I assume glacier behavior and physics haven’t changed since I studied them forty-nine years ago. Glaciers are not a big block of ice as most people think. They are sort of a viscous, grainy (firn) substance which flows down hill. It is quite possible for a glacier with a static amount of ice to flow downhill and reduce its thickness. This will cause the glacier to melt faster. Thus, it is possible for a glacier to grow while dying, hence the Icelandic glacier’s demise shortly after growing.

Terminology hasn’t changed either. Scientifically, ‘weather’ is not just day to day or even a month to month time period but up to three years. It is ‘weather’ when we have a hot year, then a normal year, followed by a cooler year. Climate is the average of a string of ‘weather’ cycles. So if we have several decades of increasing temperature averages the climate is warming. It is possible for a large area to have a minor climate change because of some unusual event. The little ice age some readers refer to was such an event. Although it should be considered ‘weather’ because of its duration, it did affect a couple of cycles. It occurred because the stratosphere was filled with volcanic ash and gases. The effect was mostly in the Northern Hemisphere.

Today’s concern is rapidly increasing global temperatures which are increasing faster than predicted because of methane. Methane is stored in the arctic permafrost. It is thirty times more powerful than CO₂ in holding radiant heat. That is why the Arctic’s temperature increase is twice as fast as much of the rest of the planet. The Arctic permafrost is melting faster every year. It is the reason why year around polar shipping routes will happen in a few years.

Humans drill into the earth, bring up methane, and pipe it into our houses where we burn it creating CO₂. If all the fossil fuels were left in the ground, we wouldn’t be looking at a steamy end of humanity.