Throwback Thursday #2 – Al Gore's Arctic Facepalm Forecast

This is #2 in an ongoing series of serial forecast failures (that need to be thrown back in their faces) by climate alarmists and their helpers, the mainstream media. Here, USA Today  helped Al Gore make a forecast about Arctic sea ice that had no chance of ever being right. Of course, this was in 2009 at COP15 in Copenhagen, considered by many leaders to be the “last chance” for planet Earth.

Gore-Arctic-ice-gone-2014

Source: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2009/12/gore-new-study-sees-nearly-ice-free-arctic-summer-ice-cap-as-early-as-2014/1#.VbDxe9JVhBc

And, the Arctic ice is still there:

N_bm_extent[1]

It didn’t disappear in 2014, and in fact it appears to not be all that much different from 2009 around the time of the peak summer melt in mid-September:

Arctic-sea-ice-sep-2009-2014

Source: http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=09&fd=15&fy=2009&sm=09&sd=15&sy=2014

The result of this failed forecast:

al_gore_facepalm_reuters[1]

See other Throwback Thursday failed predictions here

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nigelf
July 23, 2015 7:13 am

Yep, the failed doomsday prophesies just keep coming. Hansen keeps adding to them as well.
How anyone can believe any of this nonsense is a testament to our easy lifestyle and failure to use common sense.

goldminor
Reply to  Paul Bell
July 23, 2015 8:25 am

Yes, but it is a warmer ice than normal.

Neo
Reply to  goldminor
July 23, 2015 9:01 am

… and probably “rotten”

Bart
Reply to  goldminor
July 23, 2015 10:28 am

Yes, the measurements were 0 deg, 0.001 deg, 0.0012 deg, 0.0011 deg. Granted, our instruments cannot measure to better than 0.01 deg, but there is an unmistakable upward trend of 0.00035 degC/sample.

Ted G
Reply to  goldminor
July 23, 2015 1:48 pm

No silly, it’s Styrofoam chunklets made by Koch brothers, another evil skeptics trick!

MarkW
Reply to  goldminor
July 23, 2015 4:33 pm

They can’t measure better than 0.01C in a laboratory environment with regular calibration.
In the field … not so much.

rabbit
July 23, 2015 7:22 am

You misunderstood. Gore didn’t say arctic ice would disappear, or even might disappear. He said it may disappear, meaning it had Gore’s permission to do so if it wished.

Reply to  rabbit
July 23, 2015 8:39 am

Dammit. I hate it when you’re right.

toorightmate
Reply to  Jack Mayhoffer
July 23, 2015 5:30 pm

Why are we attempting to defend the bloody idiot.

Hugh
Reply to  rabbit
July 23, 2015 8:48 am

lolz. Headline:
‘OCEANS MAY BOIL DRY BEFORE 2200’
‘Nobel-winning’ Al Gore gives permission for seas to take the Venusian way.

Another Scott
Reply to  rabbit
July 23, 2015 2:16 pm

Let’s look at his exact statement: “New computer modeling suggest the Arctic Ocean may be nearly ice-free in Summer as early as 2014″ It is so loaded with vague qualifiers it could be true at this very moment no matter how much ice there is in the Arctic Ocean.

Auto
Reply to  Another Scott
July 23, 2015 2:39 pm

Another Scott
Agreed.
Absolutely.
But was the intention to have those – unashamed – qualifiers bruited?
Or was it meant to be understood as:
New computer modelling means the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free in Summer no later than as 2014 (and winter by 2016 at the very latest) as a bracketty undertone.
Or am I just a pico-tad cynical? Huh?
Auto

MarkW
Reply to  Another Scott
July 23, 2015 4:34 pm

Auto, you are definitely cynical. Unfortunately in the present environment, that is the correct position to be taking.

Janice the Elder
Reply to  Another Scott
July 23, 2015 8:27 pm

We could try putting in those qualifiers with a statement from An Inconvenient Truth: “If we fail to act, it is suggested that the World may be nearly on fire in Summer as early as 2014″. Hmm. This could be a fun game.

JB
Reply to  rabbit
July 25, 2015 2:49 pm

Do you think that Al Gore may one day, disappear?

aco Joe
July 23, 2015 7:28 am

Off topic, but Lubos Motl has a very interesting post concerning false postings by John Cook.

Harry Passfield
Reply to  aco Joe
July 23, 2015 8:53 am
Taco Joe
Reply to  Harry Passfield
July 23, 2015 11:42 am

Thanks Harry, I assumed readers were familiar with Lubos.

Alan Robertson
Reply to  aco Joe
July 23, 2015 8:55 am

kinda stinky
without a linky

Alan Robertson
Reply to  Alan Robertson
July 23, 2015 8:56 am

ne’er mind

Reply to  aco Joe
July 23, 2015 10:12 am

This needs a LOT more exposure.

Harry Passfield
Reply to  verdeviewer
July 23, 2015 12:03 pm

It’s getting it now…..

Scott
July 23, 2015 7:33 am

Well at least the computer modelers who made the projections were fired, right? I can’t imagine anyone who blew that forecast so bad would have continued employment, unless the point of the forecast was not accuracy but political talking points, in which case the computer modelers did exactly what they were expected to do.

Reply to  Scott
July 23, 2015 8:40 am

Of course they didn’t get fired… it’s their job. They are the writers of Mad Magazine.

Oswald Thake
Reply to  Jack Mayhoffer
July 24, 2015 7:02 am

That’s a massive insult to the writers and cartoonists of a revered publication!
(Cartoonists…wonder if Cookie could get a job there?)

Reply to  Scott
July 23, 2015 9:10 am

They weren’t fired because they are not meteorologists. When a meteorologist is wrong again and again, he is sacked. When a climatologist is wrong again and again, he is promoted.

Scott
Reply to  alexwade
July 23, 2015 10:59 am

When a reputable guy like Joe Bastardi is off or wrong with a forecast, at least we get an explanation. Is it too much to ask for an explanation? An examination into what went wrong is how we get better. Sure would be nice to get an explanation about what went wrong with the ice free Arctic prediction. Maybe there is a teachable moment here, something to be learned. Unfortunately there is no intent to “get better” and more accurate with the global warming climate modelers, we don’t get explanations or teachable moments, we get nothing, except more lines of propaganda to swallow, no questions allowed.

tom s
Reply to  alexwade
July 23, 2015 11:43 am

I wrote WADHAM’s again this year about his prediction of ice-free arctic in 2015. He actually responded with a snark last year saying…IT ISN’T 2015 YET…to which I replied, Fine…I’ll wait. I just sent him a reminder….he has not replied. Idiot.

DontGetOutMuch
July 23, 2015 7:33 am

Could you do James Hansen’s New York underwater by 2008 please. He is back in the news, still predicting New York will go under…

Reply to  DontGetOutMuch
July 23, 2015 3:26 pm

Hansen claims that the reporter didn’t quote him properly. The reporter claims that he reviewed his notes and that, magically, Hansen is right – he wasn’t quoted properly. What’s funny is that Hansen never complained until after his prediction failed. I think the corrected quote only gave him a 10 year extension – which means that the predication still fails in 2018 (because there’s no chance that the West Side Highway will be underwater by then) – I think.
But I agree that this prediction should be revisited.

July 23, 2015 7:33 am

‘new computer modeling’….this worked so magnificently for IPCC in the lat 25 years; can’t wait until the ‘newer’ modeling surfaces.
The models employed by the Federal Reserve work so efficiently that the 2001 market fall completely took Greenspan by surprise and ditto for the 2007 plunge was missed by Bernanke.

Clif Westin
Reply to  kokoda
July 23, 2015 10:29 am

With Greenspan, remember his “irrational exuberance speech?” Same with Bernanke. They both saw it, predicted it and warned about it….. In reality, some models do work. The ones that are vetted and show a correlation to reality:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_exuberance

Patrick Bols
July 23, 2015 7:45 am

level in the Great Lakes is up 3-4 ft as I heard this morning. Reason is increased precipitation, snowfall, cold because of these darn polar vortexes. The root cause of all these strange wether phenomena is of course: global warming.

Mark from the Midwest
Reply to  Patrick Bols
July 23, 2015 8:22 am

Levels were pretty low a few years ago and they’re up 30-36 inches from the lows, which puts them above average, But fairly cold water temps for this time of year, which will, likely, lead to more ice next winter
http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/data/now/wlevels/levels.html
and ….
http://www.coastwatch.msu.edu/michigan/m2.html
Having a family residence in Northern Michigan for 139 years I can tell you that this kind of cyclical stuff is pretty normal, The only man-made tragedy up here are those pseudo-estates at Bay Harbor

John M
Reply to  Patrick Bols
July 23, 2015 9:46 am

Great Lakes levels were going to rise as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow. It’s just that the recovery is…unprecedented!
Remember when rising temperatures seemed to be “working”? For a while there was a “nice” surge in Hurricanes. Then it was polar ice.
Now, you’ve got to bear in mind the tactics of the New Activism: I’ve got just one word for you—extremes.

Winnipeg Boy
Reply to  John M
July 23, 2015 2:05 pm

It takes a long time to get dry, and a very short time to get wet.
Water levels rose 3 feet in 2 years. That is on pace for 150 feet per century right?
Only a moron would extrapolate a long term cyclical phenomenon on a short term basis. Yet we pay billions to people who do just that.

Scott
Reply to  Patrick Bols
July 24, 2015 5:22 am

They spend a lot of money dredging out my Lake Michigan harbor this spring because of the low water conditions 2 years ago. No one ever said government spending was efficient.

Tom in Florida
July 23, 2015 7:46 am

Love the new Throwback Thursday feature. It alone is worth the price of admission 🙂

Tom in Florida
Reply to  Bubba Cow
July 23, 2015 2:17 pm

will do again, et tu brute?

Ancient Mariner
July 23, 2015 7:49 am

My all-time favourite is Hansen’s boiling oceans prophecy. That alone should have discredited him forever. Why didn’t it?

Barbara
Reply to  Ancient Mariner
July 23, 2015 10:43 am

He serves the political and other interests to the Washington well connected.
The media knows that what they publish is difficult to prove when it comes to climate science. Can’t prove the future.

July 23, 2015 8:14 am

Here are the facts: the Arctic WILL be ice free this summer. A scientist says so…
https://climatesanity.wordpress.com/2015/05/09/definition-barber-event/

Reply to  Tom Moriarty
July 23, 2015 12:59 pm

The Arctic is ice-free now: if you can get there, you can get all the ice you want for $0.00.
Offer limited to one gigaton of ice per customer; customer must arrive in rowboat; whiskey not included; consuming arctic ice mixed with whisky is known to the State of California to cause cancer in laboratory animals and is not recommended for pregnant women or women who may become pregnant; the effects of consuming arctic ice with whiskey on pregnant men or men who may become pregnant are not known, but a court decision is expected shortly; void where prohibited by law; mandatory where not prohibited by law. Ask your doctor if arctic ice is right for you.

North of 43 and south of 44
Reply to  Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7
July 23, 2015 5:56 pm

You left out the missive about being in or from areas where fungal infections are frequent or common.

rah
July 23, 2015 8:18 am

I would suspect that if every week you highlighted one “expert” or politician who made a forecast similar to Gore’s or reiterated such a forecast as being authoritative there would not be enough weeks in the year to cover them all.

Sun Spot
July 23, 2015 8:25 am

Love throw back Thursday’s, hilarious +1

Curious George
July 23, 2015 8:37 am

Inertia: Lying once started is hard to stop.

The Original Mike M
Reply to  Curious George
July 23, 2015 6:41 pm

Truths are facts honest people can freely forget. Lies are burdens dishonest people are forced to remember their entire life … maybe longer.

July 23, 2015 8:38 am

I think Al has finally beaten out Curly as my favorite Stooge.

The Original Mike M
Reply to  Jack Mayhoffer
July 23, 2015 6:45 pm

No way never… Moe, Larry, CHEESE!

Dawtgtomis
Reply to  The Original Mike M
July 23, 2015 7:37 pm

Check out curly’s advice for Al

July 23, 2015 9:11 am

Facepalm? I thought that was something to do with cardsharping.

William Astley
July 23, 2015 9:19 am

Record sea ice for every month of the year in the Antarctic. http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
Sudden increase in ice mass on the Greenland ice sheet. Sudden increase in multi year sea ice in the Arctic. http://beta.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/
If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and quacks, it’s a duck. Yup the planet is cooling.
The cult of CAGW will very shortly require a plan to B to explain why the planet is abruptly cooling which should be impossible based on what they have spent the last 30 years telling us, blah, blah, blah, ….
Unequivocal significant planetary cooling, is only possible if there are one or more fundamental errors in the cult of CAGW’s surface warming calculations and if the majority of the surface warming in the last 30 years was due to solar cycle change modulation of planetary cloud cover, rather than the increase in atmospheric CO2.
The cult of CAGW’s no feedback calculation for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 which is the foundation of CAGW, fixed the lap rate for the calculation and ignored the fact that the absorption spectrum of water and CO2 overlap. There is no scientific basis for either assumption however both are necessary to create any significant surface warming. The so called ‘no feedback’ calculation determined the forcing for a doubling of CO2 is 4 watts/meter^2 which was later changed to 3.7 watts/meter^2.
Question: How does taking into account reality/physics facts affect the doubling of the atmospheric CO2 calculation? Do you remember Al Gore’s analogy of millions of tiny light bulbs heating the surface of the earth?
Effect of correcting Cult of CAGW’s known calculation errors for the no ‘feedbacks’ double atmospheric CO2 forcing case
1) Effect of surface warming if the fact that the Absorption spectrum of CO2 and water overlap is not ignored. As there is a great deal of water vapor lower in the lower regions of the atmosphere, particularly in the tropics (no surprise 70% of the earth is covered with water), there is a significant reduction in surface warming due to the CO2/water absorption spectrum overlap.
Redoing the double atmospheric CO2 level, no feedback calculation with an atmospheric model that takes into account the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere and the radiation effects of water/CO2 absorption overlap reduces the surface forcing for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from 3.7 watts/meter^2 to 1.1 watts/meter^2 ( reduction in surface forcing of a factor of four, see figure 2 in the linked to paper). The 1.1 watts/meter^2 increase in forcing will result in surface warming of ball park 0.1C to 0.2C which is so small, the no feedback case is the same as with feedback case.
(Check out figure 2 in this paper.)
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0469%281982%29039%3C2923%3ARHDTIC%3E2.0.CO%3B2

Radiative Heating Due to Increased CO2: The Role of H2O Continuum Absorption in the 18 mm region
In the 18 mm region, the CO2 bands (William: CO2 spectral absorption band) are overlapped by the H2O pure rotational band and the H2O continuum band. The 12-18 mm H2O continuum absorption is neglected in most studies concerned with the climate effects of increased CO2.

2) Effect of surface warming if the fact that Greenhouse gases cause an increase in convection cooling is not ignored. It is a fact that greenhouse gases increase the lap rate (hot air rises and hot air rising must be balanced by colder higher elevation air falling, convection cooling dominates up to 20 km).
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.ca/2015/07/collapse-of-agw-theory-of-ipcc-most.html
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B74u5vgGLaWoOEJhcUZBNzFBd3M/view?pli=1

Collapse of the Anthropogenic Warming Theory of the IPCC

4. Conclusions
In physical reality, the surface climate sensitivity is 0.1~0.2K from the energy budget of the earth and the surface radiative forcing of 1.1W.m2 for 2xCO2. Since there is no positive feedback from water vapor and ice albedo at the surface, the zero feedback climate sensitivity CS (FAH) is also 0.1~0.2K. A 1K warming occurs in responding to the radiative forcing of 3.7W/m2 for 2xCO2 at the effective radiation height of 5km. This gives the slightly reduced lapse rate of 6.3K/km from 6.5K/km as shown in Fig.2.

The modern anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory began from the one dimensional radiative convective equilibrium model (1DRCM) studies with the fixed absolute and relative humidity utilizing the fixed lapse rate assumption of 6.5K/km (FLRA) for 1xCO2 and 2xCO2 [Manabe & Strickler, 1964; Manabe & Wetherald, 1967; Hansen et al., 1981]. Table 1 shows the obtained climate sensitivities for 2xCO2 in these studies, in which the climate sensitivity with the fixed absolute humidity CS (FAH) is 1.2~1.3K [Hansen et al., 1984].
In the 1DRCM studies, the most basic assumption is the fixed lapse rate of 6.5K/km for 1xCO2 and 2xCO2. The lapse rate of 6.5K/km is defined for 1xCO2 in the U.S. Standard Atmosphere (1962) [Ramanathan & Coakley, 1978]. There is no guarantee, however, for the same lapse rate maintained in the perturbed atmosphere with 2xCO2 [Chylek & Kiehl, 1981; Sinha, 1995]. Therefore, the lapse rate for 2xCO2 is a parameter requiring a sensitivity analysis as shown in Fig.1.

The solar cycle has been interrupted, this is a big deal. The public and media will of course notice that the current abrupt change to the sun correlates with current abrupt cooling.
In addition to abrupt cooling which will be fun to talk about, the explanation of what is happening to the sun will result in the most important scientific discovery of the last 70 years. Comparable to the discovery of nuclear energy or quantum physics.
This is the solar so called gray scale display which enable one to see tiny sunspots that are no longer visible with broad spectrum.
http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/assets/img/latest/latest_4096_HMII.jpg

Reply to  William Astley
July 23, 2015 9:31 pm

The clearest evidence that the Church of CAGW high priests know their orthodoxy is in trouble is by the Karl et al, 2015 Science paper vainly trying to create some (any) warming for 18 years of rising CO2.

John M
July 23, 2015 9:41 am

Poor Al made the mistake of prognosticating a testable event. The “new and improved” politicians now know to blame the World’s terrorists on climate change, which is not only non-testable, but only discussable in the realm of foreign policy and political analysis…an area that’s so fuzzy and nebulous that you can claim virtually anything, which folks are happy to do.

July 23, 2015 10:10 am

AGW theory is in the process of being proven wrong on every single prediction they have foolishly made.

knr
Reply to  Salvatore Del Prete
July 23, 2015 12:45 pm

To be fair they have started to make their predictions for so far in the future that they will not be around to be reminded of their claims when they fail . Now I wonder why that is ?

RD
July 23, 2015 10:18 am

Nice work hanging Gore from his own petard.

Bruce Cobb
Reply to  RD
July 23, 2015 11:43 am

Yes, I just wish we didn’thave to look at his ugly puss.

Brian S
July 23, 2015 10:19 am

Seeing that fat, flabby face reminds me to ask: Has anyone made an estimate of the ‘negative carbon footprint’ attributable to each one of us, and the ever increasing billions of inhabitants of Planet Earth? Even a wattle-and-daub hut has wooden supports, a thatched roof and contains wooden furniture. How much carbon is sequestered, on average, by each new addition to Earth’s population? If CO2 actually were a problem the population explosion would seem to me to be counteracting it quite significantly.

MikeB
July 23, 2015 11:42 am

2014 seems to be a very cautious estimate from Al Gore in the light of even more alarming predictions.
How about a prediction of ice-free by 2000

Arctic Ocean to be ice free by Year 2000, by Bernt Balchen (who is recognised as a leading specialist on the Arctic) – He also says that the Northern USA would be 20 to 25 degrees warmer than it is now.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zmI0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=L5wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5376,3200988&dq=ice+free+arctic&hl=en

0r 2008

“It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year” (Steve Connor ‘Science Editor’, The Independent 2008)
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-scientists-warn-that-there-may-be-no-ice-at-north-pole-this-summer-855406.html

or 2012

Arctic Sea Ice Gone in Summer Within Five Years? (National Geographic, 2007)
“After reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: “At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions.”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071212-AP-arctic-melt.html

or 2013

Arctic summers ice-free ‘by 2013’ (BBC 2007)
“Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007……So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7139797.stm

And, whilst we are laughing, the best of all…

LONDON ON THE BORDER OF DESTRUCTION. To Be Wipel Out by a Huge Wave. According to a recent theory of some geologists…..due to break up of Antarctic ice cap (1901)
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/64027823#pstart6133478

So, the moral of this story is: Don’t lose too much sleep on end-of-the-world scare stories.

Two Labs
July 23, 2015 12:12 pm

Technically, he said “may.” Watch their language- that’s how these tools succeed in scaring people “to action” (read: to support handing more of their social power to goverments).

Bruce Cobb
July 23, 2015 12:22 pm

Pigs may fly by 2020.

July 23, 2015 12:27 pm

While we are compiling, let’s not forget Vicky Pope:

Reply to  The Ghost Of Big Jim Cooley
July 23, 2015 5:38 pm

Interesting comment at 1::35

It’s quite difficult to disentangle natural variations from climate change

Obviously using the IPCC definition of climate change, being unnatural and caused by humans.

Catcracking
Reply to  The Ghost Of Big Jim Cooley
July 23, 2015 11:06 pm

Thanks for the Video, I found myself laughing at the fool making failed prediction after failed prediction. It is hilarious.
Hopefully she no longer has a job and is no longer filling British subjects with such drivel.