When megawarmist Richard Black of the BBC pans it, you know it’s a problem.
WUWT covered this story earlier, now the crescendo is building on this fancifully exaggerated claim about Greenland melting.
The Times Atlas says:
“for the first time, the new edition of the (atlas) has had to erase 15% of Greenland’s once permanent ice cover – turning an area the size of the United Kingdom and Ireland ‘green’ and ice-free.”
…
“This is concrete evidence of how climate change is altering the face of the planet forever – and doing so at an alarming and accelerating rate.”
The Scott Polar Institute has now weighed in.
The Scott Polar group, which includes director Julian Dowdeswell, says the claim of a 15% loss in just 12 years is wrong.
“Recent satellite images of Greenland make it clear that there are in fact still numerous glaciers and permanent ice cover where the new Times Atlas shows ice-free conditions and the emergence of new lands,” they say in a letter that has been sent to the Times.
“We do not know why this error has occurred, but it is regrettable that the claimed drastic reduction in the extent of ice in Greenland has created headline news around the world.
“There is to our knowledge no support for this claim in the published scientific literature.”
Read the entire article here
Yet another example proving that Global Warming is Message, not Science
Is there a category for “bullsh-t” \?
In Climate Science the prevailing standard only requires that a computer model exists that shows that the region is ice free. Purhaps Trenberth could whip something up to help out here. It should only take a day or two to get it publish. This way, the Times Atlas could avoid having to re-print all the stuff.
BTW, this Dowdeswell guy should resign. He is waaaaay off-message.
/sarc
“The Times Atlas is not owned by The Times newspaper. It is published by Times Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, which is in turn owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.
A spokesperson for HarperCollins said its new map was based on information provided by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).”
One can only surmise that the reason that Black is being sensible is that it indirectly attacks the Murdochs? Forgetting speculation wheres the source for this rubbish of course the NSIDC if they can’t be trusted to get this right can they be trusted to prepare output from data?
For those not familiar NSIDC stand for No Snow Is Due Climatechange and not as stated above.
“There is to our knowledge no support for this claim in the published scientific literature.”
================================================
As recent history shows us, this can be easily rectified. Kev, Andy? Either one of you two want to step up again? Oh, sure people will laugh at you, but they’re still laughing about your last forays into the “scientific literature”, so why not take another couple of hits for the team?
A spokesperson for HarperCollins said its new map was based on information provided by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
What does NSIDC know & whenever did they know it? Concerned netizens want to know. LOL.
“The Times Atlas is not owned by The Times newspaper. It is published by Times Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, which is in turn owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.
A spokesperson for HarperCollins said its new map was based on information provided by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).”
The same NSIDC who tell us about record low arctic sea ice.
Same data?
More for the “remainder” pile
re: “…climate change is altering the face of the planet forever”. Mind the word “forever” in the claim. That’s comical. Does it mean that when climate stops changing (?!), it will never change ever again?
Didn’t they think someone might actually look at a photograph?
A quick Google search does in fact show an extreme difference between the satellite photographs and maps.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sugexp=gsis,i18n%3Dtrue&cp=7&gs_id=q&xhr=t&q=greenland&safe=off&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=1348&bih=541&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi#um=1&hl=en&safe=off&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=greenland+satellite&oq=greenland+sat&aq=0&aqi=g1&aql=&gs_sm=c&gs_upl=30433l45890l2l49474l15l14l1l1l1l0l290l2535l0.6.6l12l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=a3d0e251adf9f3c1&biw=1348&bih=541
yes but further on in the article the Scott Polar Institute get their “please keep the funds rolling in” plea in by stating “….While global warming has played a role in this reduction, it is also as result of the much more accurate data and in-depth research that is now available. Read as a whole, both the press release and the 13th edition of the Atlas make this clear.”
Also, Black gets a sly inference in by saying in his piece “…Many of the institute’s staff are intimately involved in research that documents and analyses the impacts of climate change across the Arctic. As such, they back the contention that rising temperatures are cutting ice cover across the region, including along the fringes of Greenland; but not anything like as fast as the Times Atlas claimed.”
This statement is not from the Polar Institute, it’s out of Black’s poisonous pen but gives weight to the idea that the Institute whole heartedly backs CAGW, where they say nothing of the sort.
However, all told, I did almost fall off my chair when I read the BBC online article, with Black actually reporting on a negative aspect of CAGW reporting. Perhaps as other bloggers have intonated, he knows which side his bread is buttered.
How quickly will a peer reviewed paper be submitted and approved refuting this??
I blame the Danes…..they want to go back and farm Greenland, just like the good old days! (sarc off)
I love the way Richard Black cannot bring himself to actually quote the letter.
RB: But scientists from the Scott Polar Research Institute say the figures are wrong; the ice has not shrunk so much.
RB: As such, they back the contention that rising temperatures are cutting ice cover across the region, including along the fringes of Greenland; but not anything like as fast as the Times Atlas claimed.
SPRI: We do not disagree with the statement that climate is changing and that the Greenland Ice Sheet is affected by this. It is, however, crucial to report climate change and its impact accurately and to back bold statements with concrete and correct evidence.
The volume of ice contained in the Greenland Ice Sheet is approximately 2.9 million cubic kilometers and the current rate whereby ice is lost is roughly 200 cubic kilometers per year. This is on the order of 0.1% by volume over 12 years.
So almost a sixth of Greenland has melted in past 30 years? And if all of Greenland melted it would raise sea levels by say 6.5 metres
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs2-00/?
I think we would have noticed a 1 metre sea level rise by now?
the scott polar institute are obviously anti-science neocons who get money from big oil.
I notice that in the article Mr Black repeats the lie that the Aral Sea is shrinking due to CC.
Even Wikipedia says it is due to the Soviet Union having diverted the rivers that flow into it!!
http://p38assn.org/glacier-girl-recovery.htm
263 Feet of ICE? Since WWII?
I’m still struggling to find the location on the MAP, but I don’t think it is THAT FAR INLAND (or they never would have been rescued.)
Greenland Ice Loss = Myth…category….
Richard Betts on Sept 17 at the Bishop’s site:
I’m not happy. I wrote the climate change section for this Atlas and didn’t say any of that Greenland rubbish!
I have contacted the editors.
David Schofield says:
September 19, 2011 at 10:42 am
> I think we would have noticed a 1 metre sea level rise by now?
You’re assuming constant ice depth across Greenland. If that were the case there would be some really impressive cliffs at the edge of the ice.
BBC still likes being on thin ice as evinced in the article title. Why would they say “Times Atlas ‘wrong’ on Greenland ice” rather than “Times Atlas wrong on Greenland ice?” Why ‘quotation light’ on the word wrong?
I feel compelled to offer congratulations to one Richard Black; I’d given up hope of ever finding the smallest hint of balance in his Earth Watch articles, but this shows I may be wrong.
The Times response to this:
“Well, yes, but if you wait long enough, you will see we were right”.
/sarc
In the title to Black’s article, why is the word “wrong” in scare quotes? What’s wrong with just saying that Times Atlas was “wrong”? Or, conversely, what does it mean to say it was ” ‘wrong’ “? If it was only wrong in a figurative sense, doesn’t this mean that in some essential way it was right? (I think what it really means is that Black finds it difficult to admit that this was an obvious falsehood, so he gets around this with an interesting verbal pirouette.)
So it would appear that there are lies, damned lies and climate change statistics now!
This is a first! For the first time in the history of mankind, the BBC denounces a false claim by warmists ON THE FRONTPAGE! Look before it’s gone:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
I think that this now makes Richard Black of the BBC the leading contented for the job of village idiot.
*Contender
It’s made the Torygraph too.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8774623/Times-Atlas-makes-absurd-claims-about-shrinking-of-Greenland-ice-sheet.html
Amazingly, the piece is written by Louise “barking” Grey. There is this:
“A spokesman for HarperCollins said its new map was based on information provided by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
The spokesman said: “Since The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World 10th Edition, in 1999, we have had to erase 15 per cent of Greenland’s once permanent ice sheet.”
“This is based on information provided by the much respected and widely-cited National Snow and Ice Data Center (Atlas of the Cryosphere, Boulder, Colorado USA). “”
It’s amazing to see how the brainwashing effect of CAGW has gotten to the point where people/institutions see things that aren’t there (or vice versa)…
Wondering – Would this have been n IPCC AR5 ?
It’s getting harder and harder to sell global warming. Look what PETA is up against.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/09/19/peta-porn-site-will-raise-veganism-awareness-peta-says/
“We do not know why this error has occurred”, yeah, I wonder why this could have happened. Very strange indeed.
“This is concrete evidence of how climate change is altering the face of the planet forever”, insanity.
The “…altering the face of the planet forever” comment by the writers of the Atlas is just completely unforgivable. I was astounded when I read this. Just how low can writers drunk on the whole idea of warming actually go to? Incredible.
Richard Black usually writes nothing but warm, warm, warm, so this was indeed quite unusual for him. Perhaps it is indeed a sign of just how badly wrong the Times Atlas got it.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
September 19, 2011 at 10:33 am
“I blame the Danes…..they want to go back and farm Greenland, just like the good old days! (sarc off)”
Hrmm… That was the Norwegians. Denmark stole Greenland from us in the International Court of Justice in Haag, 5. april 1933.
Anthony,
Any chance of asking Dr. Walt Meier or Julienne Stroeve of the NSIDC about the information provided, and how it could have been interpreted so badly?
REPLY: I could, but I’m betting they’d like to steer clear of this mess. – Anthony
. . an addition to the previous post – I should have put Dr. in front of Julienne also ( . .mods, please feel free to add this if you desire . ..
@David Springer: “Is there a category for “bullsh-t” \?”
There should be….I propose Anthony changes his header menu:
http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/7859/unledqip.png
🙂
A clever article by Richard Black from the Pravda perspective. He attacks what cannot be defended – ridiculous alarmist nonsense – and then slips in a few propaganda claims to emphasize that Greenland is still melting. The fact is that it is simply preposterous to even suggest that Greenland ice cover should be stable and unchanging in the first place (chances are, at any time, it is either growing or declining with an extremely low probability that it is, if ever, unchanging).
That people can get away with this kind of deceitful journalism couched as “environmental science” is just part of the reason for the decline of the once strong Western model of democracy. Nearly all news and politics are driven by parasitic interest groups, meanwhile the actual productive elements within our economies, such as industry and small businesses, are bled for all they are worth.
David Schofield says:
September 19, 2011 at 10:42 am
So almost a sixth of Greenland has melted in past 30 years? And if all of Greenland melted it would raise sea levels by say 6.5 metres
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs2-00/?
I think we would have noticed a 1 metre sea level rise by now?
====================================================
Amazing that our USGS would participate in such hyperbole. They don’t mention a possible time-line scenario, nor do they mention the ice is sitting in a bowl. The basin that the ice sits in is 300 meters below sea level. I haven’t done the math, but even if it does melt, much of it will stay right there in Greenland.
“Climate Change causes…”
“Global Warming causes…”
Arrgh!
Of course a changing (warming or cooling) climate causes the migratory bird routes to change, or ice to melt or expand and thicken somewhere, or planting seasons to alter, etc.
Geez.
It always has and it always will. Well, “always” since we humans have been planting seeds and birds have been around to migrate. Most likely ice has been doing what ice does since before we were here to watch it. At least, I strongly suspect it has.
The real question remains: What effect, if any, have we humans had on the changing climate?
One very good answer is:
“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.” (From the Global Warming Petition Project – http://www.petitionproject.org/ )
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/19/times-atlas-wrong-greenland-climate-change?intcmp=122
“But a spokeswoman for Times Atlas defended the 15% figure and the new map. “We are the best there is. We are confident of the data we have used and of the cartography. We use data supplied by the US Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado.”
The latest aerial shots of Greenland on Google Earth (2011) shows the island to be almost completely covered in ice and deep snow, including most of the east coast. The south and south-west coasts have the most land area exposed, but I doubt that more than 15% of the whole country is ice free. Perhaps the WUWT team would kindly confirm.
The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/win-one-of-20-designer-ecoumbrellas-from-wayne-hemingway-2353510.html
“Win one of 20 designer eco-umbrellas from Wayne Hemingway”
JohnWho says: September 19, 2011 at 12:26 pm:
John, I like your petition, but being a Brit I can not sign it . I have a UK petition of my own (http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/2035), but as you are American you can not sign it.
Perhaps thereby lies the problem – CAGW is a scam of GLOBAL proportions. I have no idea if petitions can do any good – only an expert in PR could comment on this – but does anybody here think that a worldwide petition of qualified scientists opposed to the CAGW hypothesis and scaremongering would do any good?
When you believe….
….you really believe
and that goes for the NSIDC too……………
The guardian is nothing more than the print version of the BBC. these two organizations have been conspiring between themselves for decades on telling the people what they want them to hear, not what is actually happening.
Secondly, it is the BBC’s advertising in the Guardian than goes a long way towards keeping it running, even though the guardian is hemorrhaging tens of millions of pounds a year in losses!
Mailman
Looks like even John Vidal at the Guardian has taken back his article. His new article claims that the ice loss, by volumn, is 0.1% in 12 years. At that rate, it would take 12,000 years to lose all of the Greenland ice.
Max – Glacier Girl’s discovery location is shown on her website.
http://p38assn.org/glacier-girl.htm
Don’t these guys do basic order of magnitude checks. The Greenland ice sheet, if melted, would rise the ocean levels about 10m. 15% of that is 1.5m. So, even if we assume that we are talking about areas where the ice thickness is less than the average 2km, certainly, a double check would be in order before one drops this on the media. Or maybe, that’s the whole point. Why spoil the fun.
So, will the BBC/Times Atlas print a retraction?
@Anthony
I remember a blogpost from you in summer 2010
wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/12/greenland-hype-meltdown/ (leading http:// removed)
There’s a link to Godthab Nuuk GISS temperature station.
data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=431042500000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1 (leading http:// removed)
Somehow this graph looks very strange and unreal to me.
I mean, this really, really looks like a manipulation!
What has happened with that station?
Some other stations in Greenland show a similar (lesser) spike, many do not.
There must be something odd here.
I suggest this to be probed at surfacestations.org, if there’s a possibility to do.
Thanks!
(https removed due to filtering here)
In this case, I suspect the reason has more to do with proper editorship than anything else. The word “wrong” is being quoted, and as such has quotation marks. In the article itself, the words “comprehensive” and “most authoritative” (in connection to the Atlas) are also in quotes, because they are being quoted.
It’s much the same as when a headline says, “Marathon runner says he’s ‘tired’ after 300 km run.” They’re not questioning that he’s tired, they’re just pointing out that it’s the marathoner’s determination of his state, not theirs.
Of course, in a situation like this, it can serve a dual function.
Note that Richard Black’s article referred to in this thread does NOT allow comments. Richard Black regularly allows comments on all the articles on his blog but if you comment about the Atlas is “wrong” article he submitted on the main page then the BBC will simply delete your comment as “off-topic”.
In this disingenuous way, the BBC is able to control comments and avoid discussion of volatile subjects that might detract from their propaganda messages. If you look back at RIchard’s reporting history, there are a number of examples where he has done this. To prove a point, the latest article (running concurrently) on Richard Black’s Blog at the BBC re-iterates his usual alarmist claims, it states: “Now, there are voices, some of them at the top of politics, who will tell you that climate change is the biggest threat facing the human race.”
Do you see the magic trick? The smoke and mirrors of deception?
Here in Richard’s left hand is the “wrong” claim that Greenland Ice is collapsing catastrophically. However, watch Richards as he wave a wand, and suddenly in Richard’s right hand we have “climate change is the biggest threat facing the human race.”
The words Huckster, Scam Artist, and Fraudster come to mind. Especially considering his salary is paid for by the taxpayer!!!!
@londo
“Don’t these guys do basic order of magnitude checks.”
Good grief, they are science journalists. They wouldn’t recognise an order of magnitude it it smacked them in the eye, let alone have conception of any distance greater than Epping to London.
All this angst and anguish from the posters here doesn’t alter the fact that the apparently inaccurate story about the loss of ice cover in Greenland has hit the MSM whereas the comments from the Scott Institute will not reach anywhere near the same number of people. In reality the warmists are winning
Richard Black is a relentless AGW parrot who primarily acts as a Greenpeace and UN stenographer. He hasn’t had an original thought or written a properly researched blog in the four years or so I have been reading them.
Presumably he will now use this obvious error as an example of how he presents both sides, even though he doesn’t.
On the bright side, this is yet another attempted lie exposed and one more nail in the AGW coffin in terms of public opinion.
Really. Why would or should anyone believe anything that comes out of that fudge factory anymore?
“Ric Werme says:
September 19, 2011 at 11:05 am
David Schofield says:
September 19, 2011 at 10:42 am
> I think we would have noticed a 1 metre sea level rise by now?
You’re assuming constant ice depth across Greenland. If that were the case there would be some really impressive cliffs at the edge of the ice.”
Ta but I was being sarcastic. I know Joe Public will think losing 15% of the ice is a hell of a lot. When they hear ‘sheet’ it does give the impression of a uniform thickness.
NewScientist is jumping down their throats, too. See http://tiny.cc/qrovk, entitled, “Times Atlas grossly exaggerates Greenland ice loss” ( 21:25 19 September 2011 by Catherine Brahic).
I liked this quote in particular:
I usually don’t jump on the professionalism of the people on the other side of the aisle, but this one is such a doozy, wow, a total screw up.
One question might be:
<.b?"When he published his Hockey Stick paper, why didn't all these people come out, hollering about Michael Mann disappearing the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period?"
This thing isn’t as egregious as that was.
But it is such a lovely screw up, all by its little ol’ lonesome, so let’s enjoy it!
Damage limitation?
First you re-write history…then you re-draw the maps. The Green Guard are getting us ready for their ‘Great Leap Backwards’.
I have repeatedly read the comment about the Greenland ice sitting in a bowl (300 m deep) and that if the ice melted, most of the water would stay in the bowl.
Respectfully, this is incorrect. As the glacier(s) melted there would be massive amounts of melt water runoff, etc. At the same time isostatic rebound would be initiated and the 300 m bowl would disappear. The same argument could have been made for the main North America or European -Asian continental glaciations…… there aren’t any vast 300 m deep intercontinental seas.
In 2004, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA)
“Impacts of a Warming Arctic: Arctic Climate Impact Assessment
ACIA, Impacts of a Warming Arctic: Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. Cambridge
University Press, 2004, http://www.acia.uaf.edu ”
showed two pictures of the ice shield from 1992 and 2002, that should shock
the public and consolidate the climate warming hype.
1992: http://www.klimanotizen.de/assets/images/autogen/a_2004.11.jpg
2002: http://www.klimanotizen.de/assets/images/autogen/a_2004.11_1.jpg
Back to reality…
However, what they deliberately concealed and what Greenland GISP2 ice core
data affirms, the ice shield has been decreased several times in history.
Here are the ten warmest decades since 900 years:
1220-1223:
http://www.klimanotizen.de/assets/images/autogen/a_2004.11_3.jpg
1556:
http://www.klimanotizen.de/assets/images/autogen/a_2004.11_4.jpg
1932-1938
http://www.klimanotizen.de/assets/images/autogen/a_2004.11_2.jpg
(GISP2 source data is available from http://www.bgr.de
(Federal Institute for Geosciences and Resources))
Decade Variation C (mean +/- 5 years)
1932 0,83
1937 0,81
1221 0,81
1220 0,80
1222 0,79
1938 0,76
1556 0,76
1936 0,76
1223 0,74
1933 0,73
In case of AGW, again, it is obvious fact that “useful” information is emphasized and,
– for the same purpose, useless informations were deliberately omitted.
CRS REPLY: Thanks for the correction, I wasn’t aware of the Danish perfidy! From what I’ve read, Greenland is becoming quite the vacation spot, with some comparing it to how the US state of Alaska was, many years ago.
Philip Finck says:
September 19, 2011 at 2:38 pm
I have repeatedly read the comment about the Greenland ice sitting in a bowl (300 m deep) and that if the ice melted, most of the water would stay in the bowl.
Respectfully, this is incorrect. As the glacier(s) melted there would be massive amounts of melt water runoff, etc. At the same time isostatic rebound would be initiated and the 300 m bowl would disappear. The same argument could have been made for the main North America or European -Asian continental glaciations…… there aren’t any vast 300 m deep intercontinental seas.
—
Forgetting about the Great Lakes now, are we?
Ian says (September 19, 2011 at 2:09 pm): In reality the warmists are winning.
Yep. For all the clarity here on WUWT that the global warming is a modern myth and has been comprehensively debunked, the Global Warming Industry still thrives. A horde of bent scientists, activists, windmill scammers and politicians are still on the gravy train whilst soaring energy bills hit the poorest disproportionately. The warmists’ propaganda machine is a riproaring success. Let’s hope for a couple more severe winters: they may bring us to a “tipping point”.
I am surprised that Mr Black has come out on the side of truth and has panned the Times Atlas, quite rightly.
Will he now reply to my email complaining about his treatment of Dr. Spencer.
I got a reply to my complaint to the BBC from Richard Black (RB). He defended his position by further attacking Spencer not for what he says in the paper but for his religious associations. In essence, RB said that he is justified in pointing out Spencer’s religious convictions because these convictions mean that Spencer simply does NOT believe in climate catastrophe.
RB explained that, in a nutshell, Spencer’s religious affiliations share a belief in a God (shock, horror) and that belief includes the confidence that God would not have created an Earth whereby minor amounts of CO2 from human activity could cause a catastrophe. In essence, for non-believers (like me), you could translate Spencer’s beliefs into ‘the Earth environment and ecosystems are generally stable and self correcting and without tendencies towards runaway catastrophe”. A belief which I suspect most rational scientists will share (even if they do not accept that there is any evidence for a God) because of the overwhelming evidence of the stability of the atmosphere throughout geologic time.
RB was definitely trying to discredit Spencer, felt justified in doing so, and confirmed this in writing to me.
The BBC has chosen to do nothing about it (despite a complaint)
Philip Finck says:
September 19, 2011 at 2:38 pm
… there aren’t any vast 300 m deep intercontinental seas.
————–
Hudson Bay, Arctic Archipelago, Baltic Sea, North Sea, Barents Sea, Kara Sea, – all the result of repeated glaciations suppressing the land mass.
Hudson Bay has risen 200 metres and is still an average 100 metres deep.