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.
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After reading interminable “is too,” “is not” arguments, one longs for an issue–any issue–that can be definitively settled. So, although I really could care less whether Smokey has ever cited ICECAP, your links appeared to present a chance for resolving an argument. But when I look at your three examples, I don’t find any such citation on his part. Ay, me canso de tonterias….
Sorry, that last post was directed at Joel. : )
@ur momisugly Ice Age (21:58:51) :
Orwellian methods, “He who controls the present will control the past”, “He who controls the past controls the future”.
It is simply not true, not only where there lots of articles written, they where also written in other langauges, i do recall enough articles written in Dutch about the comming ice-age and some of the solutions that people came up with to combat this cooling. Even as late as 1983, when i got my hands on a Atomic-War survival book (printdate 1983), the survival part was pretty serious, but the oncomming Ice age chapter was rather silly, especially since the included Astrology to add weight to the theory, pure junkscience in my opinion.
One of those things to combat cooling was a huge dam between Siberia and Alaska that would allow sea-ice to pass into the pacific ocean, but not back into the artic. I also recall on of the drawbacks of this plan, disruption of the current sea surface temperatures by allowing a lot more melting sea-ice into the pacific, they where not sure about the effects but changing weather patterns could cause problems.
Geo-engineering is still a silly, costly (in both resources and money) and a rather dangerous idea, either to combat cooling or warming.
Joel Shore (21:06:45) :
A few points, in the interests of clarity:
If you’re going to quote, please “quote”:-
You posted, “Yes, please. Show me where I posted from ICECAP.”
Smokey posted, “”Yes, please. Show me where I linked to ICECAP.”
These are different. Attention to detail is everything.
William M. Connolley is not the be-all and end-all of climatic knowledge (indeed, Dr. Connolley is a mathematician – currently a software engineer, as if you didn’t know – with some experience of producing computer models of some aspects of climate… and that’s really about it), nor is a paper authored by him – singularly or otherwise – to be taken as gospel. His take on the global cooling scare of the 1970s is nothing more than opinion. Please leave it as such.
“Peer-reviewed” means little more than “friend-reviewed”, not a stringent critique of content and method, nor is it commentary on the reproducibility of any so-called experimental proof. Please refrain from bandying the term about as if it actually counts for anything other than scientific proof-reading.
Thank you.
Joel Shore,
Explain how links to articles from wattsupwiththat equate to IceCap when you are writing on wattsup with that?
Articles are cross linked on a variety of sites, but your whole line of reasoning is a little bizarre. What is your opinion of an international panel of specialistss in January of 1978 that reported on global cooling. “An international team of specialists has concluded from eight indexes of climate that there is no end in sight to the cooling trend of the last 30 years, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.”
It was in large measure in response that the WMO, U.N. Environment Program (UNEP), and International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) sponsored the First World Climate Conference (FWCC) in Geneva in February 1979, focusing on the scientific basis of climatic change. The FWCC addressed issues of northern hemisphere cooling; severe winters that were occurring in the mid-latitudes of the United States and Central Europe; widespread drought and desertification in Sub-Sahara Africa, and public concern about famine and death resulting from the observed effects of climate change on some world agricultural systems. From the FWCC evolved the WMO’s World Climate Program jointly sponsored by WMO/UNEP/ICSU, and the World Climate Data Program, the World Climate Applications Program, the World Climate Impact Studies Program, and the World Climate Research Program.
Some people report history, others try to rewrite it.
People too often only find and report what they are looking for, especially in the climate debate.
Scientists are blamed for statements that could be taken out of context by the media, while George Will is praised for taking quotes out of context and does not acknowledge that he could be wrong, even when the authors and sources of his information say that he is quoting them falsely. George Will and his fact checkers seem to have not even read the abstracts of the scientific articles that he quotes.
While I agree that scientists need to be careful about what they say to the media, they can not be blamed if carefully nuanced statements in scientific publications are quoted without the qualifiers.
BillD
If you think this:
is carefully nuanced compared to this:
Then you may have a point about Serreze’s death spiral quote. Otherwise…
For reference:
Man Made global warming hits North Dakota!!!
Talk about checking the facts…
Eat your heat out ladies and gents.
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/1070/gwfeb09nd.png
George Will has indeed a way with words.
Somewhere in my memory is an old pop song. The main theme words were:
“When will they ever learn?” sung in lament style. Must try and find it again.
There seems to have been a lot of compaction of the Arctic ice this month. That means thicker ice, ain’t going to melt so fast. I think if this summer’s melt does not exceed the 2008 melt then the public will become suspicious. 🙂
I’m glad to see others who have a memory of the 70s (I was born 17 days before JFK was shot) discussing the pervasive nature of the “scientific certainty” of Global Cooling. Only looking back with an altered perspective can anyone deny that Global Cooling was just… how it was. We got hammered with winter after winter of horrible storms, record snowfalls, heavy winds, and cool summers with shortened growing seasons, and it was SO easy to believe.
I can cherry pick just as many “peer reviewed” papers against AGW right now as you can probably find from the 70s that were against The Next Ice Age… but what’s the point? The fact is, the media had the drumbeat, the average Joe on the street was certain of it, and people were all discussing ways to “mitigate” the inevitable icing to come… including outlandish and dangerous ideas like spreading soot on the ice caps to alter albedo.
Here’s probably a good rule to live by in your life: Bandwagons are most often wrong. Bandwagons usually just end up being the attention-getting circus for someone’s agenda… and you probably won’t like the agenda when you find out what it really is. If EVERYONE is saying something, you still need to question it, because chances are it’s wrong. If you go a week in your life without finding out that something you thought you knew just isn’t so, then you’re NOT asking enough questions… or you’re 18 and still think you know everything.
Perhaps another witness from the 1970s is needed, but I too was subjected to required reading of “Club of Rome.” But even more unforgetable was the Walter Cronkite documentary on the coming ice age. He interviewed numerous scientists in describing how awful it would be. No contrary views came out in that documentary described as scholarly and well-researched. (I do wonder if some young readers might not know who Walter Cronkite is.)
Joel Shore (21:06:45) :
Smokey:” Finally, Joel Shore, as I have asked you before: please have those whom you have converted from questioning the repeatedly falsified AGW/CO2 hypothesis, to being new believers in that hypothesis, to step forward here and identify themselves as global warming converts. Failing that, why do you constantly post 24/7/365 to readers of the Best Science site your interminable arguments that convince nobody?”
As to the first question, I don’t know…although there have been at least two people who I remember here saying that, while they themselves are skeptics, they do really appreciate my posts and having the alternate point of view presented. As to the second question, well, I think I have said before that it is a probably a combination of obsessiveness (a la this cartoon: http://xkcd.com/386/ ) and a vain hope that maybe I am making headway!
I appreciate the humor of your last link.
As to converting people, I do not think that blogs convert people, at least not scientists. They may point to useful references of papers.
I have said it before, I was accepting the AGW hype like most scientists who do not meddle with the science of others and expect the same scientific integrity they find in their field. I slowly woke up that something was fishy, starting with the hockey stick plot. I mean medieval warming is within our history, even those delightful medieval detective stories of Peter Ellis, with brother Cadfael and his vineyards. The story of the mummified Alps hunter was fresh in the news when my eye fell on the hockey stick, and those errors looked huge to my trained eye ( experimental particle physicist for over 35 years). What raised my hackles was the IPCC report, as of course I went to the horse’s mouth. I needed no other witnesses. The “science” was so sloppy, the use of model tracks as if they are data defining errors, the lack of true error estimates, the lack of fit in most “fits” where the presenters relied on the spaghetti spread to fool the eye, ….etc. etc.
And then I started blogging and reading links, which confirmed my AR4 physics workgroup reading impression.
Why, even entering a 1sigma albedo error makes hash of any model prediction, moving it of the order of 1C.
Yes, I find ICECAP and Climate Audit and Lucia’s Blackboard very useful sites to get links and study the content.
As for the cooling scare in the seventies, I also remember it, though there was not so much information floating around or “consensus” attempt. Maybe the grant mania had not caught to need to make a consensus. I know that grants in Europe were not centrally controlled, as they are now with the EU.
Joel and Smokey
I researched an article once about Wiliam Connelly . It is not an ad hom attack as I quite admire the guy, but there is no doubt that as the gatekeper of Wikipedia’s climate section he is allowed to show more bias than someone in that position should.
The article follows;
“Quite rightly, strict editorial rules exist to ensure every Tom Dick and Harry don’t try to use Wikipedia to promote their personal half baked theories to a world audience. On the more specific question as to whether the gatekeeper of the Climate science section is more hostile to Sceptic submissions than Warmist ones, the following information may help readers to make their own judgements.
To achieve this aim it may be instructive to follow the role of the administrator of the climate section, Mr William Connelly
Firstly, it is worth restating the criteria for wikipedia in considering submissions made to them;
“Verifiability
Main article: Wikipedia:Verifiability
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. This policy and the verifiability policy reinforce each other by requiring that only assertions, theories, opinions, and arguments that have already been published in a reliable source may be used in Wikipedia.”
To examine the claims of bias often made against William Connelly on the matter of him favouring material submitted to him by warmists, as against that from sceptics, it is worth following a specific case-that of Lawrence Solomons- who wrote the well known sceptics book ‘The Deniers’
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/04/12/wikipedia-s-zealots-solomon.aspx
The above is a very good link re alleged wiki bias, with a subsequent blog of claim and counter claim, including a robust defence mounted by the editor of wiki who was criticised. It is instructive reading and worth staying with to the end.
This is by way of a review of the book by Solomons in The Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/may/06/the-climate-change-deniers/
This is another review and provides some further background to the wikipedia bias claim by Solomons, so throws further light on the first link.
http://richardvigilantebooks.com/
The link below is again biased, but throws interesting light on William Connelly (The Administrator) and his alleged bias against sceptics views.
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=17981
This is the blog of William Connelly that is accessed from within Real Climate, in which he actively supports them by, amongst other actions, attending a conference in Vancouver.
“ I was there with my Real Climate hat on, to offer ideas and insight on blogging in particular, and public communication of science in general.”
http://www.realclimate.org/
Some people wishing to submit sceptical material question whether wiki should allow people with close links to a web site enthusiastically endorsing the views of Dr Mann (whose Hockey stick reconstructions were thought to have been widely discredited) and has known passions-he stood as a candidate for the UK Green Party-is objective enough to be allowed to oversee the editing of the climate pages of the worlds leading reference source as an administrator (definition and duties here )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators
The wiki core element of verifiability rather than truth allows some potential leeway in accepting articles that support a personal view. Consequently wiki’s objectivity- by any reasonable measure- should be called into some question (on certain controversial topics such as climate change) Checking back to original sources should be a follow up to any wiki climate related research, but many people rely on it as their primary and only source, thereby receiving a certain view of the topic.
This is William Connellys blog leading to various other topics he is interested in.
http://www.blogger.com/profile/05836299130680534926
The guy is no ogre, has an obvious sense of humour, and has a particular world view as a UK Green party candidate. The policies of the party in general are here-they have sometimes been described as the green successors to the communist party and anti capitalist. In Britain they have a Euro M.E.P in Caroline Lucas.http://www.amazon.co.uk/Babylon-Beyond-Economics-Anti-capitalist-Anti-globalist/dp/0745323901
This about other Green party links to anti capitalist, socialist, communist and marxist movements
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/theory/ecology.htm
The Green party’s specific policies and philosophies can be read here. http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/mfss/mfsspb.html
This page states the green party’s current understanding of climate change and their own mitigation policies
http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/mfss/mfsscc.html
William Connelly’s politics and beliefs are his own business in his personal life. Where they might impact on the public in a wider sense, some might say that his own deeply held beliefs and links may make him insufficiently objective to administer the climate science pages of the worlds most referenced information source.
Footnote-There is something of a Catch 22 situation. As the IPCC report -warts and all- is considered the pinnacle of verifiable climate science it is referenced accordingly by Wikipedia, so even debatable information is presented as factual. Consequently sceptical information -which by definition is therefore incorrect- will achieve limited profile. The end result is that those from the wider world seeking information on the subject will always end up with IPCC supplied ‘factual’ data and will take a view on climate change accordingly.”
End of Article
Incidentally I also did similar research on the people who nominated Al Gore for the Nobel prize and there was a similar degree of green activism behind some of them.
TonyB
I too, vividly recall my 8th grade self being very scared by what I read in the national school publication “Weekly Reader” (sent to schools across the U.S.) in 1975. I remember being kept awake at night by my worry and fear of what the world would be like before I even reached 30. The scenarios painted were detailed. The outcomes were certain. Being still naive to the ways that the media (and some scientists) can lie and twist things, I took it all at face value. It had a very negative emotional effect on me.
Little did I realize at the time that this being inflicted on me would actually contribute over time to forming one of the most valuable lessons I would learn during that period. More than any other event in my early life this taught me the importance of approaching things with a deeply skeptical viewpoint. The more extraordinary the claim, the higher the standard of proof required. The more immediate the claimed need for radical, extreme action, the more careful, thorough and dispassionate the meticulous analysis must be. In fact, the “Coolists” of the seventies essentially inoculated me to the “Warmists” of the nineties. They helped make me a better and more committed “inactivist”!
Seeing the cooling juggernaut and the Malthusian lunacy of “The Population Bomb” both completely disproved by subsequent events taught me to adopt a default mode of disbelief toward doomsday scenarios in general. Based on my first-hand experience during these painful episodes I consider every dramatically dire doomsday scenario to be false until empirically and repeatedly proven true beyond any shadow of doubt.
Joel Shore:
I had reason to follow quaternary geology pretty closely during the seventies, and it is definitely true that global cooling and the threat of a new ice age was the dominating paradigm. It was not unanimous but it was certainly the “consensus”, and it was supported by many of the big names in the field like Kukla, Shackleton and Woillard.
To claim anything else is a falsification of history.
Anniee451 you forgot about the Algorean wannabee of the early 70’s, Erich von Daniken
Remember his world wide lecture tours and promotion of his “We are not alone” theory? Chariots of the God’s etc etc
I think Mr Will should reflect on the old adage that when in a hole the best thing to do is to stop digging. He claims that the ACRC data supports his position, but the only part of their response that he quotes is
‘we do not know where George Will is getting his information.’
whereas the full para reads
We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979. This decrease in sea ice area is roughly equal to the area of Texas, California, and Oklahoma combined.
So we are still left wonderng where Will got his 3% number from, and his reputation for factual accuracy remains tarnished. The Washington Post ombudsman has now commented on the furore in a piece that begins …Opinion columnists are free to choose whatever facts bolster their arguments. But they aren’t free to distort them and on the specific point has this to say The editors who checked the Arctic Research Climate Center Web site believe it did not, on balance, run counter to Will’s assertion that global sea ice levels “now equal those of 1979.” I reviewed the same Web citation and reached a different conclusion.
Readers of WUWT are well aware that (cherry) picking two points from a time series and drawing a straight line between them is a lousy way of determining a trend, a bit like reading the first and last chapter of a book and saying you know the whole story, and yet this is exactly what the Daily Tech piece does.
George Monbiot was correct.
It seems to me that the outlandish opinions of these scientists expressed in media interviews are a symptom of the bias with which they approach the actual science. That bias is then reinforced by the interpretation they put on the data they are supposed to be assessing dispassionately.
This is hysteria not science.
Reply to John Philip:
Praising George Monbiot is like praising an errant foul-mouthed child.
Geroge Monbiot always attacks the person but never the arguement.
Another brick for the wall of “climate change” – Climate Widget for unarmed in inquisitive nature. From NAS/JPL/Global Cimate Change: VITAL SIGNS WIDGET
The all essential indexes are going in the direction “they should go” (up or down).
In the same realm of the post: ‘Stimulating’ Scientists Into Proving Global Warming
Have a nice weekend, to all.
John Philip
You happen to forget:
1. The figure for Feb 15 2009 is known to be about 500,000 sq km too large for the northern hemisphere plus an unknown figure for the southern hemisphere, due to the SSM/I sensor failure.
2. The figures George Will were quoting were for JANUARY 1, not FEBRUARY
15. And since the SSMI figures are now known known to be too low since at least early december 2008, it is even possible that the global ice area on Jan 1 2009 was actually larger than on Jan 1 1979.
So George Monbiot was wrong
cabrerski (16:46:23) :
“My wife and I have started a little game…
Every time we hear something incredulous, we attribute it to global warming.”
Politicians and their fellow travellers now do this routinely! When you get it wrong, first look for someone (or -thing to blame).
Smokey: “Either provide specific names, or explain your interminable posts, which convince no one that CO2 is gonna getcha.”
Everyone has their own reasons for posting. Personally, I find Joel Shore’s posts to be well-written and informative, and I think he adds value to this site. Certainly, he forces his opponents to marshall their arguments, and that can only be good for them.
As for William Connolly, the paper he co-authored on the myth of the 1970s cooling consensus presents a persuasive and well-supported argument. I think you should give it another chance.
http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0477/89/9/pdf/i1520-0477-89-9-1325.pdf
Connolly also has some interesting and informative comments about consensus as it applies to science. I know you have some concerns about the notion of consensus, Smokey, and I am sure that Connolly’s comments will set your mind to rest. Worth a read, anyway.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=86
It would appear that -50C weather at Resolute in northern Canada is delaying the Catlin Arctic Survey expedition which aims to study the ice to help scientists understand the impact of climate change.
Expedition leader Pen Haddow has said, “Given the complexities of trying to fix and retest equipment out on the ice, in minus 50C temperatures extra time sorting out in Resolute is by far the safest and most sensible option. ”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/feb/27/poles-climate-change
It looks like this global warming expedition has been hit by the Gore Effect.
On the irony!
The discussion about William Connelly has left me confused.
I really had to look twice at the name.
We in Scotland were treated to: “Connolly: Journey to the Edge of the World can been seen on ITV1, Thursdays at 9pm”.
Connolly is a well known Scottish …eh… Arctic explorer.
http://www.discover-the-world.co.uk/en/misc-pages/journey-to-the-edge-of-the-world.html?gclid=CMuunaSF_5gCFQ0gQgod4X5tlg
I take it that this is not the same William Connolly?
You can understand my confusion.
Cherry picking?!?!?
We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009,
His report was submitted on the 1st of January 2009 and cited data Dec 79 to Dec 08. So what has the period Feb 79 to Feb 09 got to do with the original article?