Image from WUWT reader “Boudu”
The Guardian’s George Monbiot suffers (at his own expense) from excessive zeal in trying to disprove a statement by Telegraph Columnist, Christopher Booker, in his post: How to disprove Christopher Booker in 26 seconds
I set the stopwatch running, pasted “National Snow and Ice Data Center” into Google, found the site, clicked on News and Events > Press room > Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis and discovered that Booker’s claim was nonsense. It took me 26 seconds.
But then a couple of hours later, when commenters on his blog point out Monbiot’s own error in his 26 second rebuttal, he admits he’s “boobed”:
Whoops – looks like I’ve boobed. Sorry folks. As one of the posters on this thread points out, there are in fact two averages in play – 1979-2000 and 1979-2009. It is therefore correct to state that the April 2009 extent exceeds the 1979-2009 average, but not the 1979-2000 average. It remains the case, however, that the data relate to April, not May. Please accept my apologies for my mistake and the confusion it has caused.
He also confused Global and Polar.
Booker’s article said:(underline mine)
“..the world’s polar sea ice is in fact slightly above its average extent for early May since satellite records began in 1979.”
Monbiot’s rebuttal said:
“In other words, Arctic sea ice extent for April is in fact slightly below its average extent since 1979, not slightly above.”
Meanwhile in comments for the Monbiot 26 second rebuttal, some people think the picture of the U.S.S Skate nuclear submarine surfacing at the North Pole in 1959, as reported here. is a fake due to the photo being taken in “twilight”.
One commenter points out the official US Navy record:
Now you are trashing the source of the historical photo of the USS Skate surfacing at the North Pole on 17 March 1959, claiming that such a surfacing could not have occurred on this date.
Check the OFFICIAL U.S. Navy historical archive on site:
http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmar.htm
Click on MARCH.
Scroll down and you will read for March 17:
1959 – USS Skate (SSN-578) surfaces at North Pole
Proof enough for you?
Apparently not.
The problem with that photo is that it was taken in daylight, whereas the Skate surfaced on March 17, before sunrise at the North Pole. That set off a flurry of troofer factoids trying to turn day into night.
I guess some people don’t understand the period of twilight, how much light would be available, and how B&W long exposure photography works.
Indeed, the discussion has become the Twilight Zone.
Lee Kington (12:12:22) :
Earth axis shift? That sounds like the Hab Theory, a novel from the mid-70’s. Amusing, but totally ignorant of simple laws of motion. The amount of ice at the poles, while impressive from our puny point of view isn’t a tiny pimple on the … of the Earth. Reduced to the size of a pool ball, our little rock would roll around very nicely.
We should not be so hard on poor George. He filters everything he sees or reads through his system of beliefs. He wants to save (or at least rule) the planet. Anything outside his views must be rejected. At least he admitted that he went a bit too far. A certain ex-VP hasn’t reached that level.
So much for nice: I think he’s a boob.
Since this is a man who has made the mistake, he should have said, “I’ve dicked”. “Boobed” is what I do when I screw up.
I believe the saying is “If you find yourself in a hole then you should stop digging”. Oh my, yes they are digging, yep all the way to China. Anyway, i finished reading the comments on the Guardian article, its almost on par with you-tube commenters by the looks of it.
This photo of the Skate at the northpole is the equivalent of tossing a grenade into a pack of demons in “Doom”, so much carnage, so much fun.
@ur momisugly Richard Sharpe (10:50:35) :
Thanks for the correction.
I think Monbiot should be commended for having the integrity and good grace to admit when he is wrong, a quality we see so little of among the Hockey Team and their cult followers. Now if we can get him to publish a comfirmation that the USS Skate was in open water at the north pole in 1958, that the north pole was warmer then than it is now, we can announce that hell hath frozen over.
Re Geoff Chambers
I’ll take issue with you on the Telegraph. It may have a one apparently left leaning Assistant Editor but otherwise it is mainstream conservative and certainly I would put it in between the Democrats (who are only really left wing when trying to get elected) and the Republicans. However, despite playing host to Christopher Booker whom I would describe as libertarian rather than left wing, it now swallows the AGW junk mostly hook, line and sinker. For more about Booker, see his book Scared to Death or just read his column where you will find trenchant criticism of say the EU and our general loss of democracy in the UK.
He is a regular supporter of this Blog and for that, respect.
Cheers
Paul
David Porter (12:44:16) :
David Porter (11:23:41) :
We are not going to win this by name calling or by belittling others, we are going to win this because the facts are on our side. Anything that distracts attention from the clear and unbiased communication of the facts is counter to our objectives.
geoffchambers (12:39:02) :
Geoff perhaps the personal description of Monbiot would be best conveyed without the vulgarity?
With that… I apologize to Anthony for the question if it is deemed inappropriate that I made it.
Excellent analysis by EM Smith. In the early 1960s, we were still using a standard U.S. Navy camera (K-20 as I recall) that used 4 x 5 format negatives and manual cocking. The primary airborne hand-held camera was the Hulcher, a slow sequence 70mm movie camera (5 or 10 frames per second selectable) with 4″, 7″ and 11″ lens and Tri-X film. We could take an identifiable night photograph with a 70-million candlepower searchlight starting the camera at a mile and a half; without Tri-X that would not have been possible. Certainly the technology existed to take the photo of the Skate. As others have noted, the sun is at least partly visible prior to the Equinox at the North Pole and twilight is several hours long prior to that.
I have a personal affinity for the U.S.S. Skate. I was on-scene commander (in an aircraft) during the attempt to rescue the crew of Balsa 24, a freighter sinking in the Atlantic. Skate popped up to the surface and despite the atrocious conditions did manage to take aboard the sole survivor. The rest is a long story involving the Canadian CP-140 (and me), a USN P-3, a USCG C-130, a Russian freighter, Skate, both Halifax and New York Rescue Centres (Centers y’all) and the unfortunate Balsa 24. A sad night and I talked to the captain right up to the moment he knew his ship was sinking under him and went over the side in a dinghy, only to perish from exposure.
Monbiot flew to the US this week for a little jolly. Which is a little hypocritical as he has been preaching to us for years not to fly anywhere, not to go abroad on holiday, not to use filament lightbulbs or use Aga’ amongst thousands of other requests of deprivation. This does not apply to Monbiot himself though. He can fly where he wants, when he wants and thinks that planting a few lettuces in his vegetable patch will make up for his own indulgences.
As I posted on the Guardian site this week if the AGW bandwagon was communism Monbiot would be in the Politburo driving his Zil limo along lanes reserved exclusively for him, laughing at the peasants toiling the earth.
Of course my comment was swiftly removed.
With his double cock-up this weekend though (and he has not yet apologised to Booker for responding about Arctic sea ice when Booker was referring to Global sea ice) I am beginning to think Monbiot is in fact a double agent. He was planted many years ago by The Skeptics and was only activated a few years ago to try to bring the whole Alarmist Brigade into disrepute. That grand plan seems to be working nicely.
Retired Engineer (13:12:15) :
Perhaps the novel was inspired by the 1949 article.
There is a bit of line in the article that makes me think of Gore and his “Inconvenient Truth” movie.
That same line is applicable to the Catlin Expedition and doomsday stories regarding the melting North Pole. Aside from the intentional inaccuracies conveyed by some there are others who mean well, who intend to be completely candid that simply say things in the wrong way. Often it is a matter of opting for simplicity rather than clarity. I fully understand how such occurs. It gets tiresome having to go through all of the related factors to a complex topic each time a statement is made.
This summer we will once again here the Arctic ice is melting. “Seasonal Melt” will be left out of the stories. Also, rarely is what actually occurs conveyed. As a result a large number of people think that in the summer, due to global warming, the Arctic sea ice just sits there and melts like an ice cube in a bowl.
A portion of the science community and, with greatest certainty, the media are doing a huge disservice to the public, to man, and even to our educational structure.
OK, midely OT but hopefully related to AGW. Here is a link to ice road conditions around yellowknife since 1983/84.
http://www.dot.gov.nt.ca/_live/pages/wpPages/Open_Close_Dates_Ice_Bridges.aspx
The Opening and closing dates are interesting in terms of trends, which is hard to discern because of the variation in open and close dates. Of course this does not indicate any operational considerations that would have affected these dates.
the more appropriate picture is this one of HMS Superb, USS Billfish and USS Sea Devil ALL at the north pole on 18 May 1987.
http://users.tpg.com.au/johnsay1/Stuff/NP1987.jpg
Janama,
The 22nd anniversary of that polar meeting is tomorrow! I wonder what the north pole will look like Monday?
Mike
I guess some people don’t understand the period of twilight, how much light would be available, and how B&W long exposure photography works.
Actually, you don’t even have to go THAT far on this. The “troofers” are betting on the official notation that the sub surfaced during twilight. The photos could have been taken at ANY point after the surfacing. Given that crewmen are standing around all over the hull, this seems to be the case. At least I HOPE they weren’t riding the hull when the Skate was down below under the ice– and then the aliens who happened to be waiting there snapped the picture when the sub surfaced with the crew on the hull! 🙂
Yes, there IS a short period of daylight in the Arctic in mid-March! They obviously waited until there WAS enough light to get some pictures. The “twilight” time the sub surfaced is irrelevant… it only refers to the actual time the sub broke surface.
kinda OT.
But, I found this article on CO2 ice corps while looking around a little . It aggregates a lot of info that I hadn’t seen put together before.
http://naturalselection.0catch.com/Files/ancientice.html
One of the activities undertaken by the crew of the Skate after surfacing at the Pole on March 17, 1959 was the commitment of Sir George Hubert Wilkins’ ashes to the sea. Here is a photograph taken of the ceremony:
http://library.osu.edu/sites/exhibits/nautilus/images/wilkins35_5_4.jpg
This would seem to confirm that sufficient light for photography was present at some point during Skate’s time on the surface that day, but also suggest that the surface was iced over during at least for part of the time.
I will say that the photo in question does not agree with Commander Calvert’s description of the conditions upon surfacing on March 17th, but I do not know how long the Skate remained on the surface.
The Guardian won’t let me post, tho they claim they’re only “pre-moderating” in case I break their rules. May I post here the comment I can’t address directly to Monbiot? (I’ve been plugging your site, plus ClimateAudit Climate Resistance et al on Guardian Climate for months). Thanks.
peterdtm s suggestion back at 3.26pm that the US Russian and British navies may have half a century of useful data on Arctic climate is surely one of the more useful ideas to emerge on a Guardian climate blog for a long time. Or do you all prefer to discuss photo captions till hell freezes over?
Meanwhile Mr Monbiot still hasn’t acknowledged his second error. Two errors in 26 seconds is surely a record of some kind. He’s got eight months and counting until he presents the Booker BS award. Guardian Environment has taken to calling it the Booker Climate Rubbish Award, but we know its real name, because there’s a photo (6 Feb 2009) taken in daylight by G Monbiot himself. Dont mess with the BS George. You’ll only put your foot in it.
Anyone who has ever lived in the high Arctic also knows that the sun doesn’t need to be “up” in order for it to be light. There will be many days in February and early March when the sun is not visible on the southern horizon, but there is lots of light around.
By mid March there are many hours every day of “light”. Hell, by mid-February there’s lotsa light.
“Tony (09:33:06) :
the cryosphere site has not been updated for about ten days. Why not?
REPLY: According to Walt Meier, the server that provides them with raw satellite data is not updating – Anthony”
I haven’t been able to get on to ROOS in some days too.
AKD (11:28:39) :
Website of the successful Russian expedition can be found here:
http://www.yemelya.ru/index.php
I think it would be great if WUWT could give this team’s accomplishment some more publicity in the West.
I bet Clarkson wishes he’d had one of those! Clearly the Russians weren’t too worried about the ice thickness – does anyone know if they took any measurements, or are they simply not playing the silly AGW game?
During the cold war I remember hearing someone remark that he thought it significant that while the Americans’ national game was baseball, the Russians’ was chess…
Arrogance collides with Evidence.
At least Monbiot apologised – which is a step in the right direction.
O/T
I look at the pictures of the ‘orange’ sun as seen on the right margin every day. About 5 days ago the ‘dead pixel’ that has been there for a long while at the 4:30 position is now gone, but now there is a dead pixel at the 10:30 position that seems to have shown up the next day I looked.
It’s as if the image of the sun was somehow flipped 180 degrees and the pixel moved to the mirror opposite side.
Can anyone confirm if it is just coincidence that the 4:30 pixel was fixed and immediately a new 10:30 pixel went black? Or was there an image alteration that occurred? Or something else that I am unaware of?
Thanks for any information that anyone may offer.
Jim
[snip – sorry, Andy, but this sort of labeling and name calling is not what I want to see here on WUWT – Anthony]
Re: Andy (16:08:28) – I thought name-calling was frowned upon on this site.