The White House ended its climate change campaign in Alaska this week, culminating 11 days of rhetoric blaming anthropogenic global warming on glacial retreat in order to gain support for the Environmental Protection Agency’s expensive, burdensome and unconstitutional Clean Power Plan. But on what evidence does the president blame human-induced CO2, rather than natural variations in climate, for causing the retreat of the glaciated areas around Glacier Bay?

Glacier Bay is a complex system of fjords in southeast Alaska that has experienced rapid Arctic melt over the last 250 years. According to the United States Geological Survey, Glacier Bay was entirely glaciated prior to the 1700s as a direct result of a “Little Ice Age.” By 1750 the “Age” ended and the glacier begun its retreat.