Whoops!

The Daily Caller posted an article on Friday about some signs that were quietly removed from Glacier National Park. It seems that those in charge of the park had bought into the extreme reports of imminent global warming.

The article reports:

The National Park Service (NPS) quietly removed a visitor center sign saying the glaciers at Glacier National Park would disappear by 2020 due to climate change.

As it turns out, higher-than-average snowfall in recent years upended computer model projections from the early 2000s that NPS based its claim glaciers “will all be gone by the year 2020,” federal officials said.

The article explains:

“Glacier retreat in Glacier National Park speeds up and slows down with fluctuations in the local climate,” the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which monitors Glacier National Park, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Those signs were based on the observation prior to 2010 that glaciers were shrinking more quickly than a computer model predicted they would,” USGS said. “Subsequently, larger than average snowfall over several winters slowed down that retreat rate and the 2020 date used in the NPS display does not apply anymore.”

NPS updated signs at the St. Mary Visitor Center glacier exhibit over the winter. Sign changes meant the display warning glaciers would all disappear by 2020 now says: “When they completely disappear, however, will depend on how and when we act.”

Get over it, people. We do not control the climate. The computer models were wrong because the data put into the computers was either wrong or incomplete. We are not in charge. We do have an obligation to do everything we can to keep the air and water as clean as possible, but we do not have a major impact on the climate. One major volcanic eruption puts more junk in the air than a million people driving around for years. I was living in New England when Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991. We didn’t really have a summer that year.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported on the impact of that eruption:

Nearly 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide were injected into the stratosphere in Pinatubo’s 1991 eruptions, and dispersal of this gas cloud around the world caused global temperatures to drop temporarily (1991 through 1993) by about 1°F (0.5°C). The eruptions have dramatically changed the face of central Luzon, home to about 3 million people. About 20,000 indigenous Aeta highlanders, who had lived on the slopes of the volcano, were completely displaced, and most still wait in resettlement camps for the day when they can return home. About 200,000 people who evacuated from the lowlands surrounding Pinatubo before and during the eruptions have returned home but face continuing threats from lahars that have already buried numerous towns and villages. Rice paddies and sugar-cane fields that have not been buried by lahars have recovered; those buried by lahars will be out of use for years to come.

As people, we really don’t have the power to impact the climate to that degree.