* * *

Antarctic glaciers surging -  Masses of Antarctic ice have been moving twice as fast as usual, say researchers in a recent article in Science. Five of the six glacial tributaries that fed the Larsen Ice Shelf have entered "active surging phases." It is clear, they said, that the Boydell, Sjogren, Edgeworth, Bombardier and Drygalski glaciers are all surging. Mar 9, 2003. The Seattle Times.

* * *

Russian glaciers surging -  On September 20, 2002, a huge 22-million ton piece of the gigantic Maili Glacier broke loose and crashed down a steep gorge into the village of Kami killing more than 150 people and injuring hundreds more.

The 500-foot wall of ice had been growing for six years. The Maili Glacier is just one of several glaciers in the North Caucasus Mountains that have been EXPANDING at an alarming rate. Other towns in the region have been partially buried by these advancing walls of ice. One local scientist in southern Russia said, "we may be seeing the beginning of a new great ice age!!!" (Thanks to climatologist Cliff Harris and meteorologist Randy Mann for this info.)

* * *

Antarctic growing colder. Although the Antarctic Peninsula-a thin sliver of land that juts above the Antarctic Circle-has been warming, temperatures in the vast empty spaces of East Antarctica have been falling for decades. (Time, "Cracking the Ice, 3 Feb 2003)
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030203-411420.00.html

"...it is hard to gauge what these dramatic developments portend, for despite scientists' best efforts, Antarctica — the highest, dryest, coldest continent on the planet — remains a climatological cipher. For example, while it is clear that the Antarctic Peninsula — a thin sliver of land that juts above the Antarctic Circle — has been rapidly warming, the vast empty spaces of East Antarctica, repository of the greatest ice sheet on earth, appear to be doing the opposite. "Here we have a continent that is so important to our future," says earth scientist Peter Doran of the University of Illinois at Chicago, "and we can't even agree on what's been going on there for the past few decades."

In fact, the most basic questions — Is Antarctica as a whole warming or cooling? Is its ice cover thinning or growing?--cannot yet be answered definitively. For one thing, the continent is too big and measurement points are too few and far between. Also, scientists lack the long-term records needed to put the present in perspective."

* * *

Greenland growing colder. Studies of historical meteorological data show that temperatures in this northern polar region have been falling. Over the last 40 or 50 years there has been  "statistically significant cooling, particularly in south-western coastal Greenland. Sea-surface temperatures in the Labrador Sea also fell. The studies were made by Dr. Edward Hanna, from the University of Plymouth, UK, and Dr. John Cappelen, of the Danish Meteorological Institute, and presented in the Journal of Geophysical Review Letters. BBC News. 11 March 2003. http://news.bbc.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2840137.stm

* * *

Russia abandons Ice Station Vostok. Mar 4, 2003. For the first time ever, Russia is forced to abandon its base at Vostok. Due to heavier than usual pack ice, supply ships have been unable to reach their usual docking berths, leaving them unable to deliver fuel and supplies. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2818025.stm

Alaska's Hubbard Glacier surging. Yakutat, Alaska. July 15, 2002. Bulldozing a gravel moraine in front of it, the Hubbard Glacier is advancing so rapidly that has nearly cut off Russell Fiord from Disenchantment Bay. The resulting ice and gravel dam is cutting off the supply of salt water, turning Russell Fiord into Russell Lake, endangering the small fishing village of Yakutat.  

Russell "Lake" is now rising at the rate of six inches a day as freshwater from snowmelt and rainfall continues pouring in. Once the lake level rises to about 130 feet, it will begin spilling over into the nearby Situk River basin, flooding the usually tranquil stream. This would all but destroy the world-class salmon and steelhead fishing in the area, and devastate Yakutat's economy. 

The Hubbard Glacier, 73 miles long and 6 miles wide at the face, is the largest tidewater glacier in North America. 

See http://www.usgs.gov/public/press/public_affairs/press_releases/pr1597m.html

For real time water level readings at Russell Lake, see
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ak/nwis/uv?site_no=15130000&agency_cd=USGS

___________________

Ice dam collapses, creating second largest glacial flood in historic times. http://www.usgs.gov/public/press/public_affairs/press_releases/pr1638m.html

___________________

Melting glacier 'false alarm.' Aug 22, 2002. News Telegraph. Pictures claiming to show how man-made global warming has caused Arctic glaciers to retreat are at best misleading, says leading glaciologist.

 The pictures, which compared the size of a glacier on Svalbard in 1918 with its size in 2002, included the warning that global warming caused by man-made greenhouse gases was causing Arctic glaciers to melt.

Those assertions are misleading at best, says Professor Ole Humlum, a leading Norwegian glaciologist. "That glacier had already disappeared in the early 1920s," says Humlum. "[It disappeared] as a result of a perfectly natural rise in temperature that had nothing to do with man-made global warming." See http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/08/17/wglac17.xml

* * * * *

Extreme cold over South Pole reveals global warming models are wrong. Auckland (AFP) Sep 10, 2002. A discovery that it is much colder over the South Pole than believed has exposed a major flaw in the computer models used to predict global warming. 

Scientists based at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station have found that it is 36 to 54 degrees Fahrenheit (20 to 30 degrees C) colder than computer models showed.

The findings, by Chester Gardner, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois, Weilin Pan, a doctoral student at Illinois, and Ray Roble of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, published their findings in the American Geophysical Union Letters. See spacedaily.com/news/020910020829.wq287cho.html 
Thanks to Cory VanPelt for this link
.
.
Alaska Glacier Surges -17 Mar 06 
See McGinnis Glacier