Arctic Temperature Reporting In The News Needs A Reality Check
Their new articles that claim the Arctic is rapidly warming. These articles are an excellent examples of the cherrypicking of particular published papers to promote the very narrow perspective of the journalists.
These include
An Associated Press news article by Randolph E. Schmid titled “Arctic reverses long-term trend”.
A New York Times article by Andrew C. Revkin titled “Humans May Have Ended Long Arctic Chill”.
The Schmid article has the text
“The most recent 10-year interval, 1999-2008, was the warmest of the last 2,000 years in the Arctic, according to the researchers led by Darrell S. Kaufman, a professor of geology and environmental science at Northern Arizona University.
Summer temperatures in the Arctic averaged 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.4 degrees Celsius) warmer than would have been expected if the cooling had continued, the researchers said.
The finding adds fuel to the debate over a House-passed climate bill now pending in the Senate. The administration-backed measure would impose the first limits on greenhouse gases and eventually would lead to an 80 percent reduction by putting a price on each ton of climate-altering pollution.”
Revkin reinforces this extreme view in his September 3 2009 article with his figure of 2000 years of Arctic surface temperatures, with each decade having the same temporal resolution as the last 10 years.
The publication of these news articles are clearly meant to influence the political process, as evident in the last paragraph, where Schmid writes “The finding adds fuel to the debate over a House-passed climate bill now pending in the Senate.”
The documentation of their biased reporting is easy to show. For example, they do not report on observational data which does not show this rapid recent warming; e.g. see that the current high latitude temperatures are close to the longer term average since 1958
The Danish Meteorological Institute Daily Mean Temperatures in the Arctic 1958 – 2008 [and thanks to the excellent weblog Watts Up With That for making this easily available to us!]
There are also peer reviewed papers which show that the Schmid and Revkin articles are biased; e. g. see
i) the areal coverage of the coldest middle tropospheric temperatures (below -40C) have not changed radically as shown in the Revkin figure; see
Herman, B., M. Barlage, T.N. Chase, and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2008: Update on a proposed mechanism for the regulation of minimum mid-tropospheric and surface temperatures in the Arctic and Antarctic. J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 113, D24101, doi:10.1029/2008JD009799.
and
ii) there is a warm bias in the Arctic surface temperature measurements when they are used to characterize deeper atmospheric warming; see
Klotzbach, P.J., R.A. Pielke Sr., R.A. Pielke Jr., J.R. Christy, and R.T. McNider, 2009: An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere. J. Geophys. Res., accepted.
At least the news Editors of the newspapers are starting to recognize that these journalists are presenting slanted news. The Schmid article appeared only on page 12 of my local newspaper.
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… Honestly, everything in the news does need a reality check, always.
Klausb
“At least the news Editors of the newspapers are starting to recognize that these journalists are presenting slanted news. The Schmid article appeared only on page 12 of my local newspaper.”
Not at the Guardian and London Metro who ran the news as lead stories for millions of Britons to read on the way to work.
It was on the front page of the SF Chronicle. This is San Francisco after all. Our Academy of Science is also biased when it comes to climate issues. They get taxpayer funds: The Academy of Politically Correct Science.
This article shows up as #1 if I search for “Global Warming” in Google News right now:
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/09/04/hey-global-warming-skeptics-take-your-heads-out-of-the-sand/
and contains FUD based on the Kaufman et al. paper and Ban Ki Moon’s recent visit to Norway: “General Ban Ki-moon has seen the meltdown of the Arctic for himself”, the article says. Ironically, the part of the arctic sea ice rim that Ban Ki Moon visited (northwest of Svalbard), is as normal as it gets – it’s almost exactly at the median, according to NSIDC: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_daily_extent_hires.png
The underlying work that the Kaufman paper rests on is being discussed at ClimateAudit now:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6932
Given that “About RealClimate” states:
“We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary.”
perhaps we’ll see a thread there too.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/about/
The only question is whether newspapers are going to suffer a well deserved death before or after permanent damage is done. Unfortunately, it currently appears the answer is after. Then the won shuts down the Internet, and all news is forever stopped.
So cherry picking is news? It’s like the second oldest vice, or maybe third if you count booze.
“The Schmid article appeared only on page 12 of my local newspaper.”
But it appeared on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle’s website and at Weather Underground as some sort of gospel.
Summer temperatures in the Arctic averaged 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.4 degrees Celsius) warmer than would have been expected if the cooling had continued, the researchers said.
The finding adds fuel to the debate over a House-passed climate bill now pending in the Senate.
However, the US government itself in the form of NOAA has recently said the recent Arctic warm temperatures are due to reduced sea ice coverage which in turn was caused by weather factors. That is, the recent Arctic warm temperatures have little or nothing to do with ‘global warming’.
The lesson here is of the dangers of letting politicians and political activists (including political activists who also happen to be scientists) decide complex scientific issues. The worst offender being of course the United Nations.
Although it begs the question, how else can we decide?
My proposal is to give each side an equal opportunity to make its own case and rebutt the other sides case, as in a court of law. Then let people decide for themselves through a referendum. Although this proposal has its problems.
The news reflects on todays science.
Al Gores consensus of scientists are a partisan lot interested in promoting their beliefs, with little interest in the actual science.
Here’s the reality check:
There no coverage in any English-language publication except Science Daily of the new 2,000-year-long sediment reconstruction by Oppo, et.al. in Nature concerning sea surface temperatures (SST) from the Indo-Pacific warm pool (IPWP) which suggests that temperatures in the region may have been as warm during the Medieval Warm Period as they are today. The lead author suggests that Northern Hemisphere reconstructions which indicate the MWP wasn’t as warm as today may need to be re-examined. This is important peer-reviewed science in one of the premiere journals, yet there’s no coverage. A Google News search for “indo-pacific warm pool” yields only the Science Daily article, yet a search for ” artic cooling” returns 684 stories on the Kaufman paper alone. I can only conclude that there is overwhelming media bias in advance of the Copenhagen climate conference against any real science by real scientists that gives any suggestion that modern temperatures are not unique.
See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090827131832.htm
The DMI temperature graphics certainly do no indicate a rise in the annual summer highs, but is there any dataset on arctic temperatures that would put a stake in the heart of this? Also, I might have missed this in the earlier thread, but is there any rationale provided for the step function jump in the 30’s and 40’s? Obviously this is the bulk of the claimed temperature increase.
This article also appeared on Tucson’s Arizona Daily Star. I added comments to the article presenting the “The Hockey stick controversy” to the readers. I made them aware of the Steve Mcintyre HADCRU controversy. I directed them to an article that demonstrated when using non tree ring proxys the Medieval Warm period and the little ice age reappeared. I believe the comments section attached to these articles is the only way to counter this propaganda.
The most powerful reference I provided IMHO was the new Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution article on the temperature reconstruction of paleo SST data that has been discussed on this forum recently:
http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=7545&tid=282&cid=59106&ct=162
This article reveals that the MWP was the same temperature as today’s SST for the Indo Pacific Warm Pool. The graph illustrated is overlaid on top of Mann’s Northern Hemisphere ‘hockey stick’. The authors are clearly challenging the Mann reconstruction. Oppo comments, “Although there are significant uncertainties with our own reconstruction, our work raises the idea that perhaps even the Northern Hemisphere temperature reconstructions need to be looked at more closely.” As Roger has pointed out heat generated from global warming must primarily reside in the ocean due to the higher heat capacity of water and the greater extent of the oceans than land. If the MWP and LIA are alive and well in the historic ocean SST then frankly these land based atmospheric reconstruction do not really even count. I would enjoy hearing Roger’s comments about the Woods Hole article.
Looking at the ASMR-E ice extent, I see an alarming trend. The summer ice extent has been increasing at an alarming rate since 2007. IF this trend continues, there MIGHT be ice as far south as the equator within 10 YEARS.
Has the Kaufman paper actually gotten published ? I was under the impression that this was all pre-pubilcation hype .
Adventurer Ola Skinnarmo follow in the wake of Nordenskiöld(in Nordenskiöld’s footstep) is now traveling the Arctic journey most critical point.
The ship Explorer of Canada has reached Cape Chelyuskin, the continent’s northernmost point, and is halfway to the goal Bering Strait.
A 50 percent chance
Even before his departure in June warned that the Russian scientists a chance to sail through the Northeast Passage was only 50 percent. An unusually cold winter and late spring in the Arctic have risen at ismassorna. It’s a paradox, because the expedition is made partly to draw attention to global warming and melting icebergs. Translated from Expressen 17 augusti 2009
When the map and reality don’t match, reality rules.
We are not yet close to the warming of the Arctic that was … .. 980-1450 🙂
I think I might have confused my papers ….
I can confirm that this year has been the hottest on record. It is 57F at the moment here in London. The peak was 65F. The average was 61F, Thus it felt like a fairly representative day, given that its neither hot summer or cold winter. Since the UK is fairly representative of the globe, London in particular this represents a whopping increase on the previous hottest year on record, which was only 52F.
Isn’t it clever what we can do with mathematics and presumptions?
Its much worse than we thought it could be. We’re done for.
Dr. Pielke Sr.,
I understand that posting on WUWT may appeal to you because this blog reaches so many people. When you post here you certainly raise the credibility of this blog but, at the same time, you severely undermine your own.
Regarding the “news” about climate change, most journalists attempt to present “both sides of the story” even if one side (AGW) has overwhelming support by the experts. They are trained to do so and in that regard, the news has been decidedly unfair with regards to AGW.
disclaimer to previous post:
Under no circumstances can this temperature information be copied, requested or reproduced, do to its sensitivity as private/commercial information.
despite the fact that the temperature record began in 1850, no possible breaches of it from previous years can be taken into account. It is therefore held that prior to 1850, no such evidence of warmer periods exists.
Scott A. Mandia 16:45:10
You should worry about your own reputation instead of Pielke Pere’s.
That you think the world’s journalists have given a fair hearing to the skeptics is extremely damaging to your reputation. On what planet do you read the news?
======================================
Once you concede that warming is bad you have lost half the battle. It is not enough to point out the bad science and bias in the reporting. We need to remind people that CO2 and warming increases the growing season and is good for humanity and civilization flourished during the Medieval and Roman warm periods.
I just finished Ian Plimer’s book, Heaven and Earth. He does a wonderful job of discussing the climate changes and the effect on humanity in chapter 2, History. Everything I thought I knew about world history has to be reconsidered after reading this chapter. He also points out that the dust in the ice core records shows more dust and therefore more desertification during the cold periods when reduced evaporation of the oceans results in more droughts. If the Earth would warm up as much as it did during the MWP, it would be good. A northwest passage through the arctic ocean would also be a good thing. It’s a strange world we we live in where half the people are afraid of warming and the other half are afraid of what the first half will do in their fear. We are not much different from those who burned witches when the crops failed during the LIA.
Scott Mandia:
The Pielkes allow Anthony to post what they post elsewhere. Most journalists are ignorant of basic logic, let alone science. They do not “attempt to present both sides of the story”. That’s sooo old school.
Today’s journos merely report self-reinforcing stories; those that support their, or their editor’s, opinions.
Scott A. Mandia:
“(…)most journalists attempt to present “both sides of the story” even if one side (AGW) has overwhelming support by the experts.”
Are you kidding? Most journalists don’t even attempt to present both sides of the story, and therefore it only has the appearance that one side (AGW) has overwhelming support by the experts.
By the way, this article is taken from Pielke’s own website and is does NOT constitute a contribution from him to WUWT, contrary to what you claim.
Kaufman, D.S.; Schneider, D.P.; McKay, N.P.; Ammann, C.M.; Bradley, R.S.; Briffa, K.R.; Miller, G.H.; Otto-Bliesner, B.L.; Overpeck, J.T.; Vinther, B.M.; & Arctic Lakes 2k Project Members. (2009). Recent Warming Reverses Long-Term Arctic Cooling. Science 325, 1236-1239. doi: 10.1126/science.1173983.
“Orbitally driven summer insolation continued to decrease through the 20th century, implying that summer temperatures should have continued to cool.”
They’re cherry-picking one oscillation, process, & timescale. What concerns me most is what I don’t see in the references; the authors appear oblivious to major branches of the literature.
Clearly there are untold behind-the-scenes politics going on when even right-wing sites like ctv.ca are running this & related stories. (The right-wing forces in Canada wouldn’t let this stuff through ctv.ca to the public unless they believed such scare-mongering would benefit them somehow.) This is getting really weird. The top players aren’t showing their cards, but they’re getting sloppy at hiding them.
It’s not unusual for WUWT readers to be jadedly suspicious of political interference in science, but I think we can admit that this paper occupies what might best be described as an alternate dimension of distortion on some weird new political spectrum that does not fit our traditional right-left model. Extreme-greens and extreme-capitalists appear as one with their common interest of encouraging speculation on Arctic melt. Watching this orgy of emotion & speculation from a neutral perspective is getting more than a little sickening for anyone who is simply interested in the truth about climate.
There is little hope for rational discourse about Arctic climate spatiotemporal patterns. (People won’t leave their politics & aspirations out of the discussion.)