Overlord Glacier – click image to enlarge
Tree stumps at the feet of Western Canadian glaciers are providing new insights into the accelerated rates at which the rivers of ice have been shrinking due to human-aided global warming.
Geologist Johannes Koch of The College of Wooster found the deceptively fresh and intact tree stumps beside the retreating glaciers of Garibaldi Provincial Park, about 40 miles (60 km) north of Vancouver, British Columbia. What he wanted to know was how long ago the glaciers made their first forays into a long-lost forest to kill the trees and bury them under ice.
To find out, Koch radiocarbon-dated wood from the stumps to see how long they have been in cold storage. The result was a surprising 7000 years.
“It seems like an unprecedented change in a short amount of time,” Koch said. “From this work and many other studies looking at forcings of the climate system, one has to turn away from natural ones alone to explain this dramatic change of the past 150 years.”
The Oil Patch Boys will find some greedy pedant who will say the stumps don’t exist. Politicians will “take a stand” for ennui. Fools will believe ’em.
Hmmm, so that means that at one time it was warm enough to support trees? Go figure. Must have been humans and their fires cooking up dinosaurs. 😉
So what’s the big deal? That it has taken 150 years to melt something that was there for 7000 years? So? Show me where in history this hasn’t happened before. Show me some evidence that glaciers haven’t melted like this. You can’t. No one can. We do not know for a FACT that this isn’t a natural process that has happened before and will happen again.
7000 years ago, I bet that forest was petrified at the thought of the approaching glacier!
Surf’s up.
I’m with #1. Who caused the temp increase 7000+ years ago?
Who caused the temp increase 7000+ years ago?
God. The same entity who created the Black Plague a few centuries back.
So we probably shouldn’t worry about plagues any more either, huh?
You (gig, will, steve, etc) pop up like mushrooms on dog shit with the same talking-point sound bytes. I’m curious… what’s in it for you? The joy of poking a stick into the side of bleeding heart tree huggers? Or is there a paycheck involved somehow?
Go back to pulling the wings off flies and let the grown ups try to insure that there’s a planet left for our great-great-grandchildren.
Global Warming, GOTTA LOVE IT, BABY!
Thank you , President Gore!
The planet will take care of itself, it doesn’t need out help I promise. It has corrected itself many times over. Do you really think that a bunch of apes can destroy this planet? You must really think you are more important than you really are. In the overall scheme of things we are nothing, a flash in the pan. When we are gone the roaches won’t even care about us.
Interesting how the article once again mixes facts and propaganda.
Fact: the global climate is warming.
Notfact: humans are causing or significantly contributing.
Notfact: humans can do something about it
Notfact: the warming trend is a bad thing
#8, Shea;
Do you really think that a bunch of apes can destroy this planet?
Two words: nuclear weapons
Pretty amazing to think these 7000 yr old tree stumps are “pristine” and still “rooted in their original soil” yet the rocks around them are ground into sand?
Well, at least the GSA seeks diversity since this was obviously caused by man (humankind). Thanks Father Al.
Damn Glaciers look at all the Trees they’ve killed. We need to get rid of them so all the little Animals can return to their natural homes.
Damned Al Gore – first he invents the interwebitubes, then the global warming. Why doesn’t someone stop him?
Won’t someone please think of the children!!
Nuclear weapons…as far as the planet is concerned if ALL of them were blown up all at the same time, they wouldn’t even add up to a decent sneeze.
Definitely bad for us fragile environment monkeys, but then again, ONE half-way decent sized meteor impact and we’re ALL literally burnt toast…and, again, the planet will shrug all this off in a mere instant (an instant being a million years or, far fewer).
One more Krakatoa-sized volcano explosion and yeah, you’ll get a REAL taste of how quickly Mutha Nature can exert her control on our global climate…no matter how many Carbon Credits Al Gore buys for his own offsets from his own company.
Global Warning? Perhaps, but we’re along for a natural planetary ride…and I, for one, am not going to be “taken for a ride’ by Kook Science saying us monkeys are to blame.
This can’t be true. The earth is only 6000 years old….max. Just look it up.
#6 – Talking head, “God” did not cause the plague, humans did by being dirty and killing cats. Do you have something relevent, or do you just want to spew your hatred?
#10 – Natefrog, “nuclear weapons can destroy the world” was dreamed up by a bunch of political activists and relied on the target audience being cowardly luddites, proud of their ignorence, and ready to panic at the slightest hint of a threat.
Temperature variations?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum
Holocene climatic optimum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Holocene Climate Optimum was a warm period during roughly the interval 9,000 to 5,000 years B.P.. This event has also been known by many other names, including: Hypsithermal, Altithermal, Climatic Optimum, Holocene Optimum, Holocene Thermal Maximum, and Holocene Megathermal.
This warm period was followed by a gradual decline until about 2,000 years ago.
How do we know these temperature variations aren’t normal happenings within nature? How do we know that humans are the cause, and that these fluctuations don’t happen on their own?
Global warming may certainly be happening – but how can we say with 100% certainty that humans are the cause?
We’re all doomed, DOOMED. I’m gonna go drink whiskey now, alot of whiskey.
#1 hit the nail on the head.
The Earth used to be warmer. A lot warmer. Dinosaurs used to roam into Canada. Greenland used to be green. The only thing we really know about the global climate is that we don’t know jack.
Here’s something to think about. There’s a small group of scientists who think all the global warming hype is based on bad science. They believe it’s a solar phenomenon. They are also denigrated by most of their peers.
Sixty years ago a small group of scientists came up with a theory called plate tectonics. They were denigrated by most of their peers. Only they were right and the bleating mob was wrong.
Just because the majority of so-called experts says it’s so doesn’t make it true. Most often, it’s the little guys with the “crackpot” ideas that are right. You know, nutjobs like Einstein, Hawking, etc.
Maybe trees will return to the great white north. That ought to make the enviro-nuts happy.
The brief news article does not provide sufficient details to know if this accounts for a problem of using this technique of estimating dates. It is quite possible for the glacier to have advanced, receded, advanced, receded, many times on top of the sediments containing these trees. Thus, the trees can be 7,000 years old – but we do not know if the glacier has advanced over these in the past, retreated, then advanced again, retreated, and so on, up to the present retreat. A technical description of this issue is here: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=774
>>first he invents the interwebitubes,
Interwebitubes? INTERWEBITUBES????
C’mon all you conspiracy theorists who selfishly deny the blatantly obvious human impacts on climate. Go ahead and stick your heads deeper into the sand. You know you can do it!
Well, U B T some body’s got offset the automatic response to every story that gets posted here that blames Bush, Republicans, Christians and anyone else to the right of Marx for everything bad that has ever happened, happens or will ever happen.
Regardless of where one stands on the issue of global warming, logic still seems to say better safe than sorry. Options like fuel economy standards for automobiles would be good for the environment and fuel prices. The energy bill in congress in the US currently calls for a fuel economy standard of 35 mpg by the year 2020, but lobbyists are trying to have this removed. I’m working with a group to try and stop that from happening, there is a peitition here for anyone who thinks it is worthwhile http://www.energybill2007.org
#25 Thank you pat for stating what I thought was painfully obvious to everyone. If humans are potentially causing global warming why not err on the side of caution. It’s not as if making an effort to clean the planet up is dangerous. Humans are just lazy and greedy. If there is a cheep, dirty way to do something it becomes the preferred method over using some mental power to find a better way to accomplish the same goals.
Further more why not clean up the atrocious mess that humanity is making. What possible, rational reason is there not to clean up our mess? Weather it is hurting the environment or not, I (and others like me) HAVE TO LOOK AT IT! I’m tired of going in to perfectly good forests and finding some lazy S.O.B.’s trash already there. I’m tired of the smell of car exhaust and fried food gaging me every time I come back from a camping trip.
You dopes crack me up. Even the Original Post uses the term ‘human-aided global warming”. You see, the issue of climate change is what is called “complex” meaning there is more than one simple issue involved.
Now go back to your one issue religious mantras and leave the rational world to those who can handle two or more ideas at once.
There are plenty of other reasons for changing our energy infrastructure – simple pollution, increasing costs, funneling our wealth to questionable parts of the world, saving the petroleum for plastics production, potential for development of green economies, etc. We don’t need the global warming chicken-littles to “aid” or force our hand. In fact this may be hindering things by causing all this silly in-fighting. Enough already.
Hey. Rush Limbaugh says global warming is a liberal hoax. I’m going with him.
28. Well said boobo. I couldnt agree more.
I always find it amusing that these scientists assume that “warming” automatically equals droughts and desertification.
If so, then why is the area at the Equator, the hottest part of the Earth, almost entirely rainforest?