{"id":448935,"date":"2026-06-06T13:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T20:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=448935"},"modified":"2026-06-06T17:18:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T00:18:50","slug":"glaciers-have-advanced-and-retreated-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=448935","title":{"rendered":"Glaciers have advanced and retreated before"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Massive glacier wall of Perito Moreno Glacier in Los Glaciares National Park, El Calafate, Patagonia, Argentina<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From CFACT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Kelvin Kemm<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We constantly hear panic stories about glaciers melting, accompanied by hysterical voices calling out that retreating glaciers are a clear sign of human-induced global warming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of this hysteria is driven by green activists and politicians who know just enough to be dangerous but not enough to be sensible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientifically you can\u2019t come to a conclusion, on the basis of a principle. You have to look at the real science and carry out correct measurements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a complex subject, but let us have a quick look at the issue. What about atmospheric warming? Well, for starters, we need some physics. For a gram of cold glacial ice to warm up by 1\u00b0C, say from -4\u00b0C to -3\u00b0C, it takes about two Joules of heat. It needs this amount of heat for each degree Celsius that the ice warms. Inside a glacier it can be as cold as -50\u00b0C, but let us just consider the top part and, being generous, call it -10\u00b0C. In other words, to raise the temperature of a gram of ice from -10\u00b0C to 0\u00b0C we will need about 20 Joules. So far so good. So where would this heat come from? Well, the global warming enthusiasts say, \u2018from the atmosphere.\u2019 So we take 20 Joules from the atmosphere. That is reasonable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now for a bit more physics. When you melt ice to water, it needs a huge amount of heat to separate the frozen molecules. In fact, it takes just over 300 Joules for each gram. Remember that it takes 20 Joules to raise the temperature of a gram of ice by 10\u00b0C, but 300 Joules to turn that one gram of ice into water. So where does the 300 Joules of heat come from? \u2018Well, the atmosphere,\u2019 say the warmists. If that much heat is being pulled out of the atmosphere, why do we not see the air above a glacier cooling off? After all, the warmists are worrying about the atmosphere warming by only 1 or 2\u00b0C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if an entire glacier is melting faster than before, where on earth (excuse the pun) is all that melting-heat coming from? Remember, millions of grams of ice each needing 300 Joules just to melt. That is a vast amount of energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about an alternative mechanism? There is another option. That is; direct sunlight falling on the glacier surface. What is known to happen is that sunlight warms the top couple of millimetres of the ice, which melts quite easily. So an obvious question is; where does that water go? The simple answer is that it percolates downwards through the fissures in the glacier. The water works its way to the bottom, where the ice lies on the bedrock. There it acts as a lubricant, and reduces the friction between the ice and the rock. So the ice can slide faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore the whole glacier becomes more mobile, and more big chunks can break off at the end of the glacier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The amount of sunlight falling on the glacier\u2019s surface has nothing to do with the temperature of the atmosphere. In contrast, it has to do with the amount of cloud cover, which in turn is linked to the amount of cosmic radiation coming in from outer space. That in turn is linked to the magnetic activity of the Sun, because the Sun influences the protective magnetic barrier around the Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where this magnetic barrier \u2018leaks\u2019 is seen at the North and South poles where we see the spectacular Aurorae which form curtains of waving light sheets in the night sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we clearly have a perfectly reasonable mechanism for retreating glaciers which has nothing to do with atmospheric warming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there is yet more! There has been a huge archaeological benefit resulting from the retreat of some glaciers, and melting ice sheets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What has happened is that melting ice has revealed thousands of ancient artefacts which have been a bonanza for historians and archaeologists. For example, 10,000 year old Atlati spear-throwing hunting darts have been found in the Rocky Mountains and the Canadian Yukon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intact arrows have been found in a Norwegian mountain pass dating to 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. They have quartzite arrowheads secured by animal sinew and Birch-bark glue. A 1,700 year old Roman-style shoe was also found in Norway. In the Schnidejoch pass in the Swiss Alps, leather trousers, shoes and Birch-bark arrows were found, dating back to 3,000 to 4,000 BCE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The list goes on, but what it shows is that there was no thick ice cover there in the past, at times like 1,700 years ago, 3,000 years ago, and 10,000 years ago. This indicates that ice cover and glaciers, have come and gone on a regular basis in the past. These past changes certainly had nothing to do with industrially-produced carbon dioxide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But they can be linked to the magnetic activity of the Sun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We constantly hear panic stories about glaciers melting, accompanied by hysterical voices calling out that retreating glaciers are a clear sign of human-induced global warming.<\/p>\n

Much of this hysteria is driven by green activists and politicians who know just enough to be dangerous but not enough to be sensible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":448937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691821698,691822637,691818087,691843531],"class_list":["post-448935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cloud-cover","tag-glaciers","tag-global-warming","tag-temperature-of-the-atmosphere","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0Glacier-Argentina.jpg?fit=2508%2C1672&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1SMT","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":413592,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=413592","url_meta":{"origin":448935,"position":0},"title":"Glaciermania Strikes Again\u20132025 International Year of\u00a0Glaciers","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"11\/17\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"How often do the climate\u00a0alarmists tell us that few glaciers still exist because of (imaginary) global warming\u00a0and those that remain are rapidly melting away? 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