UKC

Wow - that is simply brilliant! They look surprisingly different...

These are great. Isn't it said that if Ben Nevis were a few tens of metres higher it would be glaciated? Can't remember where I heard that - could be nonsense, I guess!

Very nice and thought provoking too,

Chris

I fear the Alps are rapidly heading in the same direction. The loss of glaciers this century is very frightening. Some of the approaches to popular huts and peaks have changed almost beyond recognition. The Dix hut from the Pas de Chèvre between 2003 and last year was quite a shock and the little sculpture at the bottom of the ladders may not be such a joke!

On the plus side, if there hadn't been another huge climate change at some time way way back, we wouldn't have places like Yosemite.

Given that the amount of ice varied greatly, are these 'reconstructions' based on any particular date ? For example at maximum glaciation there would have been little to see other than icesheets, but at warmer periods there would have been valley glaciers of varying sizes. Did the author use the scientific literature at all as a guide ? (eg Golledge & Hubbard. "Evaluating Younger Dryas glacier reconstructions in part of the western Scottish Highlands: a combined empirical and theoretical approach." Boreas 34.3 (2005): 274-286. - chosen at random from the large N° of papers)

Scientific literature or mere artistic license, I think these are beautiful, thought provoking and a very imaginative piece of work.

Thanks for sharing.

Neil

I agree they are beautiful, just wondering about how they were produced

Purely artistic guesswork and not scientific at all with regard to a particular time. I will welcome comments!

Thanks for your kind comments. I used Power Point. I was amazed what could be done just using the simple drawing tools under 'shapes'. Great fun making the images too: if this is death by Power Point then there are worse ways to go.

Thanks Neil - more art than science but I like to think that the features are reasonably accurate.

Regards,
Peter

Really enjoyed this. Thanks

I’m surprised you say they’re guesswork! I’ve often tried to imagine our mountains with glaciers and I suppose our imaginations converge. However I think you have more knowledge and intuition than you think.

It would be interesting to see further back when many mountains were mere nunataks sticking up from the ice sheet, thinking Wester Ross in particular. 

These are fantastic drawings.

It is worth bearing in mind how quickly things can change. A recent talk to our local geological society by Prof. Danielle Shreve of Royal Holloway catalogues 26,000 years of glacial and interglacial climatic variation from analysis of every micro- layer in a cave in the Mendips. The to and fro migration of boreal and temperate species at the site illustrated the changing climate. There have been many natural warmings and coolings.

Danielle closed her talk with the comment that she really worried for her future grandchildren in the event of a sudden cooling, or worse the commencement of another ice age, since her study demonstrated that major climatic changes can happen within a time-span of 40 years or even 10 years. This is all clearly proved by her excellent and careful research.

So those images could happen again at any time!

DC

A fantastic article! Being a field studies tutor and having a degree in Glaciology again, like others on this site, I'm always wondering what our mountain landscapes would have looked like. I've never had the artistic flare like you though.

I think reconstructing past glaciers roughly isn't too difficult if you can see the terminal and lateral moraines (the furthest depositional constraints of the glacier in question). 

Do you do Powerpoint wizardry to order?! In all seriousness I take groups of geography students to Quinag in Assynt and one of our tasks is reconstructing the last glacier in the main corrie.

Have you been to the alps recently? The rate of glacier retreat is astonishing. As it is in nearly all other glaciated mountainous regions. Let me know when the glaciers are on the advance again please?

I have been to the Alps recently. Obviously you will be able to do a better job of predicting the future than I will. No one denies the glaciers retreat, just as they advanced to valley bottom (starving the local population) a few hundreds of years ago. The point of Danielle Shreve's lecture was that indeed - rates of change ARE indeed astonishing. Welcome to the real World.

The glaciers will not give you any advance warning, it will just happen, or indeed there may be continuous and further retreat from the current situation.

DC

Thanks for your kind comments, Matt. I make no claim to complete accuracy and base it more on whatever land-forms I can see and link it up to my experiences in the Alps which (I like to think) gives me a good feel for the appearance of glaciers. I was amazed at how good PPT is though - I'm no tecchie and this was just using the freehand drawing tool. Blocking areas as shadow works as it helps give an almost 3D effect.

I love Assynt and if you'd like me to mock up something from your photos (or available photos) that would be fun and getting expert input from a glaciologist is not something I'd spurn!

P 

I first went to the Otztal Alps in Austria in 1980 and returned this year with my kids. The ice and snow retreat over about 35 years was astonishing and dispiriting in equal measure.

P

Thanks for your kind comments Neil!

P

Thanks - appreciate the comments. I may work on a few more soon!

P

Glaciers, like everything else in the known universe, operate according to the laws of physics. The world is getting warmer and physics explains why. The latest research tells us that over 50% of glacier loss is due to man-made climate change.

If the same glaciers that are in retreat now were to suddenly and without warning start to advance significantly, in seeming contradiction to science, then that, indeed, would be surprising.

Also, this thing about a coming ice age is just pure nonsense and has been debunked thoroughly dozens of times. Glaciers will continue, largely, to retreat. Sea levels will rise, depriving future generations of some classic sea-cliff routes. Winter climbing conditions in the UK will become a thing of the past, depriving future generations of UK winter climbing. Not to mention displacement of hundreds of millions of people as their homes disappear, water dries up, crops fail.

I know all of this makes unsettling reading, but sadly science says these things will happen. Whether one happens to believe it or prefers to cling on to fanciful notions of coming ice-ages matters not. Physics isn't a matter of belief.

Have you seen

http://parkswatchscotland.co.uk/2018/02/24/wild-land-cononish-gold-mine/

?

(scroll down towards the end)

The waxing and waning of the ice age isn't governed by anything man made, it's all controlled by the wobbles in the earth's orbit. Conditions for the next glacial maxima will be just right in 82000 years, personally I don't think I'll hang about that long just to see it.  

If global warming continuous to the point where we loose enough of the polar ice that will stop the North Atlantic drift/Gulf stream. This will have a profound effect on the climate of Northern Europe. The last time it happened saw a return of cirque glaciers to the hills of Scotland and the Lakes. Whether this happens and how far into the future it happens is anyone's guess.   

You’re quite right, in the same way that I’m a very slinky unicorn.

Plus good for you for deferring your next evidence point to 84018. That’s pretty brave.

Well I doubt you're really a slinky unicorn so what part of my post don't you agree with? 

Most of us are concerned about the next few years. And they are, according to overwhelming evidence, going to be toasty.

P.s. I am also a slinky unicorn. It may be that there would be an ice age in 82000 years if you ignore the build up of greenhouse gases. The same physics that explains ice ages also explains climate change. You can't just pick the bits you like and ignore the rest. So the first paragraph is not correct. 

As to the second paragraph, do we really want to melt the Arctic just to see what happens? 

Part 1: I tend to agree with OwenM. You think you can melt the Arctic? Are you God?

You are deluding yourself.

You have no proof for your assertions.

It is you who is ignoring the physics.

 It's called "greenwashing"

Or wish-fulfilment or confirmation bias.

Usually coming from people who have their nose deep in the "climate change" trough like Climate Consortium Wales, taking vast amounts of taxpayers' money to fund an Arcadian lifestyle in the countryside.

It is physically impossible for 50% of glacier retreat to be due to anthropogenic effects.

You show us why CO2 changes climate if you can, because no one has managed to do it yet.

If you believe glaciers will continue to retreat, how can you predict the future, when even the IPCC state in their 2007 climate change statement:

Climate is a “coupled non-linear chaotic system”,  for which   “the long-term prediction of future long term climate states is not possible.”

In any response you must deal with that comment and find proof otherwise.

No one has proved that CO2 affects climate

CO2 is the gas of life

A greener World would have more CO2

Plants photosynthesise and produce oxygen from CO2

Dutch and Spanish greenhouses use many hundreds ppm CO2 to benefit their growth rates, anything from 500-2000ppm.

 Part 2 to follow.

Part 2

At the end of the last ice age the temperature rose 8 degrees C as CO2 only increased by 100ppm

That proves CO2 does not influence climate

CO2 has increased 100ppm over the past 100 years, yet temperature has not tracked that change and for Twenty years there has been no significant warming.

The observational data tell you that.

However, you won't read it in the Grauniad or on the BBC, or from NASA, NOAA, IPCC, EU or UN for reasons that should be obvious to anyone.

Without CO2 we are doomed.

Without CO2 nothing would grow.

The tiny % of CO2 in the atmosphere due to man is not capable of changing climate.

Human CO2 accounts for 0.28% of all greenhouse gases (water vapour being 95%), and human CO2 only accounts for 4% of total CO2emissions.

Increasing levels of CO2 are asymptotic/logarithmic for temperature. You can increase CO2 but any temperature effect reduces.

For most of the past 10,000 years, temperatures have been much warmer than they are now.

Current levels of CO2 are lower than most of the geological past and unrelated to temperature changes - there are other drivers.

Hurricanes, droughts and wet periods have not increased in modern times.

Sea level rose 100 metres in the first 8000 years after the end of the last ice age. For the past 6000 years sea level has been virtually static and only naturally variable.

The 97% of scientists myth has been exposed as a fraud, as has the hockey stick chart from Michael Mann.

Before 1973 all scientists predicted that a nuclear winter period was coming.

If you understand physics, you must honour the observational data and not make wild predictions based on politically-motivated models that have virtually been de-bunked.

 you've posted a similar post before, much of what you've written is false, as was pointed out before. Life is too short to reply to each line but you are putting yourself in a tiny minority with such views and going against the overwhelming majority of scientists. But maybe you're a fan of Gove & his who needs experts approach?

That's great. My wife points out that the tiny woolly mammoths in the first photo are missing their tusks.

One hell of a project. Good luck.

Why are you wasting so much of your energy trying to argue with scientific consensus?

The evidence is so clear in so many studies.

i just don't understand.

I'm just trying to point out that you're mixing up two very different phenomena, one is the cyclical eccentricities in the Earth's orbit, (Milankovich cycles). These cause the coming and going of the ice ages. The other is global warming this doesn't effect ice ages - which operate on a much longer time frame. It does effect climate, as we're finding out to our cost. 

My point about the melting Arctic ice is that these things aren't necessarily liner, just because global temperatures are rising it doesn't follow that everywhere will see the same rise. The last time the Gulf stream was stopped Northern Europe saw a return to glacial conditions even though globally temperatures were rising. This period is known as the younger dryas and it lasted nearly 1000 years.   

You must have a time machine parked in that laboratory of yours, because how else do you know so much about the earths geochemistry and past climate?

Hi. Past  changes in climate were started by changes in the earth's orbit but were amplified by changes in greenhouse gas levels. Also past changes were caused by volcanos, rock weathering and plant growth amongst other things. 

Ok. I know i shouldn't... But...

All the co2 and temperature records you quote. They come from the same climate change gravy train scientists. Not sure why you trust the data any more than you trust research by NHS junky doctors who tell us cigarettes cause cancer. 

Seems like it's worth linking this excellent, up to date summary of climate change science.

https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/climate-change-evidence-cau...

Sadly there are always a noisy few *cough, Dave Cumberland* who spray their conspiracy theories as soon as this comes up. As others have mentioned, he hits all the standard climate change denial points. Every one of his assertions is either total fabrication, or at best a simplistic mischaracterisation of data taken out of context.

Finally, the idea of climate change scientists, atmospheric scientists, etc. being on some kind of lucrative gravy train is completely absurd. The work that these people do requires very high levels of competence in project management, data analysis, computer modelling and other valuable skills. They could without exception be earning far more money in almost any private industry than they are in their current positions.

Agree.

I've met and worked with a few of the co-authors of various IPCC reports and can confidently say that all without exception are generous and dedicated human beings. A lot of the synthesis work was done in their own time and often at unsociable hours to communicate with colleagues from around the world.

I work in sustainability science and the train is certainly not a lucrative one!

Hubbard and Franz Josef glaciers?

(Apologies for the delayed response, been away).

And don't forget all those tourists in the Lakes  and the National Park staff...it's their fault too

Just out of interest does the small icefield with 'schrund and crevasses that often forms in Coire an Lochain count as a glacier?

No as it melts each summer, but there are suggestions that a temperature drop of maybe 1 or 2° would be enough for it to become permanent

Fat chance of that then.

Nice to see and an interesting idea, but as it is, they look more like an exercise in "colouring in" the contemporary landscape than extrapolating to past structures at the time of glaciation. After the first few they get quite predictable and, sad to say, boring.

I'd like to think that they are no more predictable than the mountains they are on! Believe it or not, I did take into account the shape of them from both the photos and my own experience of them. So each is different.

Yeah I think the lowest mountains with glaciers at a similar latitude as Ben Nevis are in eastern Canada and about 1500 meters. In western Canada which has a more similar climate its more like 2000 meters which sounds more realistic to me, especially now a days. It seems quite likely between 1645 and 1715 (termed a mini ice age) many of the snow patches in Scotland would have been growing as a general trend and some would probably have accumulated enough snow to not die out at all for the entire later part of the period Did Scotland have any glaciers back then? probably some small ones http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-25824673

Great images, and very thought provoking, this is quite good too: https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/iges/research-groups/centre-glaciology/research-i...

Just to defend our resident Climate sceptic a little, During the Roman period when it was around 3degs warmer, Glaciers in the alps melted back drastically and the Mer de Glace is thought to have retreated 'round the corner' to above the Geant ice fall with only the Valle Blanche surving. Conversely, during the little ice age the glaciers advanced to such an extent that Chamonix itself was mostly abandoned in the 1600s. This was not anthropogenic. Condemn me.

where did you get '3degs warmer' from?

I read the 3 degs thing in a French coffee table geographical type magazine that caught my eye in Cham - on the ebb and flow of the glaciers in the alps. 

Supposedly, during the medieval warm period, villagers could walk from Zermatt to Cervinia without touching snow.

It was certainly not 3 degrees warmer on a global scale. That would have been catastrophic. The medieval warm period was also largely confined to Europe, and had little impact on the global average.

Not 3C warmer in the Alps either. Best ref I can find is https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X05003195 (abstract visible to you all, article itself behind paywall) which suggests temps in the Mediaeval Warm period were similar to now, but 1.7C higher than in the so-called Little Ice Age.

Rob F

thanks for sharing. you could imagine back to the start of the pleistocene by stretching vertically to make them look more alpine

i wonder how much height loss over 2 million years of glaciations?

The retreating glaciers in the Valais regulalry reveal tree stumps from forests growing several hundred m above the current tree line during the medieval warm period.

CB

and don't forget cattle grazing in the mer de glace valley- where's Bruce?

Th difference being that then it was natural (yes there are occasionally fluctuations in the climate, caused by solar cycles or earth volcanism).

This obviously does nothing to invalidate the link between anthropogenic green house gas emissions and the current climate change, which is complete and established scientific consensus and only denied by idiots or criminals.

The one thing it can do is to illustrate the consequences, except that everything is going to be much worse than in the natural case: The temperature increases in the Roman and medieval warm period were actually in the same range as what has been already been caused by the current anthropogenic warm phase.

CB

maybe by this guy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_All%C3%A8gre

That is a major difference in cause. A major difference in effect is that both the Roman and Medieval warm periods were localized to the North Atlantic. The effect on global mean temperatures of the Medieval Warm Period is thought (via computer modelling) to have been roughly the same as mid-twentieth century warming, and nowhere near current or projected levels.

No time to look for the references, but IIRC the local change in mean temperatures in Europe during these two warm episodes was roughly what we are experiencing now (and if not already then certainly soon).

If this is (roughly) correct, these episodes can serve as a guide for what we can (again roughly) expect LOCALLY as a consequence of man made warming, even if true global warming also has consequences elsewhere that were not associated with the previous localized events.

So it is not unreasonable to expect near full loss of glaciers in the Alps below 3000m by the end of the century, major instability through rise of the permafrost line, etc.

CB

Certainly not, Sir! I have my professional ethics ...

The latest on glacier loss:

"The warming the world has already experienced could be enough to melt more than a third of the world’s glaciers outside Antarctica and Greenland – regardless of current efforts to reduce emissions.
That is the stark conclusion of a new study, which analyses the lag between global temperature rise and the retreat of glaciers."

https://www.carbonbrief.org/global-warming-to-date-could-obliterate-third-g...