Not too much of a changeas far as I can see, if anything it looks a bit bigger in 04. Global warming? I think it's a waste of taxpayers 2.1 million bucks.

The snow covered area looks the same in size but the much of the main body of the glacier has melted away; that is the significant difference, due to global warming.

Glacier melting feeds streams and rivers -where will the water come from in the summer once all the ice is gone?

Our water comes from snow packs that build every year. The contribution from ice is minimal. The ice does go good with Bacardi though.
Funny the city is always building paths for bikes, but now that the weather is getting warm enough to use them, everyone is upset.
Some people are just never happy.

Of course earth is warming....otherwise the ice age never would have ended, and we would not exist.
The earth has shown signs of naturally cooling, then warming, then coolong again, and repeating this cycle for its whole life.
So why suddenly because the earth is warming slightly is of concern is beyond me.
The Antarctic is actually cooling as well.
If any so called scientist ever studied back in history beyond fairly recent times( say last few hundred years) they would know this warming is natural.
Then again I guess they would have to get a real job and work for a living....instead of getting gov grants to go play around outdoors and waste tax payers dollars !

>Of course earth is warming....otherwise the ice age never would have ended, and we would not exist.<

There have been many ice ages, not only one. There is evidence of humans having been around for at least 800,000 years. Obviously they must have migrated to other regions to survive or else they wouldn't have lived to see another cycle.

How 6 and a half billion people will cope in the 21st century with drastic climate change is anyone's guess. Where will they migrate to when things get too hot, water runs out and crops begin to fail?

Many species of plants and animals have not survived previous climate changes - perhaps mankind can learn something from that.

Of course people can fool themselves into believing that the steady pumping of billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere has no effect on the climate - but is that an intelligent approach?

Can't we just reduce our polluting of the planet instead of labelling scientists as being so ignorant as to never having made the effort of "having studied back in history"?

By the way:

Science has been accumulating a record of past climate changes by taking core samples of glaciers and this record goes back tens of thousands of years.

>Our water comes from snow packs that build every year. The contribution from ice is minimal.<

It may be minimal but it is enough to gradually make the world's glaciers disappear.

Its called a make work project or "Empire Building."
All these scientists have to do is tune in on opinion250 and there would be no need to crawl over those slippery glaciers to get their info. All thats needed now is to go fishing on those lake bottoms.
Actually google could help them with the lakes.
And I'm not waiting for their report I just wish I could be around in 2080 when we start to grow grapes in Prince George so I could buy cheaper wine.
Have a nice day.

With respect to the two pictures, it appears at first that they were both taken from the same viewpoint. However, that is not the case, if you look at the "mountain" on the far right, one can see that the profile of the mountain in the back intersects the mountain in the foregorund to the right further down from the protrusion. That means that the 2004 picture was taken form a higher viewpoint and thus it appears at first glance that the top of the glacier may have subsided and advanced forward. Similar clues to the left where the top of the glacier intersects the hillside indicate that may be the case. However, those pictures are not conclusive as to any change in the volume of the glacier from my point of view.

I would like to see the pictures from 1864, 1794, 1724, 1654, 1584, 1514, 1444, 1374 ... if those are not conclusive, then we would require some more going further back still.

I think Marty is right on the mark, at least without additional information. I think it would be more dramatic to show a picture of where a glacier used to be but no longer is, and then digitally draw one in the way it would have been at one time. The earth does not have to be warming at this time in order for glaciers to be melting. Glacier will continue to melt even with the earth at the current temperature since I think that the state of equilibrium has not yet been reached where the net annual change will be zero.

However, that does not mean that the average annual temperature of the globe is not increasing and that glaciers are receding at an escalating rate. That is why the pictures of the same glaciers over a single period say nothing about the rate of change, which is the important thing we should know. Luckily we are not dependent on these two pictures to determine that. There are numerous studies of glaciers throughout the world which are ongoing and tell us that.

>I would like to see the pictures from 1864, 1794, 1724, 1654, 1584, 1514, 1444, 1374 ... if those are not conclusive, then we would require some more going further back still.<

Perhaps the First Native Nations have some ordinary b/w film pictures on file? I would like to see some photographic evidence from those years too, and I don't insist on colour or digital.

:)-

Do Google "Swiss Alps and Glaciers" and you will see some very amazing pictures that show how whole entire glaciers have totally disappeared altogether, in the last 50 years or so.

Argentine glaciers are melting away as well faster than you can say "hold it, what is going on?"

And here is the other half of the story one finds when playing google this and google that .....

:-)

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA235.html

Owl,

good link.
After doing a month long Antarctic cruise a couple years ago, it supports the theory of the people down there.
If anything the glacier is growing they say, not shrinking.

And its also strange the hottest temps recorded were in the early 1900's....before all the cars and factories.
It has been roughly 90 years since we have set a new record high in North America...if we are warming so fast, why no new records being set???

Global warming is recognized by scientists as a statistical trend, it is the overall effect that shows a steady increase in world average temperatures.

Today's Citizen headlines the story of UNBC to lead a glacier study, with millions of dollars of federal and other funding.

According to some comments here the poor people who will be doing the study are....well, just fools.

The "poor people" who are doing the studies are far from fools. Their job is to get funding for studies. They have not only succeeded in that, but they have also managed to draw money to this region rather than to Vancouver, which is, of course, much closer to more glaciers than Prince George is.

I find most interesting about this is that the obvious seems to be overlooked.

If we knew the answer, we would not require additional studies. There are many opinions still out there and it is quite legitimate to explore the matter further in attempt to find some more definitive information. That is what research his all about. And that is a major part of what the "enw economy" is all about. It is nice to see that PG is starting to get the benefits of getting plugged into it.

In previous centuries money was squandered by building huge cathedrals and by painting chapel ceilings. Little did those who supported those efforts know that centuries later a whole new industry would emerge based on viewing such buildings and that those communities who had those assets would be the benefactors of much of the money being spent to visit those communities.

One never knows what will result from spending money on what may appear to large masses of people to be idiotic.

I wish this global warming would hurry up some....i nearly froze outside yesterday. BRRRRRRRR

>One never knows what will result from spending money on what may appear to large masses of people to be idiotic.<

I agree completely.

Far from being foolish or idiotic it is proper and wise to explore all the angles. In order to prepare for the consequences of global warming we must first learn how all the different aspects interact with each other and how to best to deal with them.

A lot of money spent on medical research doesn't produce immediate benefits and may in fact be made redundant by other research, yet we wouldn't consider the funds and efforts spent on it to have been just silly make work projects by scientists trying to rip us of.

>If we knew the answer, we would not require additional studies.<

Well, right on. The climate is warming up globally and we do not know yet what all the ramifications of that are going to be.

More scientific study is required.