When Claiming Glaciers are “Melting” is just the Grifter’s Misinformation! Indeed, globally, many glaciers are “retreating”, but not from melting! Glaciers grow when more ice is added to the “accumulation zone” each year than is lost at the “ablation zone” (see graphic). Ice is ablated via calving, melting and sublimation (conversion of solid ice to vapor with no liquid phase). Lost ice from sublimation usually occurs while temperatures are below freezing. For example, Kilimanjaro glaciers have been retreating due to sublimation at below freezing temperatures, not from melting. Likewise, Antarctic’s McMurdo Dry Valley where average temperature ranges from ‑15°C to ‑30°C, the very little snow that does reach there quickly sublimates. Most ablation zones do lose ice via melting at warmer, lower elevations. Any winter snowfall usually melts completely each summer. However, other than that year’s snowfall, virtually all the ice in the ablation zone has been transported downslope from the colder accumulation zones. Thus, it is the temperature and precipitation in the accumulation zone that is most critical for glacier growth or retreat. Yet due to their elevation and steep terrain, the accumulation zones are the least studied and have provided the least data. Based on well-established physics, the mean annual air temperature in most mountain accumulation zones is calculated to be below freezing, typically ranging from −2 °C to −15 °C, so precipitation reaching that zone falls as snow. If the accumulation zone receives less precipitation, then less ice is transported to the ablation zone and the glacier will retreat. Kilimanjaro began retreating in the 1880s due to less precipitation, long before fossil fuels could have had any significant effect. The main source of precipitation arrived from the Indian Ocean, which varies with more precipitation during the natural Indian Ocean Dipole’s positive phase vs less precipitation during the negative phase. Since the 1880s, the positive phase has been providing less moisture. High Mountain Asiacontains the world’s greatest concentration of glacier ice outside of the polar regions. The Himalaya exhibit some of the fastest retreating glaciers while the Karakoram glaciers just to the west have been stable or growing. Karakoram is not an anomaly! The reason for these contradictory changes is all due to physics and the changes in precipitation. The Himalayan glaciers are controlled by the Indian Monsoons, and several researchers (i.e. Salerno 2012, Thakuri 2021) have observed the monsoons have weakened over the past 50 years, causing 40+% reduction of precipitation reaching the accumulation zones of Himalayan glaciers. This contradicts IPCC models suggesting warming will strengthen the monsoons. In contrast, the Karakoram glaciers have been receiving more precipitation as monsoon intensity has shifted westward. In addition, the Karakoram receives winter moisture additionally from the westerly winds. Further contradictions find the maximum temperatures in the Karakoram have been declining, again refuting IPCC models. Ignorant climate grifters like to parade data showing melting glaciers correlate with warming temperatures, so they can blame burning fossil fuels. However, critically thinking scientists understand that the same data can be interpreted very differently depending on one’s agenda. To anyone who has taken ice cubes out of their freezer into a warmer indoors, it is obviously true that warmer temperatures cause greater ice melt. However, what is not so obvious but just as true, less ice and less rain will also cause warmer temperatures. Less ice reflects less solar heating. Wetter conditions from more rain requires 4x more heat to raise temperatures than drier conditions. So, it should be no surprise, that the Karakoram have experienced cooling maximum temperatures, where shrinking Himalaya glaciers have experienced warmer temperatures. When reduced precipitation causes a thinning of a glacier’s accumulation zone, that thinning exposes underlying bedrock creating a glacier disconnection that glaciologists refer to as the glacier “losing its head”. The warmer ablation zone below is cut off from ice replenishment from above. onlinelibrary.wiley.com Without that replenishment, the glacier retreats far faster than it would when a glacier connects its accumulation zone with its ablation zone. Grifting climate alarmist climitards ignore all the science controlling glacier retreats, soley to blame burning fossil fuels, eating meat, and capitalism. Please! Learn the science! 📷