This story has history. In 2005, a former UK environmentalist named David Bellamy had a letter published in New Scientist magazine claiming that:

Indeed, if you take all the evidence that is rarely mentioned by the Kyotoists into consideration, 555 of all the 625 glaciers under observation by the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich, Switzerland, have been growing since 1980."

Guardian columnist George Monbiot tracked down the origins of Bellamy's claim after the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich told Monbiot that "This is complete bullshit."

Monbiot traced Bellamy's fantasy of growing glaciers back to a site maintained by climate misinformation specialist Fred S. Singer and his pollution-industry-friendly organization Science and Environmental Policy Project. The SEPP commentary stated:

So what of this 1989 paper in Science? Tim Lambert reports that:

"Complete bullshit" seems to be a bit of an understatement at this point considering how far this totally incorrect claim traveled around the internet. Even today, some version of the glacier myth seems to be in circulation - making this an outrageous success for the disinformation specialists and another explanation of why people are still confused about the reality of climate change.

For more on the who's who of the climate denial industry, check out our comprehensive climate deniers research database.