Regular WUWT readers know of the issues related to Arctic Sea Ice that we have routinely followed here. The Arctic sea ice trend is regularly used as tool to hammer public opinion, often recklessly and without any merit to the claims. The most egregious of these claims was the April of 2008 pronouncement by National Snow and Ice Data Center scientist Dr. Mark Serreze of an ice free north pole in 2008. It got very wide press. It also never came true.
To my knowledge, no retractions were printed by news outlets that carried his sensationally erroneous claim.
A few months later in August, when it was clear his first prediction would not come true, and apparently having learned nothing from his first incident (except maybe that the mainstream press is amazingly gullible when it comes to science) Serreze made another outlandish statement of “Arctic ice is in its death spiral” and” The Arctic could be free of summer ice by 2030″. In my opinion, Serreze uttered perhaps the most irresponsible news statements about climate second only to Jim Hansen’s “death trains” fiasco. I hope somebody at NSIDC will have the good sense to reel in their loose cannon for the coming year.
Not to be outdone, in December Al Gore also got on the ice free bandwagon with his own zinger saying on video that the “entire north polar ice cap will be gone within 5 years“. There’s a countdown watch on that one.
So it was with a bit of surprise that we witnessed the wailing and gnashing of teeth from a number of bloggers and news outlets when in his February 15th column, George Will, citing a Daily Tech column by Mike Asher, repeated a comparison of 1979 sea ice levels to present day. He wrote:
As global levels of sea ice declined last year, many experts said this was evidence of man-made global warming. Since September, however, the increase in sea ice has been the fastest change, either up or down, since 1979, when satellite record-keeping began. According to the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.
The outrage was immediate and widespread. Media Matters: George Will spreads falsehoods Discover Magazine: George Will: Liberated From the Burden of Fact-Checking Climate Progress: Is George Will the most ignorant national columnist? One Blue Marble Blog: Double Dumb Ass Award: George Will George Monbiot in the Guardian: George Will’s climate howlers and Huffington Post: Will-fully wrong
They rushed to stamp out the threat with an “anything goes” publishing mentality. There was lots of piling on by secondary bloggers and pundits.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I got interested in what was going on with odd downward jumps in the NSIDC Arctic sea ice graph, posting on Monday February 16th NSIDC makes a big sea ice extent jump – but why? Then when I was told in comments by NSIDC’s Walt Meier that the issue was “not worth blogging about” I countered with Errors in publicly presented data – Worth blogging about?
It soon became clear what had happened. There was a sensor failure, a big one, and both NSIDC and Cryosphere today missed it. The failure caused Arctic sea ice to be underestimated by 500,000 square kilometers by the time Will’s column was published. Ooops, that’s a Murphy Moment.
So it is with some pleasure that today I offer you George Will’s excellent rebuttal to the unapologetic trashing of his column . The question now is, will those same people take on Dr. Mark Serreze and Al Gore for their irresponsible proclamations this past year? Probably not. Will Serreze shoot his mouth off again this year when being asked by the press what the summer ice season will bring? Probably, but one can always hope he and others have learned something, anything, from this debacle.
Let us hope that cooler heads prevail.
By George F. Will, Washington Post
Friday, February 27, 2009; A17
Few phenomena generate as much heat as disputes about current orthodoxies concerning global warming. This column recently reported and commented on some developments pertinent to the debate about whether global warming is occurring and what can and should be done. That column, which expressed skepticism about some emphatic proclamations by the alarmed, took a stroll down memory lane, through the debris of 1970s predictions about the near certainty of calamitous global cooling.
Concerning those predictions, the New York Times was — as it is today in a contrary crusade — a megaphone for the alarmed, as when (May 21, 1975) it reported that “a major cooling of the climate” was “widely considered inevitable” because it was “well established” that the Northern Hemisphere’s climate “has been getting cooler since about 1950.” Now the Times, a trumpet that never sounds retreat in today’s war against warming, has afforded this column an opportunity to revisit another facet of this subject — meretricious journalism in the service of dubious certitudes.
On Wednesday, the Times carried a “news analysis” — a story in the paper’s news section, but one that was not just reporting news — accusing Al Gore and this columnist of inaccuracies. Gore can speak for himself. So can this columnist.
Reporter Andrew Revkin’s story was headlined: “In Debate on Climate Change, Exaggeration Is a Common Pitfall.” Regarding exaggeration, the Times knows whereof it speaks, especially when it revisits, if it ever does, its reporting on the global cooling scare of the 1970s, and its reporting and editorializing — sometimes a distinction without a difference — concerning today’s climate controversies.
Which returns us to Revkin. In a story ostensibly about journalism, he simply asserts — how does he know this? — that the last decade, which passed without warming, was just “a pause in warming.” His attempt to contact this writer was an e-mail sent at 5:47 p.m., a few hours before the Times began printing his story, which was not so time-sensitive — it concerned controversies already many days running — that it had to appear the next day. But Revkin reported that “experts said” this columnist’s intervention in the climate debate was “riddled with” inaccuracies. Revkin’s supposed experts might exist and might have expertise but they do not have names that Revkin wished to divulge.
As for the anonymous scientists’ unspecified claims about the column’s supposedly myriad inaccuracies: The column contained many factual assertions but only one has been challenged. The challenge is mistaken.
Citing data from the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, as interpreted on Jan. 1 by Daily Tech, a technology and science news blog, the column said that since September “the increase in sea ice has been the fastest change, either up or down, since 1979, when satellite record-keeping began.” According to the center, global sea ice levels at the end of 2008 were “near or slightly lower than” those of 1979. The center generally does not make its statistics available, but in a Jan. 12 statement the center confirmed that global sea ice levels were within a difference of less than 3 percent of the 1980 level.
So the column accurately reported what the center had reported. But on Feb. 15, the Sunday the column appeared, the center, then receiving many e-mail inquiries, issued a statement saying “we do not know where George Will is getting his information.” The answer was: From the center, via Daily Tech. Consult the center’s Web site where, on Jan. 12, the center posted the confirmation of the data that this column subsequently reported accurately.
The scientists at the Illinois center offer their statistics with responsible caveats germane to margins of error in measurements and precise seasonal comparisons of year-on-year estimates of global sea ice. Nowadays, however, scientists often find themselves enveloped in furies triggered by any expression of skepticism about the global warming consensus (which will prevail until a diametrically different consensus comes along; see the 1970s) in the media-environmental complex. Concerning which:
On Feb. 18 the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that from early January until the middle of this month, a defective performance by satellite monitors that measure sea ice caused an underestimation of the extent of Arctic sea ice by 193,000 square miles, which is approximately the size of California. The Times (“All the news that’s fit to print”), which as of this writing had not printed that story, should unleash Revkin and his unnamed experts.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
The following article appeared in yesterday’s (Feb 26) Daily Mail, pg.19:
“Antarctica (sic) glaciers melting at alarming rate, warn international team of
scientists.
Glaciers in the Antarctic are melting faster than previously thought,
causing higher sea levels, scientists warned yesterday.
The Pine Island Glacier – the biggest in West Antarctica – is moving 40
per cent faster than in the 1970s, discharging water and ice more rapidly
into the ocean. The Smith Glacier is moving 83 per cent faster than in 1992.
Glaciers in the area are now losing a total of 103billion tons a year. ‘We
didn’t realize it was moving so fast,’ said Colin Summerhayes of the
International Polar Year research project.
Antarctica’s average annual temperature has risen around 1 degree
Fahrenheit since 1957.
In 2007 sea levels were forecast to rise 0.7 to 1.3 metres this century,
flooding low-lying areas.
‘If the West Antarctica sheet collapses, we’re looking at a sea level rise of
between 1 and 1.5 metres,’ said Mr Summerhayes.”
The on-line version can be found here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1155544/Antarctica-glaciers-melting-alarming-rate-warn-international-team-scientists.html#comments
It is phrased slightly differently and includes comment not in the printed article. E.g. It says: A report by thousands of scientists (sic) for the 2007-2008 International Polar Year said the western part of the continent was warming up as well as the Antarctic Peninsula.
It all reads like a poor school essay. Could someone tell me whether any single fact, and/or inference drawn, is correct?
Monbiot had a go, you say? Actually I think that being the subject of a stream of invective from him should be taken as a good sign. He is quite one of the most unbalanced of the Grauniad’s odd bunch.
The 1970’s were also notable for a now long-forgotten bit of sensationalistic Whole-Earth Modeling called “The Limits to Growth”, sponsored by a fancy-sounding but entirely self-serving Mutual Admiration Society called “The Club of Rome”.
Surprisingly, I have seen NO mention of the Limits to Growth anywhere. The Meadows (Mister and Missus) who authored this screed predicted that chromium, for example, would DISAPPEAR in the early part of the current century. I was in engineering school at the time at the [Ivy League] institution sponsoring these idiots, and I took strong exception to the notion of chromium “disappearing”. I told my proffessors that such a thing was not possible in a market economy (even a relatively inefficient one) since if chromium got too expensive, folks would be going around “sucking it off bumper hitches”. And in any case, the “Limits” modellign assumed NO change in consumption patterns due to changes in technologies.
I was not popular with the faculty. That much has likely not changed, although I suspect a lot of them have now gone to their graves having conveniently forgotten that they once predicted The End Of Chromium.
Perhaps I will try to dig-up a copy of this drivel in some second-rate second-hand book store and “republish” it. Not that any of the current crop of tiny-brained over-educated AGW nitwits would see any connection between two quasi/pseudo-scientific Luddite movements more than 30 years apart.
Oh, in case no one’s been checking, Sunspot 1013 is definitely GONE already. I am looking forward to next month’s itty bitty tiny SC24 sunspot (assuming that it WILL BE a SC24 spot!)
“So, Serreze and Gore get a free pass in your view? You certainly have a very low standard for factual accuracy. – Anthony”
In the post above, you claim that Serreze’s sin was making a statement that the media could take out of context, and then go on to claim (without evidence) that “Serreze knew what he was doing”. And note that realclimate certainly discussed the unfortunate media over-hype of the issue well before the peak of 2008 summer: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/06/north-pole-notes/langswitch_lang/de. Also note that Serreze’s statement was not “false” given the caveats.
In contrast, Joel Shore demonstrates that George Will quoted the Science paper pretty dramatically out-of-context. Either he copied the short quote from a standard denialist site without looking it up himself, or he pretty deliberately cherry-picked the original quote.
I think you should examine your own standard for factual accuracy here…
(btw, your overall point – that “alarmists” are willing to give “alarming” statements a pass more often than they’ll give “denialist” statements a pass is probably true. I just think that the Serreze 2008 north pole quote is a really poor example of that. Of course, “denialists” give “denialist” statements a pass much more often than they’ll give “alarmist” statements a pass – just look at all the arguments on your own site about whether doubling CO2 has a 1 degree effect in the absence of feedbacks, or whether the CO2 rise is anthropogenic in nature)
(of course, I happen to believe that an ice free Arctic by 2030 is possible, if not very likely, and, assuming BAU, I believe an ice free Arctic by 2100 is extremely likely, so I’m less liable to see Serreze’s 2030 quote as wildly off the mark than you are)
thefordprefect ,
The problem with comparing “multiyear” ice and “new” is the assumption that “multiyear” ice melts slower than “new”.
My educated guess is that multiyear ice has more carbon soot from diesels europe has switched too and because the albedo is lower, it will actually melt quicker.
And 2008/2009 seems to be proving me right.
Anthony: You said
“The most egregious of these claims was the April of 2008 pronouncement by National Snow and Ice Data Center scientist Dr. Mark Serreze of an ice free north pole in 2008. It got very wide press. “
The apparently true quote set out above, which is not at all the same thing, is
“There is this thin first-year ice even at the North Pole at the moment,” says Serreze. “This raises the spectre – the possibility that you could become ice free at the North Pole this year.”
You’ve criticized Serreze for making a prediction, and when called on that, said that even if he wasn’t making a prediction, he should not have said something that the media could misuse. But the quote above is from the media. Do you actually have examples of major media implying that Serreze made a “pronouncement” that there would be an ice-free North Pole? Or is that your own construct?
REPLY: It’s not a construct, it’s a descriptive term, I could have chosen “statement, quote, or announcement” . And yes, Serreze IHMO knew what he was doing, because he’s chosen to use alarming phrases twice now in similar interview situations. The word “spectre” is telling. NSIDC needs a press person to take point. Further it appears that NSIDC has a bias, because they put support for Gore’s AIT on their own web page.
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20060706_goremoviefaq.html
If Pielke, Lindzen, Spencer, or any other skeptical scientist put such a thing, say a review with agreement on “Swindle”, on their official organization web page, many like yourself would be upset about that. The whole point here in the article is that such questionable practices seem to get a free pass when alarming statements are made by pro AGW folks. When scientists start endorsing movies on publicly funded web pages, there’s something wrong. – Anthony
Was this winter in the Arctic colder than the last several winters? The reason I ask is that if it was, I think there might be some deliberate tampering or hiding of ice area data in order to hide ice growth that has been more than expected. I know I sound cynical but I don’t trust the believers given Hansen’s massaging of temperature data, the placement of many temperature recording stations, and Mann’s 1st Hockey stick fiasco.
Make no mistake, in the 70’s there was widespread alarmism about the new Ice Age. I was there and had the habit of reading. Science literature, fact and fiction as well, were full of this stuff. Time, Life, Popular Science and others all ate that up because, well, it sold.
That’s just the same today, but amplified by the omnipresent media of today.
this time around, concerning global warming.
The press doesn’t want to hear about ice ages, little or big but -this time -there are genuine anomalies in many aspects of the Sun’s behavior that says what will come next has not been seen for at least a century and possibly three.
Re: English Phil’s post….AP article bylined Eliane Engeler in yesterday’s local paper headlined ANTARCTIC GLACIERS MELTING FASTER THAN FIRST THOUGHT, SCIENTIST SAYS reporting the head of IPCC Wednesday (2/25/09) told the U.S. Senate committee on the environment and public works that the earth has about SIX MORE YEARS at the current rates of carbon dioxide pollution before it is locked into a future of severe global warming.
What odds that the alarmist hysteria will center on Antarctica now?
Good article! My brain gained a wrinkle and I chuckled when reading “- meretricious journalism in the service of dubious certitudes.”
Thank you to Mr. Will and Mr. Watts
“Glaciers in the Antarctic are melting faster than previously thought,
causing higher sea levels, scientists warned yesterday.
The Pine Island Glacier – the biggest in West Antarctica – is moving 40
per cent faster than in the 1970s, discharging water and ice more rapidly
into the ocean. The Smith Glacier is moving 83 per cent faster than in 1992.
Glaciers in the area are now losing a total of 103billion tons a year. ‘We
didn’t realize it was moving so fast,’ said Colin Summerhayes of the
International Polar Year research project.”
If these glacier’s were landlocked, wouldn’t this indicate that the glaciers were growing? My understanding is that glaciers expand or contract in proportion to the amount of new snow/ice that’s building at the top of the glacier, hence merely stating that the glaciers are pushing into the ocean at a faster rate could easily indicate that there is a net increase in the ice content of the glaciers.
hareynolds (15:16:28) :
Not that any of the current crop of tiny-brained over-educated AGW nitwits would see any connection between two quasi/pseudo-scientific Luddite movements more than 30 years apart.
The club of rome is still very much alive and kicking, and has high profile members who are very much part of the AGW higher echelon. The agenda is still anti freedom and all about top down power and control.
These people always seem to be advocating less travel and population reduction, but always seem to have large houses with big heating bills, and lots of air miles between them.
I always get amused when waterboys for AGW like thefordprefect, Marcus, and Joel Shore try to parse obvious bottom line stories with comments to the effect that “it wouldn’t be impossible this could have happened”, or “it was quoted out of context”. The bottom line is that global ice is roughly at 1979-80 levels. Period. You guys are really advancing the scientific debate.
My wife and I have started a little game…
Every time we hear something incredulous, we attribute it to global warming. For example:
“It’s 13 below zero today. Must be global warming.”
“The New York Times subscription numbers are down again. Gotta tip the hat to global warming.”
“HE WAS WIDE OPEN…HOW DID HE DROP THAT BALL!!!!! Man, I hate this global warming!!!
Nick Stokes (15:41:41) :
Do you actually have examples of major media implying that Serreze made a “pronouncement” that there would be an ice-free North Pole? Or is that your own construct?
I have an email from the BBC regarding a complaint I made about a scare story they ran on their kids news site ‘Newsround’ saying that the North Pole could be ice free by 2013.
In it, they say their info came from the NSIDC and they don’t question such sources because they are ‘respected scientists’. I will be linking this thread in my reply.
Bravo Anthony, you are right to highlight these issues and I will continue to chip away at the BBC for their scurrilous lack of journalistic integrity.
From above
From above
“”You’ve criticized Serreze for making a prediction, and when called on that, said that even if he wasn’t making a prediction, he should not have said something that the media could misuse. But the quote above is from the media. Do you actually have examples of major media implying that Serreze made a “pronouncement” that there would be an ice-free North Pole? Or is that your own construct?””
I guess you missed the GW special produced by ABC news. (Shown on Discover and the like. Karen Vargas interviewed on one show, Gore, Hansen, and Serreze among others. They have no credibility what so ever left, with Vargas taking Queen Green Squeeze of the year.
so when Revkin replies: “near or slightly lower than” area observed at a similar time of year in 1979, not equal to it” as his defence re: Will assertions that it was equal, you definitely know that the NYT (or Revkin) is 100% biased.. What a silly defense! he actually exposes the whole AGW scam LOL. BTW the more intelligent alarmist posting here the better, as censorship in other sites such as RC and NYT is condemming them the waste basket…
Billy Ruff’n is a 47 ft. steel-hulled, well-found, full-equipped sailing vessel. It is as capable of completing the Northwest Passage as any sail boat currently afloat. If Dr. Serreze and Al Gore are serious about demonstrating to the world that the Arctic is melting, I offer them the opportunity to put their bodies where their mouths are.
Here’s the deal: Sign as crew for a transit of the NW Passage. I’ll fund the trip. If it’s as warm in the Arctic as they say it is, we’ll all have some fun, they can shoot some video and show the world what a cake walk it was. If we can’t make it through and get stuck in the ice, they agree to spend the winter on the boat.
Deal?
Serreze made a prediction of something that he thought MIGHT happen. (And, as thefordprefect noted, was even more caveated and uncertain if you read what he actually said rather than the part that was reported.) It did not happen. He made another prediction that you may not believe but since it is still 21 years in the future, you don’t have the ability to ascertain whether or not it will turn out to be correct or not. That is very different than willfully quoting someone completely out of context.
As for Gore, when he says something that is inaccurate, he should be corrected. I believe the reference you are making is to a slide that Gore pulled from his presentation this week after he was told that it was inaccurate. As I recall, what I said in response is that I wish commenters like Smokey who link to deceptive graphs would exercise the same sort of restraint after the deceptiveness of the graph has been explained to them…and they did not even try to defend against the points made.
REPLY: There are plenty of examples for Gore besides that, so let’s just both agree then that he’s peddling a number of inaccuracies. As for Serreze, what possible motive could he have for saying such a thing? What probability value does such a prediction have when it has never occurred in recorded history, nor even got close last year? IMHO his statement was for emotional impact to the masses, not for backing up any science he’s done. It was a “shoot from the hip” prediction. If it was not, then we’d see something in writing, some theory, essay, proof or paper, that outlines his theory and why it could become reality. To my knowledge, there is no such supporting science paper or essay from him that says an equivalent statement that he made to the press. – Anthony
English Phil (15:15:14) :
“Glaciers in the Antarctic are melting faster than previously thought,
…in 2007 sea levels were forecast to rise 0.7 to 1.3 metres this century,
flooding low-lying areas. if the West Antarctica sheet collapses, we’re looking at a sea level rise ofbetween 1 and 1.5 metres,’ said Mr hing Summerhayes.”
0.2 to 0.3 additional meters per 100 years would not be anything to worry about. It would be still within the typical increases since the little ice age.
Around 2 years ago the same hysteria went around the globe concerning the Greenland ice sheet
http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ei=XJKoSdWzONjZkAWOotTbDQ&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=greenland+glaciers&spell=1
Today Greenland is back to normal
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/08/greenlands-glaciers-take-a-breather/
…and the AGW crowd has to worry about one of the other very few places left, that show anything that may be interpreted as warming.
I am a subscriber to Newsweek in which George Will writes a column about 2 weeks of of 5. He is the only voice in that magazine who has occasionally voiced doubts about global warming. Meanwhile, Newsweek scientific journalist Sharon Begley, who obviously has been drinking increasing doses of Al Gore’s Kool-Aid, keeps harping endlessly about the impending climate catastrophe.
Speaking of irresponsible predictions of an ice free arctic, don’t forget the University of Manitoba’s David Barber, who claimed the Arctic would be ice free by 2015.
hareynolds said:
I was actually given a copy of this book (the 2nd ed. published in 1974) by my girlfriend’s father a few years ago having heard plenty about it…about all the alarmist predictions that it made that didn’t come true. However, what has interested me is that most of the predictions that people seem to claim they made seem to be figments of the imagination. Indeed, this is the case with your chromium prediction as near as I can tell. They actually use chromium as an example of how different assumptions can change when the reserves are depleted but not by as much as you’d expect. For example, they point out that at the current consumption rate, the known reserves would be depleted in 420 years but if you assume the consumption grows exponentially at the current rate of growth of 2.6% per year then the known reserves are depleted in 95 years, and that if you assume this exponential growth but posit that we discover 5X as much chromium as the current know reserves than this only increases the depletion time to 154 years. Then they go on to do some more complicated modeling where they put in economic factors. None of these examples are predictions and even if they were I don’t see any that suggested depletion in less than 95 years. For those who have access to the book, I am referencing Fig. 11 on p. 62 and the accompanying discussion about it. [Actually, there are other materials like Al and Cu that they derive shorter years-to-depletion based on exponential growth in usage but none of these are predictions but merely pointing out that we can’t continue growing our use of these materials forever and/or have to recycle and that even if the known reserves turns out to be several times greater than the current estimates, the nature of exponential growth means that it doesn’t change the story as much as you might expect.]
Actually, you can get the “30 year update” at amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Limits-Growth-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/193149858X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235785290&sr=8-1
Well Andy Revkin’s has revealed some experts on his dotearth blog and his main expert seems to be Serreze himself. Revkin even uses an invective filled diatribe of Serreze to demonstrate that Will is clearly in error would you believe. Serreze also maintains that the satellite error doesn’t matter. The NSDIC experts have also come out and admitted that while yes the global ice situation is indeed much the same or slightly less as 1979, that isn’t the same as “equal”, nor apparently is it even important because only the Arctic is important for AGW and anyway models already predict something about the Antarctic ice increasing under a global warming scenario. And of course another Revkin expert doesn’t forget to mention that 2007 had a massive melt in the Arctic which clearly demonstrates AGW almost one sentence after having berated Will for using a single year’s data rather than a trend. What an abject farce.
WestHoustonGeo says:
Well, I was pretty young in the 70s so I can’t testify from personal experience as to what appeared in the popular press but in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, future “global cooling” was not only not the consensus view, it was not even close to being the majority view as documented here: http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0477/89/9/pdf/i1520-0477-89-9-1325.pdf [4 Mb PDF file]
Furthermore, even the views presented in the press tend to be exaggerated in retrospect. For example, George Will’s column quotes quite a bit from a New York Times article that appeared on May 21, 1975 entitled “Scientists ask why world climate is changing; major cooling may be ahead” but strangely gives no quotes from another article by the same reporter on August 14, 1975 that is entitled “Warming trend seen in climate; two articles counter view that cold period is due.” Go figure!