Alaska Glaciers Cover Former Forests
Climate alarmists frequently claim that it is warmer today than anytime during the Holocene. “NASA: 2010 Meteorological Year Warmest Ever” blares the headline [here]. Because of that, entire species are disappearing [here].
Actually, in reality, that’s not true. Not only was last year not the warmest year ever, it wasn’t even the warmest year in the last 100. That honor goes to 1934. Moreover, the globe has almost always been warmer than today during the last 10,000 years (the Holocene), with the exception of the Little Ice Age (1550 AD to 1850 AD).
Holocene Temperature Variations, courtesy Global Warming Art [here]
Strong circumstantial evidence exists that indicates the Pacific Northwest was much warmer than today during the Hypsithermal period [here] from roughly 9,000 to 2,500 years ago.
An interesting study looked at the carbon-dated age of organic discharge from glacial rivers in the Gulf of Alaska.
Hood, E., Fellman, J., Spencer, R.G.M., Hernes, P.J., Edwards, R., D’Amore, D., Scott, D. 2009. Glaciers as a source of ancient, labile organic matter to the marine environment. Nature 462: 1044-1047
Abstract
Riverine organic matter supports of the order of one-fifth of estuarine metabolism. Coastal ecosystems are therefore sensitive to alteration of both the quantity and lability of terrigenous dissolved organic matter (DOM) delivered by rivers. The lability of DOM is thought to vary with age, with younger, relatively unaltered organic matter being more easily metabolized by aquatic heterotrophs than older, heavily modified material. This view is developed exclusively from work in watersheds where terrestrial plant and soil sources dominate streamwater DOM. Here we characterize streamwater DOM from 11 coastal watersheds on the Gulf of Alaska that vary widely in glacier coverage (0–64 per cent). In contrast to non-glacial rivers, we find that the bioavailability of DOM to marine microorganisms is significantly correlated with increasing 14C age. Moreover, the most heavily glaciated watersheds are the source of the oldest (4kyr 14C age) and most labile (66 per cent bioavailable) DOM. …
… In the most heavily glaciated watershed, Sheridan River, 66% of the riverine DOC [dissolved organic carbon] was readily degraded by marine microbes despite having a D14C value of -386% (3,900 yr D14C age). Heterotrophic microbes in both sub-glacial and pro-glacial environments have been shown to subsist on aged carbon overrun by ice during periods of glacier advance. It is additionally possible that CO2 respired from glacially sequestered carbon may support microbial primary production in glacial ecosystems. Along the GOA [Gulf of Alaska], the last major cycle of glacier retreat and re-advance occurred during the Hypsithermal warm period between 7,000 and 2,500 yr BP. …
What does all that scientific verbiage mean? It means bits of carbon in the rivers flowing out from beneath glaciated watersheds in the Gulf of Alaska were found to be 4,000 years old.
Ergo, 4,000 years ago the watersheds were forested, not glaciated.
The glaciers that are there today formed roughly 2,500 years ago. Before then, going back 7,000 years, there were no glaciers in those watersheds, or only small ones, but there were forests.
Prior to 7,000 years ago the watersheds contained Ice Age glaciers that dated back 115,000 years (roughly), to the beginning of the Wisconsin Glaciation.
When it was warmer than today, forests grew quite nicely, thank you, in places where they won’t grow today due to accumulated ice. If the existing glaciers were to melt, forests would grow there again. Unfortunately that is very unlikely, since global temperatures have been trending downward for the last 7,000 to 8,000 years.
The “catastrophic” warming of the last 160 years has been 1 to 1.5°F. That warming has driven global temperatures up to where they were in the 1500’s before the Little Ice Age, but nowhere near warm enough to melt Gulf of Alaska glaciers and grow forests there (where they used to grow).
Regarding the extirpation of lodgepole pine: it is interesting to note that lodgepole pine invaded western Canada around 11,000 years ago, after the Wisconsin Glaciation continental ice sheets melted. Before 11,000 years ago, going back ~115,000 years, there were no lodgepole pine in western Canada due to the presence of 2 km thick ice sheets. Pine tree roots need soil; they do not grow on ice.
Lodgepole pine grew quite nicely, however, 8,000 years ago during the height of the Hypsithermal when temperatures were 2 to 3°F warmer than today. So did many other species, including all the tree species extant in the Pacific Northwest today.
Yes, it is true that so-called forest scientists want you to panic into thinking that our forests are going to disappear due to the global warming predicted by computer models. Actually, models of models of models. It’s all very theoretical.
But the reality is that forests grow better on soil, even warm soil, than they do on ice. Much better.
There is nothing to panic about, except perhaps the expenditure of $10’s of millions on useless computer models designed to induce irrational paranoia about something that isn’t going to happen. But don’t panic about that either. Vote the crazy bastards out instead.
by nofreewind
Here is a picture that confirms your article. 3,000 yr old tree stumps now visible after recent glacier receding.
Scroll to last page(3)
http://www.cseg.ca/publications/recorder/2008/09sep/sep2008-gussow-nuna.pdf
by Bob Zybach
nofreewind:
This isn’t a new phenomenon, either, which might be tied to Global Warming — it has been taking place for thousands of years (of course). Another example is closer to my home, here in Oregon: Fred Stadter’s 1926 discovery of a buried forest above timberline on Mt. Hood, which was named and profiled by E. T. Hodge in Vol. 13, No. 12: pp. 82-86 of Mazama Magazine.
In the September, 1946 Ore.-Bin, in an article titled “Mt. Hood’s Vanishing Glaciers” (Vol. 8, No. 9: 61-65), Ralph Mason wrote:
“Today, the receding tongues of Reid Glacier have uncovered evidence that at one time in the not too distant past the glaciers suffered a shrinking back as profound as that now going on. Several years ago a buried forest was discovered on the ridge dividing Reid and Zigzag glaciers at an elevation of 6200 feet. The trees, now pressed flat and buried by glacial debris, measure from 1 to 3 feet in diameter. The nearest living trees of comparable size now grow far down in the valleys. Evidently the glaciers on Mt. Hood at one time receded until their snouts were far up on the mountain or had even vanished entirely for a time.”
Writing in 1991 in Oregon Geology (Vol. 53, No. 2: 34-43), Kenneth Cameron and Patrick Pringle in “Prehistoric Buried Forests of Mount Hood,” noted that the Stadter Forest trees had actually grown at 5,850 feet elevation and had been buried sometime around 1,700 years ago.
The “tree ring data” regarding glacier dynamics seems pretty clear. Locally, glaciers have been receding and growing for millennia: currently (on Mt. Hood at least) growing smaller for more 100 years — apparently well in advance of Global Warming modeler awareness or recent atmospheric CO2 increases.
To say these effects have anything to do with Apocalyptic Global Warming (”AGW”) seems highly unlikely, given the evidence. To say they are related to climate change is obvious. The climate has always been changing and hopefully always will. Fortunately, we are a resilient species and will probably continue adapting. Just like always.
Fascinating stuff! I wonder how many species disappeared because of the ice. Lodgepoles should be banished back to their historical boundaries, at least. Preserving “offsite forests” is doomed to failure.
by N. Pence
Lodgepole is a favorite species of mine. It is very adaptable. I have seen it growing in near desert conditions on the Targhee NF to mixed with white bark pine at the highest elevations and even the rain forests of the Tongass NF (although the Tongass lodgepole is Pinus contorta var. contorta and not Pinus contorta var. ledifolia.
The Tongass lodgepole grows with yellow cedar and mountain hemlock and is the last muskeg tree species before the peat soil becomes too wet to support tree growth.
Being a very intolerant species it needs sunshine and grows rapidly until about 70 years when the mountain pine beetle attacks it. It is rare to find a lodgepole much over 100 years old due to the beetle. And also rare to find one over 16 inches DBH for the same reason. The beetle always kills the largest ones first and in an epidemic works it way down to less than 6 inches.
We don’t need to worry about climate change. Obama has signed an executive order providing instructions for implementing climate change adaptation planning. Executive Order 13514. The instructions became available on March 4.
Reading Mike’s comments above, I could not help but think back to the POST TURTLE JOKE.
It reads “While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old Texas rancher, whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Obama and his bid to be our President.
The old rancher said, ‘Well, ya know, Obama is a post turtle’. Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a ‘post turtle’ was. The old rancher said, ‘When you’re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a ‘post turtle’.
The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor’s face, so he continued to explain. ‘You know he didn’t get up there by himself, he doesn’t belong up there, he doesn’t know what to do while he is up there, and you just wonder what kind of a dumb *** put him up there.’”
Speaking of lodgepole pine/climate catastrophe modeling, this fresh post says it all: