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Author Topic:   glaciers and the flood
Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 16 of 96 (60032)
10-08-2003 12:01 AM


After some exhaustive Googling, partly in Danish, I have found that the average annual snowfall along the SE coast of Greenland ranges from about 150 cm (as water - much more as depth of snow) to 247 cm. Compare 25 cm at Summit, where the GRIP and GISP2 cores were drilled. That's 6 to 10 times as much.

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sidelined
Member (Idle past 5907 days)
Posts: 3435
From: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Joined: 08-30-2003


Message 17 of 96 (60034)
10-08-2003 12:33 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by Coragyps
10-08-2003 12:01 AM


Ok so let us crunch the numbers shall we?
Let us take the lower limit of the Greenland at 150 cm/year
Multiply by 45 years to get 6750 cm Divide by 2.54 to arrive at inches. 2657 inches divided by 12 equals 221 feet of rainfall. I can be persuaded for the moment to assume that when frozen this could become 75 feet. (we must for sake of argue ment understand that this is imprecise since snowfall contain 10 times as much water)
Anyway we shall go to http://polarmet.mps.ohio-state.edu/...tracts/abs.CBV.97.html for this data on Antarctica.
For the eleven year period 1985-95, the average continental value is 151 mm yr-1 water-equivalent.
151 mm into 3 miles or 4.8 km
4.8 km = 4,800,000 mm
divded by 151 mm = 31788 years
This is all very imprecise but as an example it gives us a firm foundation on which to get ahold of better data and see where the numbers take us.
{Fixed link - AM}
[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 10-08-2003]
[This message has been edited by sidelined, 10-08-2003]

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 Message 16 by Coragyps, posted 10-08-2003 12:01 AM Coragyps has not replied

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Bill Birkeland
Member (Idle past 2531 days)
Posts: 165
From: Louisiana
Joined: 01-30-2003


Message 18 of 96 (60088)
10-08-2003 10:51 AM
Reply to: Message 17 by sidelined
10-08-2003 12:33 AM


sidelined wrote
>Ok so let us crunch the numbers shall we?
...text deleted...
>Anyway we shall go to
>http://polarmet.mps.ohio-state.edu/...tracts/abs.CBV.97.html
>for this data on Antarctica.
>
>For the eleven year period 1985-95, the average
>continental value is 151 mm yr-1 water-equivalent.
>
>151 mm into 3 miles or 4.8 km
>
>4.8 km = 4,800,000 mm
>divded by 151 mm = 31788 years
As the snow is buried, it goes from snow to firn
to ice. In this process, the volume of the initial
snow layer is decreased. Also, with depth, there
is some thinning of the ice due to stretching from
spreading of the ice sheet. As a result, any layers
become thinner with depth. Thus, a simple linear
extrapolation will greatly underestimate the time
it took the ice took to accumulate. To get an accurate
estimate, the changes in volume of the snow /ice
as it is buried and thinning due to stretching
need to taken into account.
Other web pages on the Lost Squadron:
Ice Core Dating by Matt Brinkman
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icecores.html
Feedback for July 2003
TalkOrigins Archive - Feedback for July 2003
Claim CD410:
CD410: Airplanes Buried in Ice
Rescue of the Lost Squadron
HTTP 429
Yours,
Bill Birkeland
[This message has been edited by Bill Birkeland, 10-08-2003]

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Bill Birkeland
Member (Idle past 2531 days)
Posts: 165
From: Louisiana
Joined: 01-30-2003


Message 19 of 96 (60098)
10-08-2003 11:34 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by Coragyps
10-08-2003 12:01 AM


Snow Accumulation Data for Greenland and Antarctica
Coragyps wrote
"After some exhaustive Googling, partly
in Danish, I have found that the average
annual snowfall along the SE coast of
Greenland ranges from about 150 cm (as
water - much more as depth of snow) to
247 cm. Compare 25 cm at Summit, where
the GRIP and GISP2 cores were drilled.
That's 6 to 10 times as much."
Information, including maps, about the variation of snow accumulation across all of Greenland can be found at the below web pages.
1. Bales et al. (2001a) snow accumulation map for Greenland
http://www-bprc.mps.ohio-state.edu/...racts/BALESGRLFIG5.jpg
2. Bales et al. (2001b) snow accumulation map for Greenland
http://www-bprc.mps.ohio-state.edu/...bstracts/BALESFIG3.jpg
3. Bales, R. C., McConnell, J. R., Mosley-
Thompson, E., and Csatho, B., 2001a, Accumulation
over the Greenland ice sheet from historical
and recent records. Journal of Geophysical
Research (Atmospheres). vol. 106(D24), no.33,
pp.813-33,825.
http://www-bprc.mps.ohio-state.edu/...tracts/bales-jgr-1.pdf
4. Bales, R. C., McConnell, J. R., Mosley-
Thompson, E., and Lamorey, G., 2001b. Accumulation
map for the Greenland ice sheet 1971-1990.
Geophysical Research Letters, 28(15), 2967-2970
http://www-bprc.mps.ohio-state.edu/...s/Bales2001GRL-Aug.pdf
5. PDF files of publications on Green land climatology
http://www-bprc.mps.ohio-state.edu/...stracts/Abstracts.html
6. Snow Accumulation at GISP2 Summit, Greenland
Page not found - The University of Maine
7. NASA Greenland Figures
Page not found | Department of Hydrology & Atmospheric Sciences
++++++ Antarctica Climatic Data and information +++
Information about the net snow accumulation and other climatic data for Antarctica can be found in the below web pages:
1. The mass balance of Antarctica
http://www.nbs.ac.uk/public/icd/ant.mass.bal.html
"The surface mass balance is generally agreed to be about 150 mm/y (plus or minus up to 20%, though the degree of accuracy is, of course, unknown too; also, the value is not constant in time) (averaged over Antarctica, but with very wide variations from more than 1000 mm/year to less that 50 mm/year in the interior to some smaller areas with average net loss).
2. [WMC's] Climate information for Antarctica
Climate information for Antarctica
and
Climate Data for Antarctica
Examples of Snow Accumulation Datasets for Antarctica:
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/climate/wmc/dgv-surfbal.gif
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/...climate/wmc/cg-global-acc.gif
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/climate/wmc/gio-dgv.gif
3. Antarctica Weather
Page not found - British Antarctic Survey
Page not found - British Antarctic Survey
Page not found - British Antarctic Survey
Yours,
Bill Birkeland

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sidelined
Member (Idle past 5907 days)
Posts: 3435
From: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Joined: 08-30-2003


Message 20 of 96 (60103)
10-08-2003 11:48 AM
Reply to: Message 19 by Bill Birkeland
10-08-2003 11:34 AM


Re: Snow Accumulation Data for Greenland and Antarctica
I do hope I wasn't angering you with the crudity of my "number crunching."It was not meant to be in any way accurate but,rather,to illustrate that there is a vast difference in the accumulation rates of ice between Antarctica and Greenland.

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Bill Birkeland
Member (Idle past 2531 days)
Posts: 165
From: Louisiana
Joined: 01-30-2003


Message 21 of 96 (60188)
10-08-2003 8:34 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by sidelined
10-08-2003 11:48 AM


Re: Snow Accumulation Data for Greenland and Antarctica
sidelined wrote:
"I do hope I wasn't angering you with
the crudity of my "number crunching."
No problem.
Your number crunching was neither "angering" nor "crude." I noticed that people were discussing the accumulation rates of snow in Antarctica and Greenland and thought that I might give a head's up to people where they can find such data. I had found the URLs related to this subject, while doing something else, and just thought I might pass them on so people would have some real data with which to do number crunching and just have fun discussing.
For example, it is a fun amd instructive exercise to print out the map showing the accumulation rates of snow in Greenland and plot the approximate location of where ices cores have been taken and the location where the Lost Squadron was found. If someone has the time, maybe they can create and post a figure of this exercise.
Yours,
Bill Birkeland
[This message has been edited by Bill Birkeland, 10-08-2003]

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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 22 of 96 (60191)
10-08-2003 9:21 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by Bill Birkeland
10-08-2003 8:34 PM


Re: Snow Accumulation Data for Greenland and Antarctica
The best I can guess from what I've found, the Lost Squadron was near Dannebrog Island, which is at 39.6 deg west / 65.3 north. That's in the heaviest contour of snowfall on the maps you provided. The GISP2 site says they get 0.25 meter of precip per year.

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sidelined
Member (Idle past 5907 days)
Posts: 3435
From: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Joined: 08-30-2003


Message 23 of 96 (61277)
10-16-2003 9:35 PM


Time to bump this tpoic back into view and see if we can get more input into the issues raised by it.

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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 24 of 96 (61285)
10-16-2003 10:43 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by sidelined
10-16-2003 9:35 PM


UH, what are the issues? Are these them:
1) What is the flood model for glaciation?
2) Snow depth over some aircraft?
If so:
1) I don't know where this is.
2) Done with, gone as an issue.

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zeal4him
Inactive Member


Message 25 of 96 (61493)
10-18-2003 11:55 AM


I was fortunate to have heard a lecture on this very topic a few weeks ago.
It's easy to postulate that precipitation in one area has been the same throughout time, equal to what it is today. However, doesn't the existence on one or more ice ages negate that possibility?
We presently don't have the conditions to create an ice age of the proportions evidenced by geological evidence of giant boulders, and scratching of even some of the hardest rocks.
Large grooves were seen in one volcano trunk. Only one of these grooves was broken by a successive freezing of water inside. If any ice age was very long ago, the rest of those grooves would've been broken.
Isn't assuming there was only one freezing and melting per year in a glaciation area reaching a bit? A storm followed by a melt would produce one layer. Ice has been seen melting in Antartica at 14F.
We can debate the precipitation in Greenland vs. other areas, but the fact remains that there was 75m of ice deposited in 46 years in Greenland. That's 5.35 ft/year.
In an ice age, wouldn't you think you could build up alot more ice?
A global flood, combined with extreme volcanism (blocking out the sun’s rays) and mass evaporation after the flood, could have resulted in an ice age lasting about 700 years. Ocean volcanism would've resulted in warmer oceans, increasing precipitation.
David

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Bill Birkeland
Member (Idle past 2531 days)
Posts: 165
From: Louisiana
Joined: 01-30-2003


Message 26 of 96 (61495)
10-18-2003 12:46 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by NosyNed
10-16-2003 10:43 PM


NosyNED wrote
"UH, what are the issues? Are these them:
1) What is the flood model for glaciation?
2) Snow depth over some aircraft?
If so:
1) I don't know where this is.
2) Done with, gone as an issue."
In case of item 1, the flood model for glaciation, Young Earth creationists have an extreme problem in that their model postulates a single glacial episode. However, geologists, who have studied glacial deposits in detail, have found an abundance of evidence that demonstrates there have been multiple glaciations, 10 to 12. This evidence is summarized by books such as Sibrava et al. (1986). The glacial sediments directly deposited by glaciers and ice sheets are called glacial tills or, for short, "till". These glacial episodes were each separated by periods of time long enough for the deep weathering of the previous glacial tills; formation of well-developed soils, called "paleosols" when buried, in the tills; and the erosion of valleys in the glacial tills.
For example, In Iowa, a person can find the following sequence of glacial - interglacial deposits as summarized in Chart 1 of Sibrava et al. (1986). (NOTE: Loess is a wind-blown sediments created during glacial episodes. During nonglacial times, loess deposition ceased and a soil formed in it as the result of weathering.)
1. Alden Member, Dowes formation (glacial till)
2. "Wisconsin" loess
3. basal loess paleosol
4. "basal Wisconsin" loess
5. nonglacial sediments
6. "Yarmouth-Sangamon" paleosol
7. Hickory Till Member, Wolf Creek Formation
8. Dysart Paleosol
9. Aurora Till Member, Wolf Creek Formation
10. Franklin Paleosol
11. Winthrop Till Member, Wolf Creek Formation
12. Westburg Paleosol and Bishop volcanic ash bed
13. Alburnett Formation (multiple unnamed glacial tills)
This is a sequence of glacial sediments, either loess or (glacial) till separated by either nonglacial deposits of river or streams deposits or a lengthy period of the nondeposition of glacial during which a soil was developed in the glacial tills of the previous glaciation. The character of the soils developed in the glacial tills and the fossil plants and animals that are found in the sediments associated with them indicate that the climate was much warmer than when the ice sheets deposited tills over Iowa.
In Nebraska, the glacial tills of the Alburnett Formation, as found above in Iowa, overlies even older glacial tills. As summarized by Sibrava et al. (1986), the following sequence is found.
1. Peoria Loess
2. Gilman Canyon Paleosol
3. Gilman Canyon Formation (loess and paleosols)
4. "Sangamon" paleosol complex
5. Loveland loess (subdivided by two paleosols)
6. "Yarmouth" paleosol with "Pearlette O" volcanic ash
7. Aurora Till Member, Wolf Creek Formation
8. Franklin Paleosol
9. Winthrop Till Member, Wolf Creek Formation
10. Westburg Paleosol and Bishop volcanic ash bed
11. Alburnett Formation (multiple unnamed glacial tills)
12. unnamed paleosol
13. "B" tills
14. unnamed paleosol
15. eolian and fluvial deposits with numerous paleosols
and "Pearlette S and B" volcanic ashes.
16. paleosol
17. Elk Creek tills / "C" tills.
In Illinois, a person finds this sequence
1. Peoria Loess
2. Wedron Formation - numerous glacial tills
3. Farmdale paleosol
4. Winnebago Formation - numerous glacial tills
5. Sangamon Soil
6. Rador and Hulick Till Members of the Glasford Formation
7. Pike Paleosol
8. Kellerville Till Member of the Glasford Formation
9. Yarmouth Paleosol
10. Upper Banner Formation - multiple glacial tills
11. unnamed paleosol
12. Lower Banner formation - multiple glacial tills
13. West Lebanon Till
As illustrated above, the various glacial tills are separated by well-developed "fossil" / buried soils, called "paleosols" when buried. The repetition of tills separated by paleosols clearly demonstrate that was not one glaciation, but multiple alternating periods of the formation of extensive ice sheets followed by either the extensive shrinkage or complete disappearance of these ice sheets from North America, Europe, and elsewhere. During extended period of glaciation during cold glacial climates the glacial tills and wind-blown silt called, loess, accumulated. During the interglacial periods, the accumulation of glacial tills and loesses ceased when the ice sheets melted away and these glacial deposits were weathered to create well-defined soils, called "paleosols", after being buried by younger glacial deposits. Tills were also eroded to form valleys in which alluvial sediment accumulated. Both were then buried by glacial tills deposited by ice sheets of the next glaciation. The laterally consistent alternation of paleosols and nonglacial deposits with glacial tills in the United States and elsewhere in the world clearly refute idea that the Ice Age was a single, short episode of glaciation.
Also, the degree of weathering and soil (paleosol) formation that occurred between the deposition of individual sets of glacial till demonstrates that the period of time between the deposition of individual glacial tills was on the order of a 1,000 to 10,000 years depending on the specific soil. In their glacial model, Young Earth creationists ignore this and many other types of evidence that has been documented in innumerable published papers.
Some papers that can be downloaded from on-line can be found at:
Page not found - IIHRHydroscience & Engineering
Hallberg, G. R., ed., 1980a, Pleistocene
stratigraphy in east-central Iowa. Technical
Information Series. no. 10. Iowa Geological
Survey Bureau, Ames, IA.
Page not found - IIHRHydroscience & Engineering
Hallberg, G. R., ed., 1980b, Illinoian and
Pre-Illinoian stratigraphy of southeast Iowa
and adjacent Illinois. Technical information
Series. no. 11. Iowa Geological Survey Bureau,
Ames, IA.
Page not found - IIHRHydroscience & Engineering
Hallberg, G. R., T. E. Fenton, T. J.
Kemmis, and G. A. Miller, 1980, Yarmouth
Revisited: Midwest Friends of the Pleistocene
27th Field Conference. Guidebook no. 3.
Iowa Geological Survey Bureau, Ames, IA.
Page not found - IIHRHydroscience & Engineering
Kemmis, T. J., E. A. Bettis III, and G. R.
Hallberg, 1992, Quaternary geology of Conklin
Quarry. . Guidebook no. 13. Iowa Geological
Survey Bureau, Ames, IA.
Page not found - IIHRHydroscience & Engineering
References Cited:
Sibrava, V., D. Q. Bowen, and G. M. Richmond. (1986)
Quaternary Glaciations in the Northern Hemisphere.
Quaternary Science Reviews. vol. 5, Pergamnon Press,
New York. 510 pp.
There are just a few of seemingly innumerable papers that document the evidence for multiple, lenghty Ice Ages.
NOTE: Most of this article was compiled from some USENET posts and was verified for accuracy.
Yours,
Bill Birkeland
Texas

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JonF
Member (Idle past 167 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 27 of 96 (61510)
10-18-2003 3:44 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by zeal4him
10-18-2003 11:55 AM


We can debate the precipitation in Greenland vs. other areas, but the fact remains that there was 75m of ice deposited in 46 years in Greenland. That's 5.35 ft/year.
Actually, we should discuss the precipitation in Greenland in the areas where the ice cores are collected, as others in this thread have ... you're the one who's trying to bring in an extraneous and irrelevant number (the 5.35 feet/year is at a location nowhere near where the ice cores are collected, so it's up to you to show why it's relevant).
What evidence do you have that the precipitation at the ice core locations has ever been significantly different?
Your view of weather effects is incredibly and overly simplistic.

This message is a reply to:
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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 28 of 96 (61521)
10-18-2003 5:12 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by zeal4him
10-18-2003 11:55 AM


We can debate the precipitation in Greenland vs. other areas, but the fact remains that there was 75m of ice deposited in 46 years in Greenland. That's 5.35 ft/year.
And my post 16 above documents as much as 2.5 meters of precipitation per year there on the eastern coast, and only .25 meter average near Summit, where the cores were taken.
Isn't assuming there was only one freezing and melting per year in a glaciation area reaching a bit? A storm followed by a melt would produce one layer. Ice has been seen melting in Antartica at 14F.
Apparently it's not reaching much at all - the volcanic ash layer from the Vesuvius eruption that destroyed Pompeii in 79 AD was at the proper number of layers down to better than 0.5%.

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Bill Birkeland
Member (Idle past 2531 days)
Posts: 165
From: Louisiana
Joined: 01-30-2003


Message 29 of 96 (61562)
10-19-2003 1:35 AM
Reply to: Message 25 by zeal4him
10-18-2003 11:55 AM


In Message 25 of 28 on
10-18-2003 10:55 AM, David wrote:
"I was fortunate to have heard a lecture
on this very topic a few weeks ago."
Whether you were "fortunate" depends on whether the speaker knew anything about was he was talking about. There are a number of Young Earth creationists speakers out there, i.e. Kent Hovind, Carl Baugh, Don Patton, to name a couple, who are functionally illiterate in understanding what they are talking about. They sound authoritative, but instead know nothing about what they are talking.
For example, go read:
1. Analysis of Kent Hovind
http://www.geocities.com/kenthovind/
2. Kent Hovind FAQs Examining "Dr. Dino"
Kent Hovind FAQs: Examining "Dr. Dino"
3. What About Carl Baugh?
A Commentary by Answers in Genesis
http://members.aol.com/paluxy2/whatbau.htm
4. The Carl Baugh Page
Account Suspended
Not all speakers know what they are talking about.
David then asked:
"It's easy to postulate that precipitation
in one area has been the same throughout
time, equal to what it is today. However,
doesn't the existence on one or more ice
ages negate that possibility?"
It is true that there will be some variation in accumulation rates through time. However, the variations in accumulation can be determined by the various ways of independently dating ice cores. For example, volcanic ash particles from volcanic eruptions known to have occurred in AD 1783 and AD 79 have been found ice cores in central Greenland. These volcanic ashes and other markers provide datum by which variations in accumulation rates over time can be detected and such assumptions either validated or corrected. As previously noted in another post this is discussed in "The Two-Mile Time Machine" by R. B. Alley.
Also, read "Ice Core Dating by Matt Brinkman" at:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icecores.html
David then stated:
"We presently don't have the conditions to
create an ice age of the proportions
evidenced by geological evidence of giant
boulders, and scratching of even some of
the hardest rocks."
That is why we are in an relatively "ice-free" interglacial stage instead of being in an full glacial epoch. If current conditions were the same as they were during the last glacial stage, the world be cold as heck and there would be continental ice sheets. This argument invokes an unrealistic hyper-uniformitarism, which infers that past environments must have observable modern analogues. However, the overall middle to late Tertiary global climatic cooling, orbital parameters, possibly even cycles in concentrations of interstellar dust, and other factors are present, which would have created another ice age had man-made factors not induced an artificial global warming.
David then stated:
"Large grooves were seen in one volcano
trunk. Only one of these grooves was
broken by a successive freezing of water
inside. If any ice age was very long ago,
the rest of those grooves would've been
broken."
Where is the evidence that these glacial grooves were created by continental glaciation associated with the last glacial stage? Many mountains have alpine (mountain) glaciers that persisted after the end of the last glacial stage. In fact some of these alpine glaciers advanced significance distances downslope at times well after the last glacial stage and even in historic times. These grooves being discussed could very well be of recent origin. In fact, they might have under ice since the beginning of the last glacial stage and now being exposed by rapid melting due to global warming.
Some web pages:
1. Reyes, A., and Smith, D. J., 2001, Tree-ring dates
for Neoglacial Lake Alsek, Yukon Territory, Canada.
Canadian Quaternary Association/ Association
canadienne pour l'etude du Quaternaire, Annual
Meeting 2001. Whitehorse, Yukon Territory,
August 20 - 24, 2001. at:
http://cgrg.geog.uvic.ca/abstracts/ReyesTree-ringLake.html
"Lake Alsek in southwestern Yukon Territory
formed several times during the
Neoglacial when Lowell Glacier advanced
across the Alsek Valley and blocked
southerly drainage of the Alsek River....
The last major lake phase ended sometime
between 1857 and 1891 and was preceded
by a ponding event that ended between
1788 and 1832. An earlier, more extensive
lake phase ended sometime after 1611.
These results suggest that Lowell Glacier
reached its maximum Little Ice Age position
at least 200 years earlier than several
other large valley glaciers in the
northeastern St. Elias Mountains."
The last major advance of this glacier was in 1857 and 1891 with another period of advance between 1788 and 1832.
2. REYES, Alberto V. nad others, 2003, TREE-RING
DATING OF LITTLE ICE AGE GLACIER ADVANCES
AND ASSOCIATED ICE-DAMMED LAKES IN KLUANE
NATIONAL PARK AND RESERVE, YUKON TERRITORY, CANADA.
Session No. 52, Glaciers, Glacial Geology, and
Glacial Ecosystems in the National Parks
2003 Geological Society of America (Seattle)
Annual Meeting (November 2-5, 2003) at:
http://gsa.confex.com/...3AM/finalprogram/abstract_67695.htm
"The ages of seven such stems, which we
dated by comparing their ring-width patterns
to a ~900 year tree-ring chronology from
nearby south Kluane Lake, suggest that
Kaskawulsh Glacier was at its most extensive
Holocene position in the early-mid 18th
century."
3. A Service of The Greening Earth Society
Little Ice Age a Global Event by Diane Douglas
Dalziel, Office of Climatology, Arizona State
University at:
http://www.greeningearthsociety.org/...cles/2001/hockey1.htm
David also stated:
"Isn't assuming there was only one
freezing and melting per year in a
glaciation area reaching a bit? A
storm followed by a melt would produce
one layer. Ice has been seen melting
in Antartica at 14F."
Given what is known about the climate of where the ice cores were taken, it is not reaching it a bit. Contrary to what the lecturer was apparently stating, I seriously doubt there is going to be a spring thaw in the middle of winter in the middle of northern Greenland. In the part of Greenland in which the ice cores came, they don't have "storms" in the sense that the lecturer apparently was talking about. All this lecturer was demonstrating was a lack of knowledge about the climatology of Greenland.
As far as ice melting at 14F, that temperature is -10C, which is a balmy July day for Greenland. What is unusual about ice melting in the summer?
An informal article about Greenland in the summer is "Unraveling Climate's Mysteries atop an Arctic Summit A visit to Greenland, where scientists at a polar lab focus on the ozone hole above and the ice below" at:
Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
Also, the layering in ice coring are defined by much more than simply a melting and freezing.
Then David commented:
"We can debate the precipitation in
Greenland vs. other areas, but the
fact remains that there was 75m of
ice deposited in 46 years in Greenland.
That's 5.35 ft/year."
We are not debating the precipitation of Greenland versus precipitation in other areas, i.e. Antarctica. We are primarily discussing the variation of precipitation **within** Greenland. It has been well documented that precipitation rates vary drastically **within** Greenland from over 5.4 ft/year (1.64 meters/year) along the southeast coast where the Lost Squadron crashed to less than 0.8 ft/year (0.25 m/year) at the GISP2 ice core site. The rate of accumulation at the Lost Squadron location is 625 percent that of the rate of accumulation at GISP2 ice core site. Given this difference, a person can't compare the depth of burial of the Lost Squadron with the accumulation of ice at the GISP2 site. It is like trying estimate how long it would take rainfall to fill up a newly dug pond in Lubbock, Texas using the rainfall rates for New Orleans, Louisiana
Anyway, these variations are discussed and illustrated in:
1. Bales et al. (2001a) snow accumulation map for Greenland
http://www-bprc.mps.ohio-state.edu/...racts/BALESGRLFIG5.jpg
2. Bales et al. (2001b) snow accumulation map for Greenland
http://www-bprc.mps.ohio-state.edu/...bstracts/BALESFIG3.jpg
3. Bales, R. C., McConnell, J. R., Mosley-
Thompson, E., and Csatho, B., 2001a, Accumulation
over the Greenland ice sheet from historical
and recent records. Journal of Geophysical
Research (Atmospheres). vol. 106(D24), no.33,
pp.813-33,825.
http://www-bprc.mps.ohio-state.edu/...tracts/bales-jgr-1.pdf
4. Bales, R. C., McConnell, J. R., Mosley-
Thompson, E., and Lamorey, G., 2001b. Accumulation
map for the Greenland ice sheet 1971-1990.
Geophysical Research Letters, 28(15), 2967-2970
http://www-bprc.mps.ohio-state.edu/...s/Bales2001GRL-Aug.pdf
5. PDF files of publications on Green land climatology
http://www-bprc.mps.ohio-state.edu/...stracts/Abstracts.html
6. Snow Accumulation at GISP2 Summit, Greenland
Page not found - The University of Maine
David commented:
"In an ice age, wouldn't you think
you could build up alot more ice?"
Yes, but doubling the rate from 0.25 meter/year to 0.50 meter/year wouldn't even begin to match the rate of accumulation at the Lost Squadron location. Climatic change doesn't operate in a nice linear fashion. Just because an ice age occurs doesn't mean that that there would be any large increase in accumulation rates. In fact, it is possible that in some parts of Greenland that glacial accumulation rates would be less than modern accumulation rates. Given the complex manner in how oceanic and atmospheric circulation patterns and associated precipitation patterns would differ from modern circulation and precipitation patterns, a person can't predict whether the glacial precipitation would either less or more than modern precipitation and by how much at any specific point by using only intution. A person would have to carefully model these changes using as much paleoenvironmental data they can get collect to answer this question for a specific location such as the GISP2 location.
Finally, David commented:"
A global flood, combined with extreme
volcanism (blocking out the sun's rays)
and mass evaporation after the flood,
could have resulted in an ice age lasting
about 700 years. Ocean volcanism would've
resulted in warmer oceans, increasing
precipitation."
The problem here is that there is neither the evidence of a global flood nor extreme volcanism having occurred just before the ice age. Enough deep sea cores have been collected from all around the world by the Deep Sea Drilling and Ocean Drilling projects to disprove the notion that anything above normal volcanism occurred during the last or any other glacial epoch. Finally, using foraminifer assemblages and oxygen isotope analysis of those foraminifer from deep sea cores, it is well known that during the glacial stages, sea weren't warmer as proposed above. In fact, they were either cooler or somewhat cooler during the glacial stages than they are now.
For example:
CLIMAP Last Glacial Maximum August Sea Surface Temperatures at:
views: CLIMAP LGM aug sst
data: CLIMAP LGM aug sst
CLIMAP Modern August Sea Surface Temperatures at:
views: CLIMAP MOD aug sst
data: CLIMAP MOD aug sst
Some examples are:
1. Pflaumann, U., et al., 2000, Glacial North
Atlantic: Sea-surface conditions reconstructed
by GLAMAP. Paleoceanography. vol. 18, no. 3,
pp. 1065-1072. at:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2002PA000774.shtml
2. Sachs, J. P., Anderson, B. F., Lehman, S. J.,
2001, Glacial surface temperatures of the
southeast Atlantic Ocean. Science. vol. 293,
pp. 2077-2079.
Page Not Found | MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
3. Trend-Staid, M., and Prell, W. L., 2002,
Sea surface temperature at the Last Glacial
Maximum: A reconstruction using the modern
analog technique, Paleoceanography. vol. 17,
no. 4, pp. 1065-1069.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2002/2000PA000506.shtml
"One of the most important results is the
2-6C mean annual cooling in the central
to eastern tropical Atlantic and up 8C
cooling in the eastern tropical Pacific."
Finally, almost any of the paleosols lying between sets of glacial tills, which I mentioned in my previous post, certainly took longer than 700 years to form. They alone certainly demonstrate that the Pleistocene Ice Ages, even the last glacial stage, lasted more than 700 years.
Yours,
Bill Birkeland
Texas.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by zeal4him, posted 10-18-2003 11:55 AM zeal4him has not replied

  
Lizard Breath
Member (Idle past 6695 days)
Posts: 376
Joined: 10-19-2003


Message 30 of 96 (61682)
10-19-2003 10:01 PM


Question
This is a very interesting topic to me and of course I am new to this forum. I have a question concerning the constant reocurrance of mass glacier movement across North America. The most notable formations left by the glacier movement are the Great Lakes. An average glacier leading edge termination latitude of N41 Degrees would leave ample room for the creation of all the Great Lakes seems reasonable to deduce from the scope of the ice sheet movement. Since their creation would be a culmination of the efforts of several of the 10 to 12 major ice sheet movements that have occured over the last 50 million years, wouldn't the area that the ice sheets consistantly moved over show more dramatic damage.
For instance, if you pour water across clay ground and let it settle, groves will form where the water's path was. If you pour more water in the same area, it will follow the preceding water's path while enlarging it. Do this a dozen times and you have very pronounced travel routes in the surface. I've witnessed this on the summit of Mt. Rainer, especially on the south east side where the Nisqually Glacier resides. The glacier cuts the same path as it expands and contracts as it moves down the mountain. If 12 major glacier movements have traversed North America over the last 50 million years or more, wouldn't the effects be more pronounced or do ice sheets tend to buck physics and take the path of most resistance as they advance. From what I have read from the URL's posted, the large snow accumulations build in the north and as they compress over time it's weight pushes the leading edge of the glacier forward.
Another item I've seen in Southern Canada and the Plains States is an abundance of fertile top soil that's exploited by farmers. I might not be incorporating all of the dynamics of glacier flows, but from what I've read in these posts and their associated URL's, 10 to 12 glacier episodes along with countless minor flux's should have transported the top soil into the oceans or at least left most everything North of 41 degrees unsuable for agriculture and created "super deposits" of top soil threads in the central and southern latitudes of the United states. The most fertile top soil area in the United States other than the San Juaquin Valley is the area south of the Great Lakes running from as far east as Buffalo NY to central Iowa. Even then, the depth of the top soil is not indicative of mass deposits altough the location of the most fertile area does coincide with the average leading edge termination point of the glacier sheets.
Finally, it was quoted earlier in this thread that the temperatures at the glacier advance would be extremely cold, so I wonder why migratory birds still adhere to their regiment of utilizing these northern latitudes as habitat for feeding and breeding in the summer months. After several of these long ice ages, and the insueing interuption in the avalibility of northern habitat, shouldn't evolution, natural selection and the conservation of energy as exhibited by most wild animals (most of their efforts are spent on the aquiring of food for survival) that the tendency to migrate would be bred out. All birds found in the world should be stationary breeds that would be highly tuned and selected to capitalize on an equaterian enviroment and the need for abilities such as prolonged flight and superb navagation skills would be bred out of the genome as waste information, especially after multiple prolonged interuptions over 50 generations or more for each ice age episode. If you say that Macro Evolution can account for this by rapid adaptation, and the genome can mutate positivly over several generations to capitalize on the newly available habitat, then why do we see extinctions of species instead of rapid species mutation to capitalize on the changing enviroment we witness today?
I'm not discounting any of the claims for long ice ages or the percieved number of major glacial movements, the information seems competent but these few quesions I hope will be addressed without the usual "call him an idiot" first response that seems standard protocol for any in this forum that investigate Creationism with an open mind.

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by Rei, posted 10-20-2003 1:29 AM Lizard Breath has not replied
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