wrong about global warming.

    Global warming is NOT a political issue! Some in Congress, and maybe in other countries, as well, have made it so, but unless you have more to bring to the table than your own political bias, those of us in the business of science would rather you keep your sticky theories to yourself. However, if you are so sure about this phenomenon being the catch-all, end-all, then publish your report in a scientific journal and let it be subject to peer-review. If your views are upheld, then great, but somehow I don't think that's going to happen.

    In short, put up (scientifically) in the form of subjecting your findings to peer-review, or shut up!

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  6. WOW! You mean kind of like that great scientist/politician Al Gore? The worlds leading promoter of GW hysteria. What science degree does Al Gore have exactly? And he made an entire laughable movie on the subject. Did you ask for a “peer review” of ‘An Inconvenient Truth”? There are thousands of scientists, many of whom are world renowned, who literally laugh at the idea of “man made” GW. Go here http://www.sepp.org/Archive/Publications/pressrel/petition.html for a few details. The entire GW movement is political from A to Z and you have the gall to complain when you get a little push-back from little blog? Wow! Talk about insecurity in your own position.

    As for Perito Moreno, please feel free to research the subject yourself, you will find that every word written in this post is true.

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  7. So long as the sun is much much bigger than the earth, and so long as the sun's output is signaled by the presence of sunspots, there will be little we can do to heat or cool the earth that is significant compared to the natural variation of the sun.

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