Usually I have “Quote of the week, but in this case, the silence says far more than any words the Goreacle might utter.
At least somebody outside of the blogosphere noticed.
From masslive.com where they say:
“Snows of Kilimanjaro defy global warming predictions”
Representatives for Al Gore declined to comment on this article.
Could Al Gore look any dumber over this?
Read the full article here, give the journalist some props.
==================================================================
See also this story Kilimanjaro regaining its snow cap where commenter SonicFrog says:
Anthony… Here is a better article to link to on the subject. And isn’t this a most damning quote?
“Unfortunately, we made the prediction. I wish we hadn’t,” says Douglas R. Hardy, a UMass geoscientist who was among 11 co-authors of the paper in the journal Science that sparked the pessimistic Kilimanjaro forecast. “None of us had much history working on that mountain, and we didn’t understand a lot of the complicated processes on the peak like we do now.”
WHAT?????
“None of us had much history working on that mountain, and we didn’t understand a lot of the complicated processes on the peak like we do now.”
So WHAT THE HELL were you doing publishing and supporting this AS IF IT WAS CERTAIN?????
I wonder if anyone will demand a retraction from Thompson and Hardy?
Yes, I wonder.
“Could Al Gore look any dumber over this?”
Don’t sell him short.
Why is it that most story on Kilimanjaro still talk about global warming, when the last studies attribute receding glaciers to deforestation? Not even a word on this in the article. Nothing.
REPLY: cuz understanding real science, using big words like “evapotranspiration”, is hard – Anthony
Good article, but it doesn’t mention the role of local deforestation in the decline of Kilimanjaro’s glaciers. Fortunately, at least one of the comments does.
Leopards, take warning!
I’m not so sure this article is quite the dramatically damning piece it seems to be made out to be. The article is saying the original claims were overstated, not that they were completely wrong.
That things can be, and are, over-hyped even in things like science journals is nothing new. Now, if it turned out that instead of merely overstating how quickly the ice would disappear, it turned out that the study prediction was 180 degrees wrong and that the ice was starting to grow, that would be worthy of great and dramatic statements.
That the snow/ice will disappear in 40-60 years instead of the originally predicted 15 years isn’t all that dramatic, at least not to my mind.
I’m annoyed that the article didn’t even touch on the largest reasons for the ice’s shrinking – changes in humidity because of surrounding land uses. It’s not AGW from CO2 that’s causing the change, but the changes in the local air moisture levels from all the farming development surrounding the mountain.
And yes, my comment about ice growing back on Kilimanjaro being worthy of dramatic statement was purposeful because of this. 🙂
Oh, but you should highlight the Ironic Quote of the Week from geoscientist Lonnie Thompson:
The opinions of global warming doubters will change on a dime depending on whether it is cold winter or a hot summer.
I had to read that three times before I finally understood he was referring to skeptics rather than AGW proponents.
“The snow-covered peak of Kilimanjaro is the highest point in Africa and is a landmark of Tanzania. However, the famous mountain is seriously affected by the consequences of climate change. The glacier atop Kilimanjaro is melting rapidly, and will probably vanish completely at some point between 2015 and 2020. Less visible is the threat to the entire Kilimanjaro ecosystem posed by changes in water balance. Historically, the region at the foot of the mountain has been densely wooded, providing habitat and wood resources for local populations. Melting glacial water, on which the local population depends, combines to form several rivers that feed the great Pangani river basin.
During the past years, unpredictable precipitation patterns, water scarcity and population growth have changed land use in the region. The local population has had to adapt to the changes, often by clearing forest in order to create new arable land. However, the loss of forests aggravates the cycle of water scarcity and soil erosion, further destabilizing the ecosystem.
In order to stop this cycle, the Ministry of Tourism and National Resources has cooperated with the Ministry of Energy and Minerals, research institutions, and NGOs to develop a joint project with a budget of 3.3 million dollars. The project aims to start reforestation programs and to find alternative sources of income for local populations. Overall, the purpose is to raise awareness of the importance of biodiversity and sustainability.”
http://www.adaptationlearning.net/experience/kilimanjaro-region-reforestation-and-raising-public-awareness
Note the obligatory blaming of AGW while acknowledging the real cause of the receding glacier.
I expect to hear this type of excuse more and more throughout this decade.
“Unfortunately, we made the prediction. I wish we hadn’t”
I am guessing there will be a lot more of these statements made over the coming years on various alarmist AGW statements that had been made.
//Begin Sarcasm Mode//
See, what more proof do you need that Global Warming is real!!!
Global Warming started to take away the snow, but because we didn’t act, it’s putting it back again!!!
😉
Good article, but it doesn’t mention the role of local deforestation in the decline of Kilimanjaro’s glaciers. Fortunately, at least one of the comments does.
I’m finishing a blog post that will mention that. Seems I’m doing this in reverse. Usually I write the blog, then post the bits from it, and not the other way around.
“The article is saying the original claims were overstated, not that they were completely wrong.” [How’d I do with the slash eye thing?]
I live in a kind of black and white world. You are completely right, or some degree of wrong. (Or I am not bright enough to know which–but that notwithstanding, you are one or the other.)
“overstated” is not right, so it is wrong.
As I say determining right or wrong my be beyond my instrumentation, my cognition capability, my whatever. Being unable to determine which has no effect on what is.
What are you gonna believe, the experts or your lying eyes?
The AGW promoting “Scientist” got a lot of input to the article, but I think his message still did not get out.. I’m going to help him out…
1. Yes, our prediction was wrong, our mistake was making a falsifiable prediction. What we meant to say was that all the ice and snow will melt off of Kilimanjaro at some point in the future, after we are all dead. The planet is going to die, so are you, if you don’t sign away your freedom and walk off a cliff for us…
Anyone who disagrees with this is a denialist and is guilty of all sorts of malfeasance and should be punished for crimes against humanity.
Any questions?
“The opinions of global warming doubters will change on a dime depending on whether it is cold winter or a hot summer. The only opinion that matters is nature’s. Nature has a way of humbling us all. It still remains to be seen just who that will be”
I think Freud had a name for this…
I have a glacier in my front yard and it is not receding because it snowed 4 inches yesterday. Bloody hell!
Fear not, Anthony. I have a quote for you that is…stunning…yes, that’s about right.
http://cbullitt.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/agw-assclown-non-sequitur-of-the-week/
Increasing snow on Kilimanjaro during the “warmest year on record”.
That’s got to be ‘consistent’ with global warming, doesn’t it?
“Could Al Gore look any dumber over this?”
He knew it was nonsense. You think he is stupid !
The sole reason they regret making the prediction is that they didn’t place the date beyond verification.
DaveE.
Forest + Time
= Glacier
Forest + People
= Desert
Desert + Time
= No glacier + No people
No people + Time
= Scrub
Scrub + No people + Time
= Forest
Forest + Time
= Glacier
Yet another successful prediction for the CO2 mediated climate variability model.
(just joking)
“So WHAT THE HELL were you doing publishing and supporting this AS IF IT WAS CERTAIN?????”
Because they practice Climate Scientology.
In depth knowledge, experience and facts are irrelevant to preferred and believed outcomes.
The problem with a lot of these alarmist researchers is that they rush to publish so they do further research to clear up uncertainties. ;O)
Kilimanjaro’s ice cap has been receding since at least the 1880s.
Never underestimate Gore’s stupidity. Re: “The earth’s core is a million degrees”.
The problem for these people is that things didn’t move as fast as they anticipated/hoped.
They thought there wold be sweeping international agreements within a year or so, and that shortly after that most of the world’s population would be living living in caves, only getting information relayed to them from on high by officially sanctioned messengers, so their prognostications would never be put to the test, and if anyone did notice, they could claim it was recovery due to their enlightened policies.
In a less civilized (but more just) world, these people would be burned at the stake.
/SARC ON
Global Climate Disruption has disrupted our ability to predict future disruption of the climate.
In other news, the well documented warming in the Arctic, caused by the atmospheric increase in the powerful greenhouse gas CO2, is melting the ice over the Arctic Ocean. This reduction in the weight of the ice is causing geologic rebound resulting in seismic events like the one off the coast of Japan.
The Church of CAGW is pleased to inform you that you can now buy your way out the sins of CO2 through our non-profit, globally green, Carbon Credit Corporation. Just send money, all will be forgiven.
/SARC OFF
What is a “Geoscientist” ??
Sounds made up. Is that like one of those custom-majors that some universities let you make where you pick your own coursework and slap a name on your degree?
IIRC I saw a short clip on the TV about a lady whose goal was to plant a billion trees around the base of the mountain.
“None of us had much history working on that mountain, and we didn’t understand a lot of the complicated processes on the peak like we do now.”
“The glaciers are still shrinking, and in the next decades they will almost certainly disappear…”
Real scientists should be able to apply a sort of mathematical induction here.
If P is true of X, and P is true for X+1 no matter what X is, then P is true of the whole series.
By extension: If you’re wrong about the present value, and you have no way of knowing how to calculate a future value given the present situation, then you’re wrong about the whole idea.
Then there’s this little nugget.
They must let go of the heat on Kilimanjaro.
It is currenty warmcold on the mountain at at 5895 m altitude with a forecast of hotsnow to fall occasionally.
http://www.snow-forecast.com/resorts/Kilimanjaro/6day/top
I wonder if anyone will demand a retraction from Thompson and Hardy?
Are you sure this isn’t Laurel and Hardy?
Gee, I would imagine that the processes involved in Global Climate Change are a bit more “complicated” than the snow cap of one mountain, but that is just me.
They say,
None of us had much history working on that mountain, and we didn’t understand a lot of the complicated processes on the peak like we do now.”
But they still made that prediction, they still don`t understand the processes and are now predicting 4 to 5 decades, utter rubbish.
Funnily enough, they said the same thing about snow in British winters – and since then we’ve had three very cold and snowy winters in a row. Both evets could be an example of Murphy’s Law, which seems to be a lot more solid than the conjecture of CAGW.
Climate science doesn’t really have a clue!
Yeah. Don’t misunderestimate Al!
Thank goodness it was peer reviewed “science”. Science and Nature just shouldn’t bother with climate articles, since they seem to often have serious errors.
Ahhhhhh! We have been told that as a result of global warming a few things might happen:
Plants move uphill
Plants move downhill
Northern Hemisphere winters warmer
Northern Hemisphere winters colder
Sahel to get less rain
Sahel to get more rain
and so on……………
…and this afternoon, in Chile, President Obama included the
shrinking of Chilean glaciers as a partial reason for his going
green investment encouragement/incentives down there.
Nobody’s really studied to see if deforestation for wood products
has/has not any relationship to the status of Chile/Peru glaciers,
unlike the Kilimanjaro area of Japan.
I foresee a rush for research grants tilted to document how climate
change in Chile is responsible, unlike the deforestation documented
in Japan.
Jit,
I think I hear a folk song in the making…
Where have all the glaciers gone, long time passing….
This is just the beginning of lots and lots of excuses from the Gore-Parrots.
Damn it’s getting harder to climb out of this hole
D King… i hate you for that! I watched it… Now I can’t un-watch it!!!
OK. The post is done. Enjoy.
Global Warming “Oops”… And Contradictions.
“None of us had much history working on that mountain, and we didn’t understand a lot of the complicated processes on the peak like we do now.”
And now they want us to believe they are all better now.
Sonicfrog says:
March 21, 2011 at 1:21 pm
“…Now I can’t un-watch it!!!”
Well, I hope you learned something!
Now we have to unlearn the kids.
This will be the first story on news tonight.
/sarc
Representatives for Al Gore declined to comment on this article.
hahahahahahaha………. hahahahahahahahaha
yes, that’s laughing
Al Gore is a professional speaker. He had nothing to say.
So this paper was peer reviewed.Global wamers continually promote the peer review process for validating their papers on global warming. As we can see peer review is not perfect.
But global warmers will find a way to rationalize this.
Dan Inesanto says:
March 21, 2011 at 11:08 am
I’m not so sure this article is quite the dramatically damning piece it seems to be made out to be. The article is saying the original claims were overstated, not that they were completely wrong
===============================================
Dan just make every other word – could, might, may, woulda, shoulda, coulda…
….then throw in the 50% chance of….
And you have a climate science paper………that, of course, does not overstate any thing.
When I explained to my Mother, that the alarmists were now saying that Global warming causes the cooling and extra snow, she burst out laughing.
@R.S.Brown & the moderators:
I believe you mean Kilimanjaro in Tunisia, right. Not Mt. Fuji in Japan. I doubt deforestation of Mt. Fuji has anything to do with the loss of its glacier, although I could be wrong on that.
Good grief!
It’s worse than I thought!
/Mr Lynn
Doesn’t anyone care that mosquitos are dying up there?
This example is wonderful. The guy predicted that the glacier would melt away soon, maybe by 2020. He regrets his prediction. He explains his false prediction by saying that he did not know enough about the mountain when he made the prediction. So, on what basis did he make the prediction? He does not say. For Warmista, false predictions never require false hypotheses or false beliefs of any kind. That is their smug way of implying that they were not really wrong.
I can tell you why he predicted the melting. Because he is a Warmista and, like all Warmista, he believes that temperatures are going to rise steadily for decades and, therefore, anything that is melting will melt faster. That is his real belief. It is just that obsessive belief in warming. It is based in no real science at all. It is religion.
He says now that the glacier will melt in a few decades. Note that he does not say why he believes that it will melt in a few decades. Typical Warmista. If he gave an explanation that was up to scientific standards, in a few decades he would have to admit that his explanation had been falsified. So, typical Warmista, he just makes the vague claim that melting will occur. And just like his last prediction, his reason for making it is nothing more than an obsessive belief that warming will continue and will get the glacier eventually.
This is absolutely typical of Warmista. Real scientists are more interested in their explanations for predictions than in the predictions. Warmista clearly avoid talking about explanations for predictions.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Warmista Climate Science is nothing but hand waving. It is totally empty. You cannot get these people to talk about their scientific hypotheses and that is because they have none. Empty, empty, empty. All hand waving and nothing else.
The claims of doom for the glacier succeeded in getting a lot of Hollywood Stars to trek up the mountain and visit the poor, dying glacier. Sort of a wake for a glacier, I guess. Nothing more moving than watching a glacier’s last gasp. No doubt the Stars gave big bucks to somebody.
Lots of great comments, observations and facts from every one.
But I have to give Jit the super prize for his brilliant time line:
Jit says:
March 21, 2011 at 11:57 am
Forest + Time = Glacier
Forest + People = Desert
Desert + Time = No glacier + No people
No people + Time = Scrub
Scrub + No people + Time = Forest
Forest + Time = Glacier
This truly says it all, Jit deserves a huge grant from Obama, and he has saved us trillions of dollars in research. This is the plain English equivalent of Einstein’s theory of relativity!
Thanks Jit for making today extra memorable.
What’s sad is that the people at the bottom of that glacier could one day run out of water.
Jim Barkers mother for President!
Jeremy said: What is a “Geoscientist” ??
If you are serious, I’ll answer the question. A scientist is a scientist specializing in one or more of the geology-related sciences: geology (petroleum, mining, structural, etc.,) geophysics, geochemistry, paleontology, paleobotany, hydrology, oceanography, geomorphology, vulcanology, meteorology, sedimentology, petrology, and a few others. Even planetary “geologists” are considered to be geoscientists. Atmospheric scientists used to be geoscientists but have been disowned by the geo-fraternity and most geo-sororities.
http://www.agiweb.org/workforce/brochure.html
Read the full article here, give the journalist some props.
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2011/03/snows_of_kilimanjaro_defy_global_warming_predictions.html
That link is not working for me, FYI.
peace
Bad scientists have to accept cupability for their bad science. BUT, it it is peer reviewed, the reviewers have to accept a greater level of culpability, because it was their job to critique the work.
“None of us had much history working on that mountain, and we didn’t understand a lot of the complicated processes on the peak like we imagine we do now.”
Dave Worley says: “Doesn’t anyone care that mosquitos are dying up there?”
Oh, the hematology!
You can put a lab coat on a horse’s ass but underneath it’s still a horse’s ass. AGW boffins are just like that. Mother nature is removing their lab coats and exposing them for what they are. It was bound to happen. Is it boorish to laugh at them?
AGW boffins broke the cardinal rule of pseudo-science – do not make predictions of the near future. Instead create narratives to explain both the distant and recent past and only make predictions that are in the distant future. This is how evolutionists successfully peddle their dogma as science without falling into widespread disrepute. They have a theory that can be made to explain everything in the past but predicts nothing concrete in the future. Some climate boffins realized their mistake of course and hence “global warming” (which was a concrete prediction) morphed into “climate change” (which is not concrete). But then they realized they had still made a mistake because the climate is constantly changing and sometimes it changes for the better. So they switched horses yet again and are now riding one called “climate disruption” which conveys note of fear as it implies non-beneficial climate change. This too will end up being falsified because as time passes we’ll find that there are no more or less climate disruptions, on averae, in the future as there have been observed in the past. The IPCC was clever predicting that global warming was likely to be beneficial until about 2050 when it would go too far. But at that point they’d all be retired or in their graves so they’d effectively dodge accountability if the prediction failed to come true. Lesser minds like Al Gore might have actually held a strong faith that more and more bad weather and climate changes would take place in the near future.
R S Brown
“the Kilimanjaro area of Japan” Where would that be I wonder? May I suggest the tiniest bit of research before you post – Google earth might help.
Thanks to D. King at 12.27 for the stomach-churning cartoon introduced by Ben Santer ‘climate scientist’ at Lawrence Livermore. There is no better illustration of the desperation of the pro-AGW scientific lobby and the depths they will plumb to indoctrinate young people. I wonder what Ben Santer thinks of his part in this disturbing propaganda now?
Al be coming round the mountain
when he comes
He’ll be coming round the mountain
when he comes
Singing ‘ay ay yippee’ ‘Its getting bloody nippy’
he’ll be skiing down that mountain when he comes
EO
So what is the lesson learned by these lesser known scientists? They used football goal posts instead of the more appropriate -and movable- soccer net. Otherwise, these idiots will continue to state the party line -as they did in the article- per Gore’s funding mandate.
And besides, corrections to published research are supposed to be done under fairly clear journalistic guidelines. This one seems decidedly unscientific. Yet another example of this fact: Pal review has murdering peer review.
EternalOptimist says:
March 22, 2011 at 2:49 am
Al be coming round the mountain
when he comes
He’ll be coming round the mountain
when he comes
Singing ‘ay ay yippee’ ‘Its getting bloody nippy’
he’ll be skiing down that mountain when he comes
EO
=
Run with it!
it could be a top seller like the minnesotans song:-)
JDn @ March 21, 2011 at 2:49 pm
and
robt @ March 22, 2011 at 12:42 am
Many thanks for your correction of my comment at
March 21, 2011 at 12:55 pm
Kilimanjaro is not in Japan.
Sadly, I’d been using GoogleEarth earlier in the day to see
the terrain just inland of the eastern shores of Japan.
Duh… the equinox made me do it.
“None of us had much history working on that mountain, and we didn’t understand a lot of the complicated processes on the peak like we do now.”
replace mountain with atmosphere and I think it applies to alot of the so called climate “scientists” of today. Lab rats with no real world experience …