The Himalayas and nearby peaks have lost no ice in past 10 years, study shows

[dipsydoodle]

The world's greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice over the last decade, new research shows.

The discovery has stunned scientists, who had believed that around 50bn tonnes of meltwater were being shed each year and not being replaced by new snowfall.

The study is the first to survey all the world's icecaps and glaciers and was made possible by the use of satellite data. Overall, the contribution of melting ice outside the two largest caps – Greenland and Antarctica – is much less then previously estimated, with the lack of ice loss in the Himalayas and the other high peaks of Asia responsible for most of the discrepancy.

Bristol University glaciologist Prof Jonathan Bamber, who was not part of the research team, said: "The very unexpected result was the negligible mass loss from high mountain Asia, which is not significantly different from zero."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/08/glaciers-mountains

[KansDem]

1. For all those anxious to cite this as proof of no climate change...

Take a look at the second to the last paragraph:

He added: "The new data does not mean that concerns about climate change are overblown in any way. It means there is a much larger uncertainty in high mountain Asia than we thought. Taken globally all the observations of the Earth's ice – permafrost, Arctic sea ice, snow cover and glaciers – are going in the same direction."

[JCMach1]

4. Exactly, could be that there is more precip due to climate shifts

along with the warming...

It's complicated...

[ellisonz]

2. So what we're seeing is shifting...

[intaglio]

3. And if you read the article

You'll see the GRACE satellites are measuring an overall loss of ice worldwide - not that reading whole articles is a strong point of those who doubt global warming.