Glacier National Park to remove all 'glaciers will be gone by 2020' signs | Hacker News Reader

Glacier National Park to remove all 'glaciers will be gone by 2020' signs

kpax.com

74 pointsaazaa120 comments

Was hoping for more detail on the predicted vs actual change beyond what the headline could tell me. Or even if they have a new prediction.

Edit: This table is helpful https://www.usgs.gov/data-tools/area-named-glaciers-glacier-...

Apparently the new date is 2030:

The original estimates of the timing of glacier melt were based on two things: modeled projections of the glaciers’ response to warming, and direct observations of glacial retreat. A 2003 report was based on modeling a scenario of doubling pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 levels by 2030, which would have melted the park’s major glaciers – and presumably the minor ones, too – by 2030.

https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/09/fact-check-no...

And that article links to the USGS site with paired images:

https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/repeat-photograp...

Another study from 2010 seems to have given 2080 https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/retreat-glaciers...

It seems we may have quite a bit of understanding to gain regarding glaciers. I'm not sure if the 2010 study is more reasonable (I'm no expert) but I think enough time has elapsed in the 2003 study to say that the estimations in it didn't pan out based on the observed values in 2015.

Note that the percentages in the table are misleading as they show decline from the Little Ice Age, not from recent levels.

Back in 2004 the Pentagon predicted dooooooooooooooom by 2020:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.t...

"A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world."

"Yes Mr. President, as you can see from this report, we are clearly going to need a much bigger budget!"

I read the original report, it sounded like they knew that that magnitude of disaster was really unlikely, but they wanted to tell a story of "this is how bad it could be." It was akin to describing the outcome of a large asteroid impact.

Beaver Lake in Vancouver's Stanley Park was predicted to fill in and become a meadow in a couple thousand years. Then it was predicted to be filled by 2020. But it's not. It might be soon. In ten years or maybe a hundred years. We're just really bad at predicting such things accurately. In the case of Beaver Lake, it'll probably get dredged and predictions will become moot.

Warnings of impending problems serve a real purpose even if they miss the mark. We absolutely want folks thinking about environmental responsibility, and the consequences of their choices. Unfortunately, some of the more doom and gloom predictions can send young people down the wrong path.

I remember listening to 10 in 2010 and imagining that I would never make it to 40. Well here we are in 2020, and somewhere along the way, I had to learn to stop letting the grim predictions of others dictate my life decisions.

I do not think we should stop caring about the future of civil and environmental issues, but we also need become financially secure, get married, and raise a family without worry of what may come.

I agree and I'd hope to see the information tweaked based on latest research, which is what they're doing. Hope other spots with similar plaques and signs follow suit. Just so skeptics have less to argue with, not just entering the park and going 'Ha, see, signs in this place are wrong so, clearly, climate science is wrong.' Yes, true, our estimates are changing on the regular but that's better than just pretending like the problem doesn't exist or hoping it's small.

Even if they change signs to read 'will melt in 2050', that's still terrifying. So I do hope they put up new data soon.

It's not a question about whether climate science is wrong.

There are plenty of observations that are pretty well established. The problem is that the media only portraits the most catastrophic of the claims. But a lot of climate science is speculation not a demonstration and we have to be much better at calming down and looking at different things with different certainties rather than just claiming the sky is falling.

Even the IPCC report is scaling back on some of the more alarmist rethoric.

There isn't to my knowledge any scientifically demonstrated consequences of climate change we don't know how to deal with.

That should be a good thing yet somehow we've end up in trench wars.

How much research has been done into the positive effects of global warming? More rainfall, warmer waters, more tropical climate. It's hard to believe these things might be bad.

Has no one done this kind of research before?

Heretic

If your fridge warms up, you can use it as a hothouse (with some lighting), and freezer as a fridge. This will work and be good. But not for the frozen produce you already have in there.

Is there an investment fund that is designed to specifically invest in companies that have solid plans in place for mitigating or taking advantage of climate change, or taking short positions against industries or regions that are at risk and totally unprepared?

Examples would be shorting Florida coastal real estate, shorting flood insurance, long on agricultural and real estate investments that depend on moving growing zones and seasons, etc..

The most undeniable evidence for climate change would be if people are making a ton of money from accurately anticipating its results. I’d invest heavily in such a fund, if it existed.

One cool thing about this is that if you don’t believe in climate change you would want this too - you should bet against the fund and take the money of people like myself if you are right. Since I believe climate change is real, I would happily put my money on the other side of that bet.

There are some clean energy ETFs such as $PZD (INVESCO EXCHANGE TRADED FD TR CLEANTECH ETF) that may be decent investments, but if you have specific environmental predictions, you might want to invest 'as close' to them as possible, e.g. via weather derivatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_derivative or second-order effects, rather than things further down the line of causation

> The most undeniable evidence for climate change would be if people are making a ton of money from accurately anticipating its results. I’d invest heavily in such a fund, if it existed.

Rather than shorting, another option might be to buy undeveloped land that should appreciate as climate change predictions come true. For example, the land in the Canadian territories might be an option if you believe thawing will occur. Or possibly further south in the northern US.

If your model says rain patterns will change, invest in desert real estate in those areas set to get the most rain.

The unfortunate consequence of such an attitude is that it creates further economic incentives to not attempt to mitigate the damage from or slow down climate change

I’d argue the opposite.

The problem with your position is that you are already describing the status quo of our society - virtually every entrenched interest in our society already gains from climate change denial. Fossil fuel exploitation industries and transportation are a trillion dollar industry already.

On the other hand, the other side of the scale has nothing. A billion dollars in a hedge fund won’t be the tipping point when Exxon already has a market cap of 300 billion.

while not a prediction as to an exact date (since it's based on historical information,) these pictures and accompanying article provide some guidance. Also a link to a geospatial model used for two of the glaciers.

https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/melting-glaciers.htm

A National Geographic piece on Glacier National Park. You can see some "before" and "after" pictures of the last hundred-ish years in the first minute of the 3.5 minute video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur4I8tYnxP4

Are they gone? No. Are they going? Sure looks like it.

I recommend visiting (in the summer), regardless of the glacier status. It's beautiful.

EDIT: Another site with picture differences, with a slider view window. Care of the National Park Service.

https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/melting-glaciers.htm

Per the National Review:

The park is reportedly replacing the sign with a more nebulous and less falsifiable edict: “When [the glaciers] will completely disappear depends on how and when we act. One thing is consistent: the glaciers in the park are shrinking.”

A more effective sign that would be more enduring would be one featuring a recent photo next to a photo from 40 years ago at each location, to make the change very real.

This would be the best. Also maybe a "see how the park looked 10/20/50/100 years ago" exhibit to emphasize the loss.

What was the park's plan for 2020? Close down? Change the name of the park? Without the glaciers, what would be the draw?

Glacier or no, it's a beautiful piece of nearly pristine land. I imagine they'd simply find other attractions (there are several possibilities) or focus on the hows and whys of the glacier's disappearance.

If you haven't, I recommend visiting. If you can't visit, have a look at some of the pictures taken by those who have.

I guess this is one case where they should've abbreviated the year to '20'.

Or in the year 20XX, like an old Megaman game

The new estimate is 2030. Most of the ones that are left have gotten pretty small.

Or just use flip cards

Somewhere on Facebook and/or Twitter, climate deniers will use this reporting as a reason why they think it's a "hoax" that we're in a crisis.

more information from last summer here. Reference to a geospatial model used for a couple of the glaciers plus historical / modern photos showing physical changes in glaciers.

https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/melting-glaciers.htm

I imagine this is perfect for climate change deniers. Climate change is very difficult to fight because both undershooting and overshooting your predictions can come back and hurt you.

I can only imagine the gleeful Fox News reporting once they get hold of this story.

Unfortunately climate change became a political stance more than a science.

It is now extremely difficult to get straight facts from both sides of this debate. Both sides feel like thy need to completely overstate and exaggerate the facts in order to create fear, urgency and hate for the other side.

There's not really 2 sides to the debate over on the science side.

There is serious debate on the science side about the extent to which we can do anything about it. From what I've read, some think yes, others think yes but only by reducing population and living like it's 1563, and others think it's already too late. These arguments mostly rest on opinions about technologies like carbon capture.

It's not nearly as clear-cut as one might hope. Cliff Mass, a respected University of Washington Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, is a noted 'skeptic' of the urgency of climate change, at least the anthropogenic causes thereof. I've heard of others, but he's the one that comes closest to mind.

I'd only say Mass is a skeptic of the shrillest, dumbest climate change predictions: the kind you get in the local alt-weekly, rather than the kind you get in actual scientific papers.

Here's his most recent summary of his views, specifically how they apply locally: https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-science-based-appro...

It's really fucking clear-cut from a risk management point of view.

I mean, so is Pascal's Wager. I'm no climate scientist, but from what little I've read is that _all_ climate models are terrible at predicting more than 10-20 days out, and are on the same level of accuracy as financial forecasting models (i.e., 'not at all'). In my vast and inky ignorance, I'm just not convinced we need to _drastically revamp the entire economy soup to nuts_ in order to satisfy predictions from inaccurate models populated with bad (or at least 'wildly variable') data.

> I mean, so is Pascal's Wager.

I agree.

> climate models are terrible at predicting more than 10-20 days out

Note that if your weeding is in 30 days at noon, and you want to know if it's going to rain, then you are doomed. There are no good enough models for that precision.

But if you want to estimate the total rainfall during the year the problem gets easier. Not very easy or easy, just easier than predicting which day will rain in approximately a month.

“I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.”

Do you think they are describing "2 sides" there?

The smugness is definitely one sided.

Even though I trust scientist in this field I also believe it became increasingly politicized and not all papers are equally welcomed.

As far as I can tell there is still a lot of work and debate around how much people contribute to climate change and what are the future previsions. It is important to let the ability for researcher to publish research that goes against the consensus.

Any science that doesn't have the luxury of proving by experiment is always on shaky grounds. I work in finance and have seen enough beautiful backtestings that perfectly predict the past but run into walls as soon as they go live, to take a prediction purely based on backtested mathematical model with a pinch of salt.

Both sides are not equally responsible for politicizing the issue and both sides of the "debate" are not equally valid.

This is probably the best article on the subject I've seen: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/1/3/21045263...

The short version is that the 1.5° C target favored by climate activists is completely unrealistic, and it's harmful. We've passed the point where limiting climate change to 1.5° C is realistically feasible: it's still theoretically possible, but it would require the entire industrialized work to engage in the same level of total societal mobilization as WW2 for a whole decade. That's not even remotely feasible.

And when these activists say "it's 1.5° C or nothing", people are going to choose nothing. Voters will elect climate change deniers and/or decide that since they can't hit 1.5° C they might as well not lift a finger to stop climate change. However, it's not too late to limit climate change to 2° C, and while 2° C will have no shortage of harmful repercussions, it won't be the end of the world, and limiting climate change to 2° C is going to be way better for the planet than letting it run away to 3° C or 4° C or more. But the "1.5° C or nothing" rhetoric actively gets in the way of attempts to stop climate change at 2° C.

The perfect is indeed the enemy of the good.

Yah, it's a real shame that the fossil fuel (and adjacent) industries spent decades spreading misinformation and disinformation, and funding the hell out of any effort that created even the tiniest bit of doubt in the public mind (be it fringe research or straight PR).

Also the fact that climate change is being weaponised as an anti-capitalist vehicle by the left doesn't help persuading conservatives that it may be real/man-made/of the stated magnitude.

Conservatives: a group famous for being easily persuaded by the opposition.

As opposed to?

It's a ridiculously uneven playing field that, like too many things, has practically become a sport with two sides supporting their own team.

"If you're in any way even slightly wrong, we're right."

Denial mixed with pride is a powerful drug and you see it in action everywhere; the amount of energy we expend on avoiding an uncomfortable truth, be it unrequited love, losing a loved one, or being found to be wrong in an argument.

It doesn't really feel like we're fighting for the survival of our humanity. Maybe just prolonging our own individual existence so we don't have to deal with change, our beloved children be damned.

I'd say this goes beyond being "slightly wrong" and into being outright fearmongering.

If the science doesn't support a deadline, then you don't pull one out of thin air while passing it off as a scientific conclusion. To do otherwise is dishonest, even if you think you're doing it for noble ends.

We're just generally bad at estimating though, right? It's not just for climate change. Both nuclear fusion and the depletion of fossil fuels have been a good 50 years off now, for pretty much my entire three-decade lifetime.

The estimates might well be genuine at the time of publication, but our response to them will make the estimates inaccurate. Maybe all we're managing is to maintain equilibrium rather than positive progress.

I don't assume intentional dishonesty here because the risk of being completely discredited is way too high.

>I don't assume intentional dishonesty here because the risk of being completely discredited is way too high.

We're talking about the prediction "These glaciers will be gone by 2020".

And I'm not going to subject myself to a bunch of science denier sites to come back with a list of other failed predictions, but there are quite a few of them. Ones that are far more dire and breathless than a tourist trap going away.

If there's a risk of being discredited, it doesn't appear to apply to this topic. Intentional dishonesty? Nah, this is more like depraved indifference. There are no consequences for speaking out one's ass, and most attempts to enforce those consequences socially gets one branded as a "denier".

"If you're in any way even slightly wrong, we're right."

I don't think that's what people like myself are saying. We're saying that if you can't make accurate predictions (which there's ample evidence of), to declare you "know" what will happen is folly and self-aggrandizing.

It seems like a pretty strong argument if the models are this unreliable.

You could nail it every time and they'd still deny it. Look at flat Earthers.

It's 2020 and the glaciers are still there. Do you deny they still exist? Making predictions for things like climate on a year to year basis is a recipe for failure. The scale of the entire system is too large for predictions of such accuracy and do far more harm than good. "Soon" would have been a fine word to use here. Going with 2020 was just asking for a hit in credibility.

Saying "soon" is fodder for deniers as well. My point stands; they'll always deny it up until they're boiling in their own sweat.

Simple solution: stop making predictions with a degree of claimed accuracy that doesn't exist. There's no good reason to put a deadline such as 2020 on a prediction except as an attempt to imply a degree of certainty that doesn't exist. Climate change skeptics exist for many reasons and these poorly thought out predictions just feed into them.

I think the reason is to imply the sense of urgency that does exist - whether the 7000 year old glaciers melt in one decade or two, that's still a warning that the climate is warming.

Right but OC's comment still stands: state the uncertainty rather than project certainty.

"Glaciers are projected to disappear between 2020 and 2030 based on current emission trends" would still be alarming.

Exactly, you don't need to twist the facts to maintain the degree of urgency. Just needs the right framing.

"This glacier likely won't survive long enough for your kids/grandkids to see themselves"

Well if we're going to still claim it's science, there needs to be a measurable range stated.

Being over ambiguous just to be right can be just as misleading as overstating certainty. (Think Nostradamus type claims.)

This x1000. Stop giving them ammunition to further muddy the waters!

Can we please stop this absurd idea of "climate change deniers".

No one is denying that the climate is changing. It always have and it always will.

The discussion is about how much, how big a problem it is, how much of it is because of us and to what extent we can/should do anything about it.

That's the actual debate. Calling someone a climate change denier is a cheap and sloppy shot at trying to lump a much more complex discussion into a simple pro/con.

It's changing a lot, it's a big problem, it's almost entirely because of humans, and we should do everything we can.

https://xkcd.com/1732/

Should we do everything we can? A mass killing would reduce gases is that on the table? Let's agree to stop dealing in absolutes

It must be easy to argue with an inanimate straw-man.

You don't know what earth's temperature was back then. And you're comparing the "estimated average" 20,000 BCE to 1800 to "the recorded temperatures" of 1800~ with a raw graph? And "coincidentally" earth's temperature changes dramatically after 1850s?

God, no wonder why some people believe strange things.

You see that change in the dotted to solid line down in the end?

Do you know why that is?

That's the difference between temperature averaged over thousands of years and then suddenly measuring year over year.

If you think that's a reasonable way of showing temperature changes, then I guess we have very different standards for what we consider evidence.

Coincidentally, the title text of this famous xkcd:

> [After setting your car on fire] Listen, your car's temperature has changed before.

If you car is on fire, and inside temperature exceeded 70°C when all evidence points it never happened in the past 12 years you had the car, you can insist on measuring the past 24 hour average of interior temperature, because that's the granularity of past data, and claim that there is not enough evidence that anything is amiss.

Or you could just...

...hell, who am I kidding, feel free to say heat is part of nature, it's what mammals crave, and increasing temperature only means your car is more comfortable.

What's your evidence that you wouldn't have had these spikes earlier in history?

If you averaged that last part of the graph like the previous measurements it wouldn't show this spike.

That's the point here. It's misleading.

That doesn't mean there isn't a change in temperature.

It's just plain bullying. I'd suggest to ignore these trolls. Whole climate thing has turned into a useless political drama and scare-marketing. Impossible to have a decent conversation without being labeled as a "denier" or "ignorant" by crazy lunatics.

Just the fact that we have to use throwaway accounts to discuss this goes to show the level of the debate.

==Impossible to have a decent conversation without being labeled as a "denier" or "ignorant" by crazy lunatics==

You manage to victimize yourself while calling others "crazy lunatics." Do you see how you are engaging in the exact activity you accuse others of?

It’s called “right back at ya”, a quite effective (online only though) strategy. “Give the other cheek” and similar BS is not going to work with crazy lunatics and bullies.

==The discussion is about how much, how big a problem it is, how much of it is because of us and to what extent we can/should do anything about it.==

This is today's argument, because nobody believes yesterday's argument that nothing was changing. This line of attack is simply the pivot. I clearly remember Ted Cruz running around the 2016 primary saying the globe was not warming [1].

The President exposed it today when he claimed that climate change isn't "a hoax" or "a big scam" like he claimed in the past. Today he said he is a "big believer" in climate change [2].

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/20...

[2] https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-admits-climate-change-is...

The problem is that the discussion has gotten completely off the rails and become politicized to a degree that makes it impossible to discuss rationally.

The scientific mind is always and should always be skeptical to absolute claims like the glaciers are melting and NY is underwater soon. The "hoax" is not with regards to the climate but with regards to those who claim the glacier is melting in 2020.

The media is the biggest perpetrator of all, fueling to this frenzy that not only makes people panic unnecessarily but also creates a situation where really really really dangerous decisions potentially will be taken.

Yes the climate is changing as it always have, no it's not something we don't know how to deal with over the next 80 years.

So lets all just chill and stop letting the media control the narrative.

==Yes the climate is changing as it always have, no it's not something we don't know how to deal with over the next 80 years.==

This is the same type of false authority you claim the media to be pushing. You do not know this to be true, why would you say it?

==So lets all just chill and stop letting the media control the narrative.==

Agreed. Let's let scientists control the narrative. What do they have to say?

Can you name one scientifically demonstrated consequence of the climate chaning we don't know how to deal with?

That's why I say it. By all means. Let me know what we can't handle, but as far as I am aware we know how to handle the climate. In fact we've become so good at it that people who dies from climate related disaster have plummeted the last 100 years.

Scientist say that the climate is changing but it's not catastrophic and it's not something we don't know how to handle. Even the latest IPCC report has toned down their fear of the future.

I like the part where global warming bloviators cry the sky is falling and make exact predictions then when it doesn't occur insult those that disagree and say they don't understand science.

Wouldn't a long string of failed predictions be indicative of failure to understand...?

> Wouldn't a long string of failed predictions be indicative of failure to understand...?

No, the number of failures is completely meaningless, just as the number of successes is. The only thing that is relevant is the ratio of success vs. failure, somehow weighted appropriately based on the certainty claimed for the prediction and to correct for duplicated predictions.

==like the part where global warming bloviators cry the sky is falling==

I wonder if this comment will contain any bias?

==Wouldn't a long string of failed predictions be indicative of failure to understand...?==

Climate change deniers have a long string of failed predictions [1]. Would you say that is indicative of a failure to understand?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2017/dec/1...

Repeatedly telling people that the sky is falling in N years, only for it to not happen(perhaps in that time scale), doesn't help at all. I've heard some say that people need to be scared in order to convince them to do something, but clearly it hasn't worked. It just comes off as the doomsday that cried wolf.

How about telling them that Australia is on fire now?

Doomsday for lots of Kangeroos and other animals, no wolves in Oz though.

If you want to tell people that, you ought to be sure that global warming actually has a significant impact.

I don't know about Australia, but I know that the vast majority of fires in the US are caused directly by humans. Something like 90+% of them are started artificially(not by lightning strikes or something along those lines), which is kinda sad.

But is climate change necessarily making the situation worse? How great would the Australia fires be if this was the year 2000?

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/89757/people-cause-... https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/27/517100594...

Are the fires worse because of global warming? Kinda hard for me to say with certainty, but I doubt it makes that big of a difference at this point.

Marsupials are proof that Australia's climate has been hostile for a long time.

Eucalyptus trees are evolved to make oil that volatizes in heat, and makes the atmosphere of entire valleys combustible in the dry season.

Australia being on fire is just Australia.

Any way I can buy one of those signs?

fear-mongering much?

Wut?

It’s impossible for a layman to determine how much climate change is caused by humans.

Apparently impossible for scientists, too.

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