I’ve been very critical of statements made by Dr. Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. It seems that I’m not the only one critical of his statements to the press. – Anthony
Excerpts from The Times, UK story:
Exaggerated claims undermine drive to cut emissions, scientists warn
Mark Henderson, Science Editor
Exaggerated and inaccurate claims about the threat from global warming risk undermining efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and contain climate change, senior scientists have told The Times.
Environmental lobbyists, politicians, researchers and journalists who distort climate science to support an agenda erode public understanding and play into the hands of sceptics, according to experts including a former government chief scientist.
Excessive statements about the decline of Arctic sea ice, severe weather events and the probability of extreme warming in the next century detract from the credibility of robust findings about climate change, they said.
Such claims can easily be rebutted by critics of global warming science to cast doubt on the whole field. They also confuse the public about what has been established as fact, and what is conjecture.
The experts all believe that global warming is a real phenomenon with serious consequences, and that action to curb emissions is urgently needed.
They fear, however, that the contribution of natural climate variations towards events such as storms, melting ice and heatwaves is too often overlooked, and that possible scenarios about future warming are misleadingly presented as fact.
…
“When people overstate happenings that aren’t necessarily climate change-related, or set up as almost certainties things that are difficult to establish scientifically, it distracts from the science we do understand. The danger is they can be accused of scaremongering. Also, we can all become described as kind of left-wing greens.”
Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office, said: “It isn’t helpful to anybody to exaggerate the situation. It’s scary enough as it is.”
She was particularly critical of claims made by scientists and environmental groups two years ago, when observations showed that Arctic sea ice had declined to the lowest extent on record, 39 per cent below the average between 1979 and 2001. This led Mark Serreze, of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre, to say that Arctic ice was “in a downward spiral and may have passed the point of no return”.
Dr Pope said that while climate change was a factor, normal variations also played a part, and it was always likely that ice would recover a little in subsequent years, as had happened. It was the long-term downward trend that mattered, rather than the figures for any one year, she added.
“The problem with saying that we’ve reached a tipping point is that when the extent starts to increase again — as it has — the sceptics will come along and say, ‘Well, it’s stopped’,” she said. “This is why it’s important we’re as objective as we can be, and use all the available evidence to make clear what’s actually happening, because neither of those claims is right.”
…
“In 1998, people thought the world was going to end, temperatures were going up so much,” Dr Pope said. “People pick up whatever makes their argument, but this works both ways. It’s the long-term trend that counts, which is continuing and inexorable.”
Read the entire article here at The Times
I want a polar bear skin rug!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That is for me a must have item.
Other than removing some ice, the outlines of the remaining ice are unchanged and, to top it off, snow cover patterns on land are the same.
It makes for a more dramatic continuity in a PowerPoint show that way. Fewer distractors from the “open water”…
Greybrd (02:33:35) :
Darn it that’s scary.
Let me see according to that article the Gorbal says that the water will rise 67 meters and that for meter rise will create 100 million refugees. Lets do some advanced math 67 meters x 100 million refugees per meter rise = 6700 million refugees. Damn the current estimated global population is 6,794,025,704
14:34 UTC (EST+5) Oct 31, 2009.
Seems we are all going to die or at least be wet.
Well at least my home will still be dry.
I think we’re going to continue seeing “climate change” remain in some form or other, because it is not about climatology; it is about all the people in the world who believe that what the world needs is for it to become more egalitarian.
I’m very interested in the core beliefs and convictions of the people driving this movement. Consider the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, he was a Dutch Social Worker.
“If the North Pole were to melt it could increase sea levels by 67 metres, Gore said,”
Did he really say, “the NORTH pole”?!?
PS: He might have, given that he once said, “A zebra cannot change its spots.”
Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office, said: “It isn’t helpful to anybody to exaggerate the situation. It’s scary enough as it is.”
Ooooooh, It’s Halloween! How does one dress up as Global Warming????
And of course, this gives me the opportunity to post this video. For some reason, I never seem to tire of it!
That’s what you get when you keep crying “Wolf!”
Vicky Pope, David King, Monbiot, the BBC, The Grauniad, Briffa, Jones, Miliband, HRH Charles Windsor….I wouldn’t believe ANYTHING they might say if they swore to it on a pile of Bibles as high as Al Gore’s Hockey Stick.
I’m afraid that anytime I hear phrases like “Scientists have found…”, “Worse than we thought…”, “Experts agree…”, “There is a consensus that…” (etc. etc. etc.) my BS meter goes straight off the scale. Even if they are talking about something that might even be true.
Meanwhile, these eco fascists will carry on banking their generous salaries, flying round the world on all expenses paid jollies and looking forward to their inflation proofed pensions. And wasting collosal sums of tax payers money which could be used to abolish world poverty at a stroke.
Are they referring to those WWF commercials about the poor polar bears ?
Ok so there’s an recognized problem with the “exaggerated” claims.
What’s next, recognizing the completley imagined claims and then the blatant lies? Let’s hope.
Exaggeration is one thing, but the wholesale concocting of observations attributed to AGW, among other official malfeascence, deserves what I believe will be a slow but painful atonement for the perpetrators.
Here in Oregon the frenzy of AGW fabrication at every level and institution is as bad as it gets.
People claiming to be witnessing AGW every time they hike in the mountains or walk on the beach pile on the media reports and public officials trumpeting academia’s thoroughly corrupted agenda.
“Polar bear plus grizzly equals?”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8321000/8321102.stm
“Some experts say that global warming and diminishing ice packs will lead to polar bears spending more time on the mainland.
While some think that a few populations of polar bear may return permanently to their original mainland habitat, others say that climatic changes will happen too fast for the bears to adapt.”
Sara (17:33:03) :
“Watts up” with that picture of the ice caps? Isn’t it pretty clear that’s a doctored photo? There’s a six-year gap and everything is identical, except a huge gaping mass of ice gone and some more ice broken up a little? No other shoreline has changed even slightly… that’s GOT to be fake. I’d love to see a higher-res image but can’t seem to find one.
Here’re the satellite images for Sept 10th for those two years, it looks like those pictures are accurate.
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=09&fd=10&fy=2001&sm=09&sd=10&sy=2007
The TimesOnLine article is titled “Exaggerated claims undermine drive to cut emissions, scientists warn” and says in paragraph 5 “The experts all believe that global warming is a real phenomenon with serious consequences, and that action to curb emissions is urgently needed.” That is an exaggerated claim.
I sent in a comment to the Times that unintended irony is the best type of irony, but the comment did not get past their moderator. LOL
pope’s and king’s strategy is to gain credibility by verbally repositioning themselves:
however, credibility is merited not by blaming others but by cleaning up their own mess in the first place, such as:
– revoking their own massive previous exaggerations, such as those:
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2009/10/hilarious-alarmists-david-king-and.html
– reducing the assumed contribution of greenhouses gases by the amount natural forcings have been underestimated
– correcting obvious errors in their data bases, such as the sea-ice before 1979, various upward step functions in various data and the cru temperature records, which have not been even allowed to be verified yet.
– releasing data sets and algorithms to the public for verification
– stop to collaborate with peudoscients such hockey-stick producers, people and institutions who hide data, scaremongerers such as al gore and accepting external compentent advice such as mcIntyre’s and lindzen’s.
in sum that would just be doing science.
While the depiction appears to be fairly accurate in area comparing 2001 to 2007 on CT, it is not a satellite image. The ice image is placed on a static land/sea image with identical cloud/snow patterns. Many elements of the edges of the ice are identical. Further, as per NASA, it was unusual wind patterns that caused the ‘extreme’ melting of ’07, so to have ’01 and ’07 ice edges appear similar is a silly error. They are not similar in the CT depictions Phil. (10:34:32) linked to, but the ice extents appear similar:
http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X1342&site=wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com&url=http%3A%2F%2Figloo.atmos.uiuc.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Ftest%2Fprint.sh%3Ffm%3D09%26fd%3D10%26fy%3D2001%26sm%3D09%26sd%3D10%26sy%3D2007
Here are the above images at 150% in size, 2001 fades to 2007:
http://i34.tinypic.com/sxyjhx.jpg
Could it be that we’re witnessing the first tiny step of the establishment in backing away from the whole apocalyptic, man-made CO2 warming farce? Hedging their bets through pro-active CYA?
Could it be that we’re witnessing the first tiny step of the establishment in backing away from the whole apocalyptic, man-made CO2 warming farce?
No. This seems to be an internationally organized effort of damage limitation. For those able to read German, here is a link to an article with a very similar tenor:
http://www.faz.net/s/RubC5406E1142284FB6BB79CE581A20766E/Doc~EBEE835CC292B46E3812EB149EC8EF5D3~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html
Why is it that long term averages rarely include recent years? Here Dr. Pope is comparing current ice against an average that ends in 2001. Are the subsequent 7 full years of data unimportant?
The same is true for temperature – the Met Office us an average that ignores most of the last decade.
The link that Phil has provided is interesting. Whilst the area has changed substantially from 2001 to 2007, the volume might not have. 2007 appears to have a much greater area of high ice concentration than 2001.
It is funny how those who question the AGW/IPCC/UN view-body are in return accused of being “conspiracy theorists”, when it so much looks like these “damage limitation” exercises are the result of some Public Relation expert consultancy sitting in meetings and hammering out press briefings.
Before I’d even heard of global warming, the tactic was to characterise any opponents as being “anti-science”, and tar and feather them as the sort who would sooner take their children to a witch doctor than consult real modern medical expertise. The idea was to lump the opponents in with the sort who the public at large already despises.
Before I’d even heard of global warming, the traps had already been set. Ask a question and you’ll be lumped in with holocaust deniers. Ask why is everyone against questions and you’re lumped in with conspiracy nuts.
Their campaign isn’t perfect of course. I don’t know that they’ve got any answer to, “but in science there are paradigms, patterns of knowledge that self-reinforce, and usually they’re right but sometimes they’re wrong”. Then you just get silence or a flat denial.
Anyway, this latest is probably the result of yet another PR consultation exercise and they are trying to limit the damage and keep people on side.
The question is, what’s their near term goals? Assume lots of NGOs are all engaged with PR consultants, each trying to raise more charity donations, trying to get involved with more projects. Even if AGW was politically acted upon 100% tomorrow, these people would still need something to keep them occupied. Or maybe they’ll start merging and consolidating. Maybe that’s in part what’s driving things also? Too many charities competing with each other, they need to merge together over some bigger issue? Is it the UN that’s trying to tie countries together via “grass roots” NGOs, charities, environmentalists?
I give to a local charity to send a doctor to Africa, the charity hooks in with the UN/IPCC, the UN+PR consultants feed information to the media to promote “the issue of our times”, legitimising it as an issue amongst the population in western democracies, which gives enough cover for some politicians to start signing legal papers at the UN, and offering money, which starts establishing the UN as a government?
I would actually be in favour of the UN running things if they seemed to have some real sense of how to do things. We don’t hear much about nuclear proliferation these days, but I always wonder whether deep down that’s still some sort of long term plan. Cheap energy leads to technology leads to nukes leads to war? What’s the world going to look like if everyone including the likes of Mugabe could make their own nukes?
Sorry that’s a bit of a ramble, but I’d love to just know the real picture.
Could it be that we’re witnessing the first tiny step of the establishment in backing away from the whole apocalyptic, man-made CO2 warming farce?
No, this is just damage control. The pols aren’t going in the direction that they’d like.
I have emailed the Octopus Publishing Group who publish Philips Universal Atlas of the World to point out the apparent ‘doctoring’ of the images.
It will be interesting to see their response (if ever).
Steve in SC (06:32:07) :
Might be more useful as a coat in a few years 😉
DaveE.
AGW is a victim of its own success. On the one hand apocalyptic and foreboding, on the other giving an olive branch. Its like Rasputin or Nostradamus. A bogeyman one minute, a saviour the next. In reality, neither but a paper tiger.
One can agree with Al Gore on one principle: It crosses all political divides – just like a belief in Santa Claus
Reading between the lines it appears to me that some of the rats may be on the verge of abandoning ship. This looks a lot like panic. I’d bet they are hearing doubts from other scientists (asking tough questions) and that has them scared. They know they have lied and now they realize it could come back to haunt them. (cue special audio effects of haunted house)