They come and go

The Wenatchee World Online - Safety Valve: Letters from readers

This is in regards your articles of Sept. 14 “Gone within 50 years” and “The great melt.” That global warming and cooling does occur is indisputable. However, Mauri Pelto and reporter K.C. Mehaffey insinuate the so-called global warming crisis is man-caused. I do not accept the premise and offer some facts to support my opinion.

As the ice recedes at Greenland — yes it is receding there also — archaeologists are finding evidence of less-icy times. Norse settlements abandoned in 1350 are being excavated from glacial sand. Google James Brooke about the site dubbed Pompeii of the North. Could a few SUVs have saved the Norse settlements?

In the last major glaciation the continental glaciers came south to Indiana. What must early man have done to melt those glaciers back to the Rockies and Cascades?

Undoubtedly Pelto did wonderful work measuring and documenting the retreat of the glaciers, but geologic history has shown those glaciers could advance again or melt completely away. Either result would be completely normal.

Glaciers do not get “in trouble” as Pelto says. They do advance, recede, and stagnate. They do not “live” or “die.” They are not alive.

Pelto wonders “how people ... will react once they realize what it means to lose these frozen reservoirs.” They’ll adapt, just like they’ve always done. What if the continental glaciers come back?

How do we explain global warming/cooling? The sun, and especially sunspot activity. Relatively low sunspot activity was used to explain the mini ice age of the 1800s.

Ron Lee
Retired geologist
Wenatchee