Comments on: Backcountry Skiing News Roundup – Growing Glaciers, Avalanche Jams and Weasel Teeth

By: Lou

Lou — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:02:53 +0000

Good point Peter.

By: Randonnee

Randonnee — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 06:04:01 +0000

Quote from the glacier article:

“Although Mt. Shasta’s glaciers are growing, researchers say the 4.7 billion cubic feet of ice on its flanks could be gone by 2100.”

That kind of dogmatic propaganda is tragically hilarious. Unfortunately that stuff is throughout the enviro-agendas. To steal the phrase- “if you are not outraged (about enviro-propaganda) you are not paying attention!”

In regard to the furry, endangered critters, someone will conjure some proof of endangered Wolverines leading to Gov’t. actions to the detriment of humans and human-use…

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 03:03:50 +0000

Yes, warm air holds more moisture. The problem is that moisture in the air doesn’t help us–we need it to precipitate out of the air and fall to the ground. This is what happens with orographic precipitation: warm, moist air is forced up in elevation by mountains, the air cools, dewpoint falls, and we get rain or snow. If the air at high elevations will be warmer in the future, it won’t squeeze as much moisture out of the clouds. Seems like this one could go either way for us skiers.

People who study these things tell me that the current global circulation models are really bad at predicting future changes in precipitation at a regional scale. The one generalization that seems to be emerging is that areas north of 40-45 degrees latitude are likely to get wetter (Shasta is 40.6), while areas south of 35 are likely to get drier. Most of the skiing in Colorado and Utah falls into the uncertain zone in between.

I like to remind myself that year-to-year variability is huge, so we will still have great years well into the future, but they might not be as frequent.

By: Magnus

Magnus — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:44:18 +0000

I was procrastinating and suddenly felt inspired to comment here… One major theory as far as I know regarding sunspots, which is also a major opposing theory to the commonly excepted theory of human made global warming, is that sunspots are areas of intense magnetic resulting in solar flares which are related to solar radiation. This theory suggest that solar radiation assist in the formation of clouds through helping molecules to bind (very simply put), and thus increase the greenhouse effect which in turn increases the temperature on our dear planet. A period of cooling in the 17th century known as as The Little Ice Age correlates with a period of very little sunspot activity. But scientists still don’t know for sure the effects of solar radiation on our climate.

By: Lou

Lou — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:53:35 +0000

I support all animals, within reason.