Arctic Temperature Reporting In The News Needs A Reality Check
Their new articles that claim the Arctic is rapidly warming. These articles are an excellent examples of the cherrypicking of particular published papers to promote the very narrow perspective of the journalists.
These include
An Associated Press news article by Randolph E. Schmid titled “Arctic reverses long-term trend”.
A New York Times article by Andrew C. Revkin titled “Humans May Have Ended Long Arctic Chill”.
The Schmid article has the text
“The most recent 10-year interval, 1999-2008, was the warmest of the last 2,000 years in the Arctic, according to the researchers led by Darrell S. Kaufman, a professor of geology and environmental science at Northern Arizona University.
Summer temperatures in the Arctic averaged 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.4 degrees Celsius) warmer than would have been expected if the cooling had continued, the researchers said.
The finding adds fuel to the debate over a House-passed climate bill now pending in the Senate. The administration-backed measure would impose the first limits on greenhouse gases and eventually would lead to an 80 percent reduction by putting a price on each ton of climate-altering pollution.”
Revkin reinforces this extreme view in his September 3 2009 article with his figure of 2000 years of Arctic surface temperatures, with each decade having the same temporal resolution as the last 10 years.
The publication of these news articles are clearly meant to influence the political process, as evident in the last paragraph, where Schmid writes “The finding adds fuel to the debate over a House-passed climate bill now pending in the Senate.”
The documentation of their biased reporting is easy to show. For example, they do not report on observational data which does not show this rapid recent warming; e.g. see that the current high latitude temperatures are close to the longer term average since 1958
The Danish Meteorological Institute Daily Mean Temperatures in the Arctic 1958 – 2008 [and thanks to the excellent weblog Watts Up With That for making this easily available to us!]
There are also peer reviewed papers which show that the Schmid and Revkin articles are biased; e. g. see
i) the areal coverage of the coldest middle tropospheric temperatures (below -40C) have not changed radically as shown in the Revkin figure; see
Herman, B., M. Barlage, T.N. Chase, and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2008: Update on a proposed mechanism for the regulation of minimum mid-tropospheric and surface temperatures in the Arctic and Antarctic. J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 113, D24101, doi:10.1029/2008JD009799.
and
ii) there is a warm bias in the Arctic surface temperature measurements when they are used to characterize deeper atmospheric warming; see
Klotzbach, P.J., R.A. Pielke Sr., R.A. Pielke Jr., J.R. Christy, and R.T. McNider, 2009: An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere. J. Geophys. Res., accepted.
At least the news Editors of the newspapers are starting to recognize that these journalists are presenting slanted news. The Schmid article appeared only on page 12 of my local newspaper.
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Re journalists, I read once that the average reporter has a knowledge of science equal to that of a grade six student. At times I wonder if it is that high.
IanM
Robert, you are making my case for me. It is precisely BECAUSE these journalists do NOT know sceicne that they are NOT representing the real science. How is a journalist to know that folks like S. Fred Singer, Ian Plimer, Lord Monckton, etc. are out in left field, especially when folks like Singer are so well-credentialed. (Of course, a background check on these guys would reveal quite a bit.)
Let us take a look then at the research of media coverage of climate science:
BoykoV, M.T., BoykoV, J.M., Climate change and journalistic norms: A case-study of US mass-media coverage, Geoforum (2007), doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2007.01.008
available at: http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/publications/downloads/boykoff07-geoforum.pdf
There are countless references at the end of this article to keep you busy.
An older article, but also of interest, is:
BoykoV, M.T., BoykoV, J.M., 2004. Balance as bias: global warming and
the U.S. prestige press. Global Environmental Change 15 (2), 125–136.
available at: http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-2747-2004.33.pdf
This paper demonstrates that US prestige-press coverage of global warming from 1988 to 2002 has contributed to a significant
divergence of popular discourse from scientific discourse. This failed discursive translation results from an accumulation of tactical media responses and practices guided by widely accepted journalistic norms. Through content analysis of US prestige press— meaning the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal—this paper focuses on the norm of balanced reporting, and shows that the prestige press’s adherence to balance actually leads to biased coverage of both anthropogenic contributions to global warming andresultant action.
To summarize the data: the Boykoffs analyzed 636 articles and found that 52.7% gave equal coverage to the scientific consensus and to the opposed natural fluctuations claims. 35.3% emphasized the scientific consensus but did mention the opposing view. Only 5.9% reported on just the scientific consensus. Most astonishing 6.2% only reported on the opposing view. Apparently a scientific consensus meant nothing.
I am not making this stuff up. Just consider here in the US if one watches Fox News vs. MSNBC. Neither of these are providing an honest assessment of anything, let alone climate change, although I would state that Fox News is the worse offender of the two.
kim (17:17:39) :
Scott A. Mandia 16:45:10
You should worry about your own reputation instead of Pielke Pere’s.
That you think the world’s journalists have given a fair hearing to the skeptics is extremely damaging to your reputation. On what planet do you read the news?
Did you confuse the word “unfair” with the word “fair”?
I apologize to Dr. Pielke, Sr. for believing that he posts here. I should have known better.
REPLY: No apology needed. Actually he gives me a blanket license to repost any of his essays here. I also setup and manage his blog for him. – Anthony
“The finding adds fuel to the debate over a House-passed climate bill now pending in the Senate.”
I hate to say it but many here are missing the point. The time to deal with this fantasy world using science is over. See – House of Cards (HOC)
HOC works like this – I say the Arctic has lost 50% (over the 50% mean of the 20% proxy x a number I just pulled out of my ass) coverage this year. You (quite rightly) call BS. By the time you have proved your point (using actual data) there are another 1000 newspaper articles quoting my numbers and it is now common knowledge that 50% is correct.
The Science HOC – I create a hockey stick (or GISS) – thousands of papers are built on my HS (or many more on GISS) – I’m correct, after all I have Sum(peer reviewed my HS (or GISS) based papers) on my side. Even if, after a year, you can prove that my HS (or GISS) is made of bogus statistics and data smearing and divining of entrails, so what? The (news/scientific) papers have sold and, “reality” wise, who cares?
In England we call it “chip wrapping” – yesterdays news keeping fish and chips warm on your way home from the Pub.
I hear “happening much faster than we thought”. As far as I see the only thing that qualifies on that score is Copenhagen. By the time the western MSM is celebrating “a new global era” people will start to feel the cold during NH winter.
If you are old or poor in the NH – you will die. It is simple. I (artificially) put up the price of energy – (to the point where) you can’t afford it (note where ETS kicked in (p.50)) – you die when it gets cold. Simple.
OK let’s try it another way (for the LOR (Lord of the Rings) fantasy greens). You have traditionally collected wood from the local forest to burn in winter and stay warm. The local Warlord and his Goons now decide to start charging you, by way of a tax, Goon bonus and bribes, way more than you can afford to take wood out of the forest. Do you (a) fight back or (b) die shivering before the peace of hypothermia sets in.
Those of you that answered (b) can leave now.
Take a close look at the comments sections of some of our favourite warmer sites. It has nothing to do with CO2, it is all about anti human activity/ population reduction (although they always assume they will be left among the chosen few).
The (western) MSM feeds people what they want to hear. In my work life (for another week or two) I have to put up with a couple of Greenshirts (married, Guardian reading, public sector employed, Green party activists). Boy GS thinks the population of the UK should be 2 mil (58 mil down on current). His wife thinks that the roads will be much better once the “rest” can’t afford to drive any more (or have “gone away”). You can’t reason with these people – they are lunatics with a vote, a secure University position and a full pension.
Pielke Senior – you are far to polite to these people. I appreciate that in your position you must be careful when speaking publicly. I, however, have no such restrictions – Greens, you will not be part of the 2 mil and I will not be part of the 58 mil for I have 9 mil (.350 US)
BTW – did I get it right that the public sector employee “IOU’s” from the green paradise of California are due to be “cashed” at the end of the month (oct. 1st)?
Did I also get it right that they (coupons) are to be cashed at “market value”?
— Californians correct me please – sounds like a recipe for riots —
Scott A. Mandia 18:00:32
Ah, I see, it’s Planet Boykoff. I hear Naomi Oreskes singing a siren song for you.
Frederick Michael 18:02:45
Perhaps I misunderstood him; I interpreted Mandia’s point to be that the journalists had given the skeptical view a fair hearing, to which he objects. My point, and he just reinforces it with his link to the Boykoff work, is that he hasn’t been reading this world’s newspapers well enough to understand their horrendous bias in favor of climate alarmism.
Good heavens, Scott, did you not read above in this thread the differential treatment given the bogus Arctic story compared to the legitimate Sea Surface Temperature one?
========================================
Dear not-a-doctor Mandia,
Thank you for your concern about the reputation of folks doing science. We need more community college professors to beat the drum of consensus and whistle-blow on all those who dare question it.
After all, those who dare veer from the politically approved science are doing a disservice to science which is a consensus-based endeavor, much like theology and barbershop quartettery.
How kind of you to be the arbiter of science orthodoxy for us mere mortals who can’t read and need your help to understand which sceicne is approved and/or disapproved, and to steer journalists in particular onto the proper straight and narrow. All of humanity should congratulate you for your orthodox sceicne policing, from which we can only benefit.
Scott A. Mandia (18:00:32) :
I have not scrutinized the studies that you referenced, so I will accept your summary of them. But they just amaze me — that summary does not match my personal experience. Observations in professional and personal life have taught me that it is wise to question the experts when there is mismatch between the experts and my personal experience. (I will emphasize that I do not discard the experts, but rather I examine why there is a mismatch.) Just consider two recent studies — a study from Indian Ocean proxies confirmed the centuries-old understanding of the Medieval Warm Period bugt received no coverage in the Popular press. Yet the Arctic study arguing for 2000 years of Arctic cooling was widely /universally reported in the MSM without mention of its grevious flaws. About 3 months ago, there was that ridiculous paper by Kofi Aman that global warming was killing 300,000 people year. CNN carried it in their Science News; Fox carried it their opinion; but no popular press examined the fallacies of the paper. We could talk about lack of symmetry in MSM treatment of Arctic and Antarctic. We could talkabout how the MSM carried the over-the-top propaganda of the CSSP . . . the list goes on and on. So it would be interesting to reconcile the Boykoffs with personal experience.
Scott A. Mandia (16:45:10) :
Frankly, Professor, I think you are on the wrong track with your sniping at Dr. Singer and others, but I’d also encourage you to ignore the ad-hom comments here about community college professors, etc… after all, I do teach at a community college, and despite the best wishes of my students, I’m not a “Dr. Phelan”…. sigh… (I coulda been!)
On the other hand, I’ve got a quadrant of my house that was repaired in 1938 and now needs to be torn up to replace joists and boards that were simply laid on top of tamped-down sand because there was not enough labor to remove it. Help me excavate the Hurricane of 1938 and, free of charge, I’ll supply the beer, hot dogs, and an endless rant about why you are wrong about AGW. Whaddayasay? Anthony and his moderators have my permission to release my e-mail address to you.
Scott Mandia: Here’s a way to sample media coverage of the issue: Consult The Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature for the topics Global Warming & Climate Change. Examine a random sample of the articles and see in how many of them both sides of the issue are presented. Or just examine the tilt in their headlines.
“How is a journalist to know that folks like S. Fred Singer, Ian Plimer, Lord Monckton, etc. are out in left field, especially when folks like Singer are so well-credentialed. (Of course, a background check on these guys would reveal quite a bit.?
AD homs–a favorite CAWGer tactic. (PS: Similar checks on many leading CAWGers are also revealing.)
I noticed a positive sign in the NYTimes comments:
Note how the editor weighed in with an accurate addendum!
Scott A. Mandia (18:00:32) :
From the link you provided to the article you reference
4.1. Sampling
The empirical evidence in this study comes from a
systematic reading of newspaper articles—the unit of
analysis—which were randomly selected from four
major US newspapers: the New York Times, the Los
Angeles Times, the Washington Post andt he Wall Street
Journal. For reasons of geography, influence, and
circulation, we consider these newspapers to be an
important andpower ful swathe of the prestige press in
the UnitedStates. 7
Our sample consists of prestige-press news stories from
1988 to 2002.
Cherry picking, anyone?
Also it stops at 2002. I wakened to the fact that something fishy was going on with all this AGW business in 2007, after Al Gore’s spectacular “documentary” which predicted 6 meter rises of the sea level. I am a retired particle physicist and live half my days next to the sea. I started counting up the level my cottage is and the possible inundation; I tended at the time to accord other scientists the integrity to be reporting real science and not video game speculations, as I would expect you and any other scientist to accept claims from particle physicists about gluons and quarks at face value.
I was rudely awakened from my beliefs in scientists on the main being non deludable. I have read the physics justification of the last IPCC reports and during that time I kept getting up from reading the screen and pulling my hair, at the bad use of scientific methods and the cursory way data were used.
The report you site, by the choice of samples and the choice of dates is a whitewash trying to clear the bulk of so called scientists in climate disciplines who will be really in a mess to justify themselves if the climate trend since 2000 continues.
anna v (23:58:23) “[…] so called scientists in climate disciplines who will be really in a mess to justify themselves if the climate trend since 2000 continues.”
They’ll just go with the “anthropogenic climate chaos” theme and capitalize on the opportunity to get more funding.
anna v (23:58:23) “video game speculations”
Well-said.
[rephrase that and repost. I’ve had enough of that work ~ ctm]
‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman’
‘There was no contact between the UK Government and the Scottish Government over the release of Al Megrahi’
‘Arctic temperatures are increasing dangerously due to human-induced global warming’
‘If I challenge climate change orthodoxy using the scientific method, I will soon be made a Professor in the United States’
Yeah right…….
“Scott A. Mandia (16:45:10) :
Dr. Pielke Sr.,
I understand that posting on WUWT may appeal to you because this blog reaches so many people. When you post here you certainly raise the credibility of this blog but, at the same time, you severely undermine your own.”
Prof. Mandia seems to be an honorable person, follows his own advice and only posts on blogs nobody reads. But thanks to WUWT I now know not only that there is a Suffolk County Community College, I know there is a Suffolk County. Even if it is not, as I guessed, home of the famous Jean Butler.
As for Prof. Pielke Sr., might it be that his reputation stems from WHAT he writes?
Scott A. Mandia “This paper demonstrates that US prestige-press coverage of global warming from 1988 to 2002 has contributed to a significant
divergence of popular discourse from scientific discourse.”
Why have you picked a study that ends in 2002? What about post AR4? I personally have experienced a dramatic shift towards alarmism in the MSM since that time. It’s almost a feeding frenzy to see who can put out the most hysterical nonsense. I only hope that the first victims of cap and trade will be the newspapers – putting out all that CO2 to truck thousands of tons of paper that nobody needs thousands of miles each day!
“How is a journalist to know that folks like S. Fred Singer, Ian Plimer, Lord Monckton, etc. are out in left field, especially when folks like Singer are so well-credentialed.”
By “left field” I presume you mean AGW skeptic? Well, allow me to explain. You don’t need to know anything about science to see which article is critical of the AGW model and which is supportive. It’s all in the Abstract, and I assume even journalists have basic enough understanding of language to see which way an article tilts.
Well, I just read the explanation regarding climate models on your blog link, and I find that anyone who believes in current climate models, based on reasoning such as, we know the statistics of coin tosses, undermines their own credibility.
Whilst you seem to have a low opinion of the credibility of this blog, and I a reader here have a low opinion of your blog, how do you suppose such an impasse could be resolved? Coin tosses aside, is there anything that can resolve these debates about whether climate predictions are credible or not?
I for one became a skeptic about climate science by listening to climate scientists themselves. Your own blog is typical of the material I used to read which left me wondering…. wait a minute… this does not add up to a coherent, elegant, testable, verifiable piece of knowledge… so how come the world talking about capping CO2 and all that? The worst advert for the credibility of climate science is usually the climate scientists themselves, I find.
I take particular interest in the comments here by engineers who, if they don’t understand something, people may die. Where is the evidence, even anecdotal, even intuitive, that climate science has that degree of rigour? And we are talking about people dying, we’re talking about the development of billions of people for centuries to come.
Welcome to the warmist comedy store. Isn’t it about time they bought a new joke book?
Mr Mandia, I’ve just read Ian Plimer’s book and find it exceptionally reasoned and well referenced throughout. It will quite rightly influence many people who are undecided on the issue. His demonstration of how current climate and rate of change (if there is indeed any change) is not unknown by any means. As a geologist he understands and explains past climate history which generally has to be ignored to believe in AGW. He also understands and explains well the politics of AGW which is the key thing in climate debate
Could you please, given the settled and overwhelming science that supports AGW, explain or link me to anything which gives such overwhelming evidence that it is real and as much a threat that the catastrophists would have us believe. I accept nothing predicted by climate modelling or increases in atmospheric CO2 just simply Anthropogenic CO2. I also don’t accept agreement between government sponsored establishments as proof of anything.
If you can show me a piece of genuinely credible evidence that AGW is happening as opposed to just natural climate change I will become a believer immediately. If you can’t, which I sincerely doubt, you should stop diminishing your credibility by believing in AGW.
I have had a go at one of the latest ‘vanishing Arctic ice’ pre-Copenhagen publicity stunts in my column today in the London Sunday Telegraph. Next week I hope to follow up with those very interesting temperature figures from the Danish Meteorological Institute – countering the latest effusion from the ‘Hockey Team’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6143587/Arctic-ice-proves-to-be-slippery-stuff.html
rephelan,
1938 Hurricane? You might be interested in my Long Island Express site at:
http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/38hurricane/
Do you live on or near Long Island? If so, I would be very happy to chat with you and help you. I warn you, I am a beer snob. My email address is on my page.
The real science is discussed in the peer-reviewed literature. During the time frame considered by these studies AGW became increasingly clear in the literature. Since then there are few if any legitimate journal articles that refute AGW.
My point is that the coverage of climate change should not present “both sides of the story” to the general public if the sides are not even close to being even. Because many journalists are not as science literate as we would like them to be, and because they are taught to be “fair and balanced”, they often lead the public to believe that there is still reasonable debate about the causes of global warming. There is not in the literature.
When they put folks like S. Fred Singer on TV or quote him in the press, they confuse the public. When they quote the Pielkes they are quoting what I would call “The Loyal Opposition”. The Pielkes and the Singers/Plimers/Moncktons, etc. are not in the same category.
BTW, when I left Penn State in 1991 I was not convinced of AGW. I figured it was part of the trend but not the dominant forcing mechanism. In the years since then, I have been convinced by the data supporting AGW and now I believe we need to move on to impacts and mitigation.
I created my site as a service to the public because it is quite clear to me that they are not getting the real science because the real science is typically out of their reach.
REPLY: Well be assured, starting your web page with a quote from Oreskes is not the way to impress anyone who knows the woman and her agenda. – A
Alaska may be only a part of the Arctic, but seems they have trouble finding much warming since 77…
http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/ClimTrends/Change/TempChange.html
The period 1949 to 1975 was substantially colder than the period from 1977 to 2008, however since 1977 little additional warming has occurred in Alaska with the exception of Barrow and a few other locations. The stepwise shift appearing in the temperature data in 1976 corresponds to a phase shift of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation from a negative phase to a positive phase. Synoptic conditions with the positive phase tend to consist of increased southerly flow and warm air advection into Alaska during the winter, resulting in positive temperature anomalies.
Chart for 77-08
http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/ClimTrends/Change/7708Change.html
Whenever warming in the Arctic is mentioned I hope everyone will recall the Sun.
As has been documented in other discussions on WUWT, the Sun periodically warms the Arctic in two ways both of which are extensively documented in the scientific literature.
One of these ways is the Sun’s gravitational field via the Lunar Nodal Cycle (LNC).
There is substantial evidence that the LNC is a significant contributor to our planet’s climate dynamics. I include a carefully written and illustrated explanation of the LNC and review a lot of the published literature about its contribution to climate dynamics in my paper “The Sun’s role in regulating the Earth’s climate dynamics” published in the Journal of Energy and Environment Vol 20 No 1 2009.
Amongst other things I wrote:
“The ocean currents generated by the northward movement of the tidal bulge, in conjunction with the rotation of the Earth through the bulges in the normal manner creating our experience of the tides, brings warmish equatorial water to the Arctic accelerating the warming that had being going on there because of other forms of solar activity as discussed below.
The LNC has maximum effect at higher latitudes, resulting in higher sea levels at these latitudes. It creates tidal currents resulting in diapycnal mixing, bringing the warmer equatorial waters into the Arctic. The LNC is therefore a major determinant of Arctic climate dynamics, influencing long term fluctuations in Arctic ice. As a result, it is a key driver of European climate.”
There is also a very good paper accompanied by useful discussion and web links about the LNC on WUWT here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/23/evidence-of-a-lunisolar-influence-on-decadal-and-bidecadal-oscillations-in-globally-averaged-temperature-trends/#more-7965
(aka http://tinyurl.com/mrjq9e )
The effect of the LNC is amplified by the distinct geography of the high latitude oceans, e.g. the North Pacific and the Bering and Okhotsk Seas.
Here are some references:
Da Silva, R. R., and Avissar, R., 2006. The impacts of the Luni Solar Oscillation on the Artic Oscillation. Geophysical Research Letters 32, L22703, doi:10.1029/2005GL023418,2005.
Mazzarela, A., 2007. The 60-year solar modulation of global air temperature: the Earth’s rotation and atmospheric circulation connection, Theoretical and Applied Climatology 88, 193-199; DOI 10.1007/s00704-005-0219-z.
Mazzarela, A. and Palumbo, A., 1994. The Lunar Nodal Induced-Signal in Climatic and Ocean Data over the Western Mediterranean Area and on its Bistable Phasing, Theoretical and Applied Climatology 50, 93-102.
Yndestad, H., 2006. “The influence of the lunar nodal cycle on Arctic climate”, International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) Journal of Marine Science, vol 63, pps 401-420.
Please note (eg Scott Mandia re previous posts above) that da Silvia and Avissar note:
“…. that the current generation of global climate models that are broadly used to produce various climate change scenarios do not account for long-term tidal dynamic effects. This may be a significant flaw worth investigating carefully.”
The other aspect of the Sun’s role in the solar system that contributes to Arctic warming impact of please see:
Soon, W. W.-H., 2005. Variable solar irradiance as a plausible agent for multidecadal variations in the Arctic-wide surface air temperature for the past 130 years, Geophysical Research Letters, 32, L16712, doi:10.1029/2005GL023429.
Of course when both roles function together the interaction effect amplifies.
The last LNC maximum happened on September 16, 2006.
In a paper published in March this year, Dr. Ichiro Yasuda, Professor, Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo showed that the Luna Nodal Cycle drives the PDO.
The citation is: Yasuda, I. (2009), ‘The 18.6-year period moon-tidal cycle in Pacific Decadal Oscillation reconstructed from tree-rings in western North America’, Geophysical Research. Letters, 36, L05605, doi:10.1029/2008GL036880.
Here is the Abstract:
Time-series of Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) reconstructed from tree-rings in Western North America is found to have a statistically significant periodicity of 18.6- year period lunar nodal tidal cycle; negative (positive) PDO tends to occur in the period of strong (weak) diurnal tide. In the 3rd and 5th (10th, 11th and 13rd) year after the maximum diurnal tide, mean-PDO takes significant negative (positive) value, suggesting that the Aleutian Low is weak (strong), western-central North Pacific in 30–50N is warm (cool) and equator-eastern rim of the Pacific is cool (warm). This contributes to climate predictability with a time-table from the astronomical tidal cycle.
According to Prof Yasuda’s finding the PDO should now be taking a significant negative value, as is being found. The climate consequences are therefore as expected.
The PDO is now in its negative phase and that this means a colder climate for North America.
As has been shown elsewhere, cold means dry and this means fires in California. This is just one of the many consequences of the LNC; one of the many climate consequences of the Sun. Phenomena which is predictable so long as one listens carefully to what Nature is telling us.