FALSE: Surging glaciers do not mean climate change is a 'scam'
A claim that climate change is a scam because some glaciers are surging is FALSE.
This post on X (formerly Twitter) claimed climate change is a scam because glaciers are "suddenly surging", which it said is because of global warming.
PesaCheck has previously shown how global warming can make a glacier appear "longer," or as if it has grown, when in reality the ice is thinning, and its flow is accelerating.
But is it true that glaciers are surging worldwide because of global warming?
The post omits that a surging glacier is a very specific type — unique in that it stays dormant for long periods before suddenly flowing much faster over a relatively short time.
A surging glacier flows abnormally fast for months to years, cycling between dormant and active phases.
About 3,000 glaciers worldwide surge, clustered in three regions — roughly half in the Arctic and Subarctic, and half in High Mountain Asia.
Researchers have called these glaciers "very unusual and troublesome," though they make up only about 1 per cent of the world's glaciers.
A Nature paper found that climate change can alter surge behaviour, sometimes damaging infrastructure.
Surging glaciers have distinctive features, including concertina-shaped ridges and hummocky moraine (debris carried by the glacier).
Notable surging glaciers include Susitna in Svalbard and Panmah and Choktoi in Karakoram (see below).
(Credit:Antarcticglaciers.org)
Even in High Mountain Asia, where surging glaciers are most prominent, they only account for 2.5 per cent of glacier mass and about 17 per cent of total glaciers.
Elsewhere, the evidence is clear: glaciers are melting at an alarming rate. PesaCheck has shown on numerous occasions how ice sheets and mountain glaciers are dwindling because of climate change.
Climate change is not a scam. There is an overwhelming consensus from peer-reviewed published research and science academies that it is happening and is caused by humans.
Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere keep increasing, which has unequivocally raised global temperatures. This is changing the climate, for instance, by causing more extreme weather, increasing sea levels, and increasing the chances of flooding, among other things.
PesaCheck has examined a claim that climate change is a scam because glaciers are surging and finds it to be FALSE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here's more information on PesaCheck's methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck climate change fact-checker Christiaan van der Merwe and edited by PesaCheck chief copy editor Stephen Ndegwa.
The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck’s managing editor Doreen Wainainah.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent's largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.