MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK, Wash. — The calendar says summer, but the conditions are more like winter.
Usually by August, most of the snow on Mount Rainier, the sleeping volcanic giant here, has long since melted. The meadows of wildflowers are abloom, and hikers galore are tramping along the trails.
Some folks have said the amount of snow validated predictions that global warming would increase precipitation.
But this year, temperatures have been colder than usual, keeping record mounds of old snow lying around. This has discouraged everyone, from the most rigorous climbers to backpackers, hikers and Sunday drivers.
However, in this article, in the very second paragraph it noted that "this year, temperatures have been colder than usual, keeping record mounds of old snow lying around."
The colder temperatures have wreaked havoc with Mother Nature’s schedule here and throughout the West and the Northwest, altering people’s expectations of what they could and could not do this summer.Yup, more global warming stories like these and Al Gore will need to revise his PowerPoint slides.
“There has never been this amount of snow, and it stopped us from doing things we would usually do,” Carol Larkin, 66, of Richland said the other day as she and her husband, Dave, 67, changed out of their hiking boots at a rest stop beneath towering Douglas firs near the mountain’s base.
They have hiked here every year since 1990 and wanted to keep up their ritual, even if it was curtailed.
Mount Rainier is very close to the ocean. There has not been a peep about about "global warming/climate change/global climate disruption" cause it's glaciers to melt. There have been like a billion pictures taken of Mt. Rainier in the last century and a half so we should know of any melting. By contrast the glaciers in Glacier National Park are shrinking. GNP is 400 miles inland. There has been deforestation for farmland and giant dam reservoirs in the 400 miles between GNP and the Pacific. Hmmm!
ReplyDeleteThat is interesting. I have not seen one story about glaciers on Mount Rainier receding.
ReplyDeleteWe saw evidence of glaciers receding in the Alps but that was long before any talk of global warming, back in the 1980's -- I think Newsweek even had cover stories of another "ice age" coming back in those days.
Mt Ranier is right in my backyard and the concern has always been, like Mt St Helens to the south, an eruption of Ranier would cause mudslides from the instantly melted glaciers (lahars). Those glaciers have been consistant for as long as I can remember.
ReplyDeleteThe back country areas of th Sierra Nevadas in Calif got 200% snowfall. So much so that this summers hiking trails were never opened up.
That may seem odd, but central Cal has been in a 10yr drought. What has happened is that nature is cycling bacck to normal, as it tends to do,if you watch it close enough. (Al Gore/Chicken Little- same mind set
Thank you for your comments. I learn a lot. I was not aware of the Sierra Nevada snow either, but I did post some great photos of huge snow pack in the Rocky Mountains this past spring, part of the reason for the record flooding in North Dakota.
ReplyDeleteI think it was the cable weather channel "It could happen tomorrow" that had a show on the Mt Rainier lahare threat. The Canadian Pacific Coast mountain glaciers are stable as are Alaskan glaciers. ..... On the Weather Channel they conceded that the shrinking of "The Snows of Mount Kilimanjaro" were likely due to upwind forest removal for farming. Mature trees give off slow but steady moisture.
ReplyDeleteYes, it is interesting mainstream media has not talked about these stable glaciers. I forget that mainstream media is pretty much "entertainment."
ReplyDelete