Guest post by David Middleton
Like a zombie, this island keeps resurrecting itself in the gullible press. Problem is, its been on the maps for 50+ years. From the Guardian yesterday:
New atlas shows extent of climate change
The world’s newest island makes it on to the map as the Arctic Uunartoq Qeqertaq, or Warming Island, is officially recognised
- John Vidal, environment editor
- guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 September 2011
In Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, Greenland has lost around 15% of its ice cover between 10th edition (1999) (left) and 13th edition (2011) (right). Photograph: Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World
If you have never heard of Uunartoq Qeqertaq, it’s possibly because it’s one of the world’s newest islands, appearing in 2006 off the east coast of Greenland, 340 miles north of the Arctic circle when the ice retreated because of global warming. This Thursday the new land – translated from Inuit as Warming Island – was deemed permanent enough by map-makers to be included in a new edition of the most comprehensive atlas in the world…
[…]
Uunartoq Qeqertaq is not a new island. Pat Michaels debunked this particular Warmist myth back in 2008…
March 31, 2008
“Warming Island”—Another Global Warming Myth Exposed
In our continuing theme of exposing ill-founded global warming alarmist stories (see here and here for our most recent debunkings), we’ll examine the much touted discovery of “Warming Island”—a small piece of land that has been “long thought to be part of Greenland’s mainland”—but that turns out to have been known to be an island back in the early 1950s.
Another good story out the window.
As was the case of the previous two scare stories we examined that turned out to be untrue (global warming leading to amphibian decline in Central and South America, and the Inuit language lacking a word for ‘robin’), the story of “Warming Island” was also prominently featured in the New York Times. On January 17, 2007, The Times dedicated an article to “The Warming of Greenland” and described the recent “discovery” of islands that were exposed as such when the ice connecting them to the mainland melted away.
[…]
Uunartoq Qeqertaq was already an island back in 1957…
Figure 5. The map from the Preface of Hofer’s Arctic Riviera, zooming in to show the existence of “Warming Island” and its characteristic three-fingered shape (source: Arctic Riviera).
So now it needs a name change.
I suggest Liars’ Island.
I’ll note that there was a reply to Michaels in the New York Times (http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/arctic-explorer-rebuts-critique-of-warming-island/?pagemode=print), although this particular island is not really all that meaningful one way or another.
The 15% ice cover loss in the last 12 years is a rather more interesting data point.
Wait a few years and it will get covered again… and then they will need to change the name to Cooling Island.
Oh wait… maybe they should call it Climate Change Island or better yet… Climate Disruption Island. Or just simply, Al Goreland.
Who are you going to believe, the New York Times, or your lying eyes!?
Warming Island?? I like it! Every time it warms up a little bit, enough ice melts to ‘reveal’ it as an island. When the ice thickens, people forget that it is an island and assume it is part of the snow/ice covered mainland. Maybe it should have been named “Peek-A-Boo” Island??!!
Why let the truth get in the wasy of a good scare :o)
Based on “its characteristic three-fingered shape”, I reckon Middle Finger Island would do.
“The 15% ice cover loss in the last 12 years is a rather more interesting data point.”
So how much ice loss was there in the years 1925 – 1937? How much grew back from 1940 – 1975? Or how much ice cover loss was there the last time that this unknown Island was uncovered? I think that these would make equally as good data points.
Clearly the inconvenient truth is that the ice one the edges of Greenland has retreated and regrown many many times and this Island’s uncovering has happened many times in the past.
You should take a look at the wikipedia page for Warming Island. As part of the article they have this picture incorporating a couple of overhead views from different years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Warming_Island_USGS_Landsat.jpg
The picture shows very clearly that in 1985 the island was attached to the mainland via an extensive ice sheet, but in 2002 there was only a narrow strip of ice connecting it, and in 2005 it was a separate island. Just don’t look too close at the dates: the 1985 photo was taken nearly a month earlier in the year than either of the other two.
So some fellow with very little to recommend him for better pursuits in this world got his 15 minutes in the NYT by the age-old practice of “making crap up” and yet now, four years after he was demonstrated to have been just Fofanov we get to rehear all of this garbage as though it magically became true somehow, purely by the passage of a little time?
I’m sorry, if we don’t start actually jailing these people they’ll never stop this stupidity.
Next Looming Catastrophe…
Warming Island Flooded as Sea Level Rises
…the island that wasn’t is soon won’t be.
Can the Aliens Save It?
Reminds me of the arrival of a bird that had no name in the Inuit language being proof that the northern climes had warmed. Whoever wrote about it never bothered looking in the Inuit dictionary compiled early in the 20thC. All three of the Inuit languages had a name for the particular bird.
“This Thursday the new land – translated from Inuit as Warming Island – was deemed permanent enough by map-makers to be included in a new edition of the most comprehensive atlas in the world”
Read that sentence. The island has been given a name and included in the atlas becasue it is now “deemed permanent enough” to warrant it – beause of loss of ice. They are not saying it had never been seen to be separate from the mainland, though they do say it didn’t appear on earlier maps (not sketches).
But as KR pointed out, “The 15% ice cover loss in the last 12 years is a rather more interesting data point”. And Ray, there is not one shred of evidence that it is coming back any time soon.
Lots of places used to be covered by ice. Isn’t it time we realised that’s what ICE AGES do?
Or are the warmists really stupid enough to believe a new ICE AGE would be a good thing?
We are probably towards the end of a warming period, get over it!
KR says:
September 16, 2011 at 3:20 pm
The 15% ice cover loss in the last 12 years is a rather more interesting data point.
______________________________________________________________________
I’ll say.
Thousands of the worlds top climate scientists scouring the globe in an effort to find evidence of AGW, and the only person to notice that Greenland has lost 15% of its ice cover is a humble map-maker…..
Don’t buy a house there 😉
Nothing to do with Global Warming, and everything to do with receding and surging ice. I bet when winter sets in it will disappear again.
Reminds me of a island in the Pacific, ( can’t remember the name for the life of me, ) that would reappear and disappear every 80-100 years or so due to underwater volcanic eruptions. The island even had a small village on it at some point, but it didn’t last long.
I always enjoy David Middleton’s articles. This is another good one.
The planet has been warming at more or less the same rate since the LIA, therefore it is reasonable to conclude that glaciers should continue to recede, and ice will melt. But sea levels are not rising at an accelerated rate, nor are global temperatures. So this is just arm-waving propaganda over a conveniently named island. When it re-freezes, we can change the name to “Cooling Peninsula.”
DJ says:
September 16, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Next Looming Catastrophe…
Warming Island Flooded as Sea Level Rises
———————-
Oddly enough, the opposite will happen. As the ice sheet melts, the land will rise due to losing the weight of the ice and the local sea level will fall due to the reduced local gravity (the gravitation pull of the ice sheet keeps local sea level higher than it would otherwise be). Strange but true! And independent of what you or I might think about the causes of global warming.
they’re trying really hard to restock their icons, having lost the pachauri glacier, the polar bear and vanuatu.
‘warming island’ is a bid to replace vanuatu + kilimanjaro, obviously.
they’re all over walruses now- but kids don’t take teddy-walrus to bed, so it’s not going to be anywhere near as mojo juicy.
i think the sceptics should take that polar bear and have him write the real estate dealers in vanuatu and see if he can find beachfront for less than 1/4 million – business must be pretty good out there, to judge by the listings.
Theo the WUWT bear – i put my signature on any petition for that!
AKA Brigadoon.
As I recall, Michael’s book “Climate of Extremes,” has a lovely, rare, photograph of “Warming Island” in the moonrise on the horizon. Dated from the 1910s.
“Peek A-Boo” Island, indeed.
John B says:
September 16, 2011 at 5:37 pm
DJ says:
September 16, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Next Looming Catastrophe…
Warming Island Flooded as Sea Level Rises
———————-
Oddly enough, the opposite will happen. As the ice sheet melts, the land will rise due to losing the weight of the ice and the local sea level will fall due to the reduced local gravity (the gravitation pull of the ice sheet keeps local sea level higher than it would otherwise be). Strange but true! And independent of what you or I might think about the causes of global warming.
———————-
Really? That sure is strange. You seem to know everything.
So, Greenland lost about 15% of it’s ice cover between 1999 and 2011. In that 12 years we gained about an inch and a quarter of sea level. So, if that 15% figure is true, then Greenland could lose all of its ice cover and we would only gain around 8 inches of sea level rise. Either we have nothing to fear from all of the Greenland ice melting or the 15% number is pure BS.
Tilo Reber
See http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs2-00/ – if all of Greenland melted we would see 6.5 meters of sea level rise. The 15% is obviously from the thinner snow/ice at the edges of the island.
It does mean that ice is being replaced by darker ground in terms of albedo, though, which is not good.