Lying Accelerates At The NYT
By Paul Homewood
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/20/science/the-melting-isnt-glacial.html?hpw&rref=science
In an article that the BBC would be proud of, the New York Times claims that the melting of glaciers is accelerating. To emphasise the point, they headline with comparison photos of the Muir Glacier, Alaska.
These are often reproduced, to show the effects of “global warming”, and contrast images in 1941 and 2004. The message is clear, and we all know whose fault it is!
What the NYT, and all the other purveyors of doom never show you is the other picture in the series from 1950. All three photos are on the USGS page here.
Let’s look at all three together.
1941
1951
2004
Clearly, most of the retreat since 1941 actually took place by 1951.
But even this is not the whole story. In this USGS report. they state :
The glacier that filled Glacier Bay during the Little Ice Age began its retreat from the mouth of the bay more than 200 years ago and has exposed a magnificent fjord system about 100 km long. The massive glacier retreated past Sitakaday Narrows ~190 years ago, retreated past Whidbey Passage ~160 years ago, and reached the upper end of the main bay by 1860 (~140 years ago).
And they even provide this convenient map.
Apparently the first 100km of retreat was natural, but your SUV caused that last mile or two.
http://soundwaves.usgs.gov/2001/07/fieldwork2.html
UPDATE.
I have been asked to check the rate of retreat in the 1940’s, compared to since.
USGS give these figures:
1941-50 = 3km
1950-2004 = 4km
So, I was incorrect in stating that “most of the retreat since 1941 actually took place by 1951”, though obviously the annual rate was much greater in the 1940’s.
And neither compare with the retreat of about 100km over the last 200 years that USGS quote.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Reblogged this on the WeatherAction Blog.
Paul, major OT but you may find the following of interest. It would appear new standards are being devised to comply with the “extreme weather” meme.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/2014/european-windstorms-catalogue
“…….One of the main issues was how to define an extreme storm, because unlike for hurricanes, there is currently no widely accepted scale for ranking European windstorms.
After much investigation, the XWS storms were selected by taking the top 50 storms as ranked by the index NUmax3, where N is a measure of the damaging area of the storm (the number of land grid points where the maximum gusts exceeds a threshold of 25 ms-1) and Umax is the maximum 925 hPa wind speed given in the storm track. Theoretically Umax3 is a measure of the advection of kinetic energy of the storm. This index was chosen because it was found to be a good meteorological proxy of storm damage as measured by insured loss.”
Gust of 25 ms I think equates to 56 mph = extreme?
Severe gale – Winds of force 9 (41–47 knots) or gusts reaching 52–60 knots
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/marine/guide/glossary.html
Interesting. The 1987 storm appears well down the list because of its small footprint.
“Clearly, most of the retreat since 1941 actually took place by 1951.”
How is that clear? You have provided no evidence of distance or ice Volume.
USGS figures show 3km of retreat between 1941 and 1951, and 4km from 1951 to 2004.
So, not quite most, but a much faster rate than since 1951.
http://www.usgs.gov/climate_landuse/glaciers/repeat_photography.asp
Not quite means not.
“but a much faster rate than since 1951”,
You still have no evidence for that. Ice volume upstream from a glacier will be greater than the calving end.
3km in 10 yrs from 1941-50
4km in 54 yrs 1950-2004.
The retreat per year was much greater 1941-50.
I wonder why the NYT did not think it appropriate to tell its readers that, or the fact that it had retreated by 100 km since 1800?
BTW – See Update
Good to publicise this, Paul.
Fine article, very succinct.
With the absence of so called ‘Global Warming’ during the recent seventeen years and the disconnect between climate model forcasts and reality, those pushing the funding and subsidy agenda (why else?)have little to lose from such mendacious propaganda campaigns.
Ok, now we know with 97% certainty that comfortable and affordable transportation for the masses was the cause of the glacier melt during recent decades, what is their explanation for the melt going back to 1760?
On a less factious note I am surprised the recorded melt precedes the end of the little ice age in Europe by a good century.
Clearly, the 2004 photo is way downstream of the earlier photos.