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NASA
This view of the Himalayas was taken from the International Space Station.
Are global warming skeptics being armed with a new weapon? Estimates from satellite monitoring suggest the melt rate from the Himalayas and other high-altitude Asian mountains in recent years was much less than what scientists on the ground had estimated, but those monitoring the satellite data warn not to jump to the skeptical conclusion.
The region's ice melt from 2003-2010 was estimated at 4 billion tons a year, far less than earlier estimates of around 50 billion tons, according to the study published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.
But study co-author John Wahr, a physics professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, emphasized that it's important to note that the region is a small contributor to overall ice melt and that the satellite estimates for the largest contributors, Antarctica and Greenland, are in line with ground-based estimates: about 385 billion tons a year.
"It's Greenland and Antarctica that pose by far the greatest threat to rising sea levels in the future," he told msnbc.com. "That's, basically, where all the ice is."
In the study itself, the authors also noted that the Asian mountain region has seen a lot of variability in ice melt and that the time period might be too short to be of much use. "These results suggest that care should be taken in extending the 2003–2010 results presented in this paper to longer time periods," they wrote in the study published online.
One potential reason for the huge difference, Wahr noted, is that scientists on the ground are limited to where they can sample the ice.
The NASA satellite used for monitoring, on the other hand, can cover the entire globe and its 200,000 glaciers.
Dubbed GRACE, the satellite "does this by mapping out the Earth's gravity field, all over the globe, every month," Wahr said.
Satellite tracks where ice is melting
"One way to think of this is that as GRACE passes over Alaska, say, it feels the gravitational pull of all the Alaskan glaciers," he added. When it passes over Alaska later on, it also feels the pull of all those glaciers, but now that pull is smaller because there is less mass in those glaciers to do the pulling. So you end up learning about the change in the cumulative mass of all those glaciers. You don't miss any of the glaciers; you see the combined effects of all of them."
"The price you pay with GRACE," he said, "is that because you're 500 kilometers above the Earth, you can't distinguish the effects of an individual glacier from the effects of its neighbor. Individual glaciers are usually just too close to one another for you to separate them in the GRACE data. If you want to know what individual glaciers are doing, you need to rely heavily on those traditional, ground-based methods."
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News
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More Al Gore Bull !!!
Well what do you know? Turns out the hippy granola eaters were making numbers up. Wow, I'm shocked. Except not.
No they weren't. Six or seven independent studies found no evidence of that. Don't lie to people!
MB, like many other posters here, you are making the mistake that this story claims that global warming is not a reality. It doesn't claim that. Read it again.
I got that impression at first too (but never believed it). So you're not alone on the misunderstanding.
leftys = egad !!! the sky is falling the sky is falling !!! Eaaaygghhhh !!!! It is you guys who are the chicken littles .
As usual another study without facts. I wish both sides of climate change(It was global warming but you know)would just show facts(Real Facts)
I agree with that wish, but unfortunately the denier crowd has a little trouble in assembling "real facts" to argue for their position. The problem is one of competing rates (cooling vs heating) and the only way to assess that is through careful modeling grounded in detailed physics of radiation transfer, collisional heat transfer, air and water chemistry, etc.
You can't resort to Wish Physics, and you can't be satisfied with "bumper sticker thinking", and you can't rely on those with a vested interest in easy oil profits to tell you the truth.
You both got that right!
no reterry it is you guys who deny that it is bull@!$%# .
hey dude, show me the science! show me why I should believe the oil crowd who have a vested interest in easy profits! show me somethin' aside from clumsy grammar!
Reterry your "scientists " were already caught doctoring the "evidence " No further words need be said . Other than BULL@!$%# . The end .
Dude, there you go again, drinking the cool aid. Six or seven independent investigations found no evidence of wrongdoing, none! Face it, you fell for the Oil Lobby lies!
Having found this article by accident, what predictably absurb comments by the "deniers." The folks who figured out a way to measure ice melt from the Grace satellites should be nominated for Nobel Prizes. The research will likely improve if the hypotheses are correct. Having only recently left the caves of our ancestors, what astounding research.
What ever happened to our innate curiosity, our love for creative problem solving? Feel free to constructively argue with "Al Gore" all you like, but stop wasting your own time trying to win some silly political argument. What a terrible waste of the time.
Why not spend what precious little nervous energy and time we each have trying to come up with practical solutions, versus wasting it trying to convince a bunch of strangers that your position is correct? Who cares about all that?
That exactly what "global warming " is . A POLITICAL ARGUMENT .
Somedude:
Think about what you are suggesting. Where were you when we accidentally discovered CFC's were destroying the ozone layer?
We are learning as we are progressing out of the caves. The human family is only 60,000 years old. Before then, our greatest feat of technology of the prior million years was the flintstone knife. Why are you in such a hurry to paint yourself into a political corner?
If "Al Gore" and his team of "well-paid experts" turns out to be wrong, then we can all breathe a sigh of relief. Solar got cheap enough to replace the "cheap oil" that we seem to be running out of at teh rate of 10% / year. We just might be able to escape our own techno adolescense.
Give our crazy species a chance at understanding this home we inhabit. The atmosphere that we currently understand is unbelievably thin - 10 miles high at best. The rest of us plan on sticking around a while longer.
Oh the Humanity ... What a devastating revelation .... Con Artist Al Gore ( AKA Bernie M. ) & his dopey minions are flummoxed ! ... How can this be ??.... How you ask ?? .....Because most learned & thoughtful humans know that the climate changes that are happening are simply natural occurrences and that just ONE large eruption from a Volcano can produce more changes in our climate than humans have in thousands of years ....
Say Jack, cut the horsesh*t, one typical volcano doesn't even come close to doing that. Now if we get to enjoy(?) the Yellowstone super-volcano, then you might be in the ballpark.
So, tell me, Jack. Why didn't the volcano that erupted in Iceland awhile back, and disrupted air traffic in Europe for weeks, NOT effect the climate by the slightest bit??? Or how about the volcanoes that have been erupting in the Aleutian island chain, or Kilauea in Hawaii, or the several others NOT effected the climate??? If that's the case we would be cooling NOT warming.
Local variation and seasonal variations exist. It's called weather.
World-wide the ice is melting. Ice has no commercial or political agenda.
That is absolutely correct. However, and unfortunately, many posters here don't know/understand the difference between weather and climate. THAT is the problem.
While individuals are fragile, life itself is robust. We can accomodate to slow changes in our environment. In the end, a slow long term warming trend is better than a long term cooling trend for the earth's ability to support life. Life is abundent in the tropics and less so at the poles. We do not need to wreck our economy in a single-minded mission to eliminate emission of CO2. Even if CO2 is a greenhouse gas (likely a very weak one), what we in the US do will not change what the rest of the world does and our efforts would result in infinitesimal change in temperature at best.
Only to deniers lacking a basic grasp of mathematics. Of course, near as I can tell... this would include ALL of them. Difference from predicted rates doesn't matter if it is still melting and shouldn't be, pretty simple answer.
But then... said demographic generally cannot see the futile similarity between one imaginary source of "value" (gold) and another (paper), completely missing how both are imaginary and finite, environmental concerns scream out for primary consideration. Anyway, go figure if "less melt than was predicted" gets translated as "see... told you they weren't melting at all". Not terribly bright nor educated I'm afraid.
We were Soooooo wrong! but that doesn't mean that you can't trust us! Us citizens MUST pay higher energy taxes while letting China and India fire up a new coal burning power plant every 3 to 4 wks, with zero envrmt.controls,,AAARRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!
Actually, there are Scientists who believe in creation. You don't have to be a evolutionist to be a scientist. And you don't have to be per say religious to believe in creation and the forces of nature. Our very seeing for ourselves causes us to believe. Global warming was started by Al Gore. Does he have all the answers and then look what he did with it. Made money! There are 2 sets of opinions on global warming. So who do you believe? Man domination man to his injury is a famous quote and has truth today. Critical times hard to deal with, will be here.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/13/shocker-dirty-electric-cars/
Electric cars have been heralded as environmentally friendly, but findings from University of Tennessee, Knoxville, researchers show that electric cars in China have an overall impact on pollution that could be more harmful to health than gasoline vehicles.
After another 100 years of data collection we might have some idea as to whether the earth is warming up. Our current data base in insufficient to make any claim one way or the other.
I do think politicians jumped the gun with the scare tactics but they had data to back up their fears so we must hear them out. My personal worry about the atmosphere has been the ozone depletion. I think the radiation forthcoming from a potential lack of protective atmospheric shielding effect would be much more dreadful. It seems however, the data showing the depletion of the ozone may have been too short termed also.
We just need to keep the sampling going and understand that our atmospheric pollution might very well be the cause of our premature exit from planet earth. We do understand that our atmosphere is unique to known planetary bodies and the specific makeup is largely resulting from life. Our planet earth is an amazing entity but we do not know how resilient it is nor how long it can last given the advances in human technology and the separation from previously understood natural laws our technology is forcing.
I, for the most part, agree with your post, James. BUT waiting "100 years" to see whether or not we were right might be too long. We see a problem brewing NOW and regardless of if we are correct we NEED to find an alternative to the lifestyle we are living currently, i.e. relying solely on fossil fuels. The rate at which population (another problem not many are willing to face) is growing another 100 years of research on climate might be irrelevant to the problems at hand in the future.
It's amazing. The whole point of the article was "skeptics will likely see ammunition where there is none" (it was... go ahead and READ the article). Heck, I'd consider it poking fun at deniers, because OF COURSE they will, so predictable. The results don't indicate a lack of warming at all, unfortunately.
For those posting links to endless blogs... DON'T... READ... BLOGS! You think there is some sort of conspiracy "suppressing information"? Well why would you expect to find information on a (bleep) blog, it's a blog! Why would you listen to a blog when you could (gasp!) consult scientific journals? Hey, if you don't know where to go, you just don't... but taking a blog's word for it that it "isn't there" is complete lunacy. You accept the fact that it "isn't there" without having looked. Insert head in sand joke here, you've earned it. You want data? It's out there enough to make you puke. Given the fact that I'm addressing people who haven't seemed to have read the article, I'd wager they'd pass out from reading exactly ONE scientific publication. However... the fact still remains that if you actually gave a (bleep) beyond reading your favorite cheeze blog and LOOKED... all the information in the world is available. To this end, here is a list of journals that I haven't even looked at terribly hard to make sure they are reputable... a convenience sample if you will. How sure am I? I'm so sure that it doesn't matter for purposes of getting people to look to the sources which supposedly "aren't there". GET OFF THE BLOGS! Even if this list (not compiled by me) has some bollocks on it, doubtless it has a lot less than a blog circuit.
Prediction... somebody will respond with a link to a blog. Sigh.
Here are the more field-specific journals, starting with the top ten in 'geosciences' as ranked by Eigenfactor (EF) then the rest in arbitrary order:
Past climates, paleo studies
Oceanography and ocean-atmosphere interactions
Glaciology and polar studies
And... just should you peruse for a bit... you think your denier blog has snot to say vice THIS? Come on, you cannot possibly take yourself seriously. Go ahead, take my challenge here. Slag a journal. Do it. Or simply read it trying :)
Just to reiterate... it took me exactly 15 seconds to find a convenience sample of what "isn't there". 15 seconds... 15 seconds I say! What the ish! It probably takes any particular denier more than 15 seconds to find a freakin blog article to massage their own self confirming bias. Grrrrrr....
Attacks on science are doomed to increase your ignorance.