UPDATE: In a strange twist, Climate Depot reports that Brochure reveals Gore accurately cited scientist’s prediction of ice-free Arctic — It is the Scientist who has the explaining to do — not Gore
Marc Morano writes via email – This is turning into a war of phrases. Maslowski tells the UK Telegraph: “I was very explicit that we were talking about ‘near-ice-free conditions’ and not ‘completely ice-free conditions’ (as Gore claimed) in the northern ocean.”
Read details here
From the “Inconvenient Truths” department, the Times is reporting that Gore got called out for saying older figures on Arctic sea ice as “fresh” when they were not, and misrepresenting what the scientist actually said. This latest gaff makes three in a row for Mr. Gore, who recently made bizarre claims of the leaked CRU emails being “10 years old”, when there were many, many in the last decade, some in the last month. Gore also recently stated on national television recently that the Earth’s mantle was “several million degrees”, making it likely hotter than our sun.
As indicated by the Times article, his latest gaffe has not gone unnoticed by the MSM.
Excerpts of the Times article:
There are many kinds of truth. Al Gore was poleaxed by an inconvenient one yesterday.
The former US Vice-President, who became an unlikely figurehead for the green movement after narrating the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, became entangled in a new climate change “spin” row.
Mr Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, stated the latest research showed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years.
…
Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”
However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.
“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”
Mr Gore’s office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowksi as a “ballpark figure” several years ago in a conversation with Mr Gore.
…
“This is an exaggeration that opens the science up to criticism from sceptics,” Professor Jim Overland, a leading oceanographer at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
“You really don’t need to exaggerate the changes in the Arctic.”
…
[Maslowksi said] “I was very explicit that we were talking about near-ice-free conditions and not completely ice-free conditions in the northern ocean. I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this,” he said. “It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at, based on the information I provided to Al Gore’s office.”
Read the complete Times article here
Marc Morano of Climate Depot also has a take on it here
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Damage control:
just in from news.yahoo
Ah, he misspoke. That’s all right, then.
Similarly, when I intimated that Mr Gore is a self-interested, proctoleichous, hypocritical, hyperpachypygous and lucripetous liar, I misspoke: what I should have said is that Mr Gore is nearly always a self-interested, proctoleichous, hypocritical, hyperpachypygous and lucripetous liar. Sorry.
Don’t downplay this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8387737.stm
“Mr Cogley says it is astonishing that none of the 10 authors of the 2007 IPCC report could spot the error and “misread 2350 as 2035”.
“I do suggest that the glaciological community might consider advising the IPCC about ways to avoid such egregious errors as the 2035 versus 2350 confusion in the future,” says Mr Cogley.
He said the error might also have its origins in a 1999 news report on retreating glaciers in the New Scientist magazine.
The article quoted Syed I Hasnain, the then chairman of the International Commission for Snow and Ice’s (ICSI) Working group on Himalayan glaciology, as saying that most glaciers in the Himalayan region “will vanish within 40 years as a result of global warming”.
Glacier
Scientists say Himalayan glaciers need more study
When asked how this “error” could have happened, RK Pachauri, the Indian scientist who heads the IPCC, said: “I don’t have anything to add on glaciers.”
The IPCC relied on three documents to arrive at 2035 as the “outer year” for shrinkage of glaciers.
They are: a 2005 World Wide Fund for Nature report on glaciers; a 1996 Unesco document on hydrology; and a 1999 news report in New Scientist.
Incidentally, none of these documents have been reviewed by peer professionals, which is what the IPCC is mandated to be doing.
Murari Lal, a climate expert who was one of the leading authors of the 2007 IPCC report, denied it had its facts wrong about melting Himalayan glaciers.
But he admitted the report relied on non-peer reviewed – or ‘unpublished’ – documents when assessing the status of the glaciers. ”
I LOVE the “No comment ” from the head of the IPCC! LOL
The blood is Definitely in the water here…..
@Ian (10:48:16) :
“Anthony,
I have a curious mind so I took a look at some of the raw data which is available on Arctic sea ice extent. I downloaded the raw data from 2002 to the present time…
I plotted the raw data in Excel. What I see is a beautiful sine-wave, with ice partially melting in Summer and refreezing in Winter. To my eye, I do not see any particular upward or downward trend year on year.”
The sea ice extent is highly correlated with the seasons.
Causality?
My conclusion is that the sea ice is causing the seasons to change. By extension, sea ice extent is effecting the incident angle of solar radiation – it’s tilting the earth! If AGW is such a dire concern, then I suggest we increase the sea ice extent in order to force the climate colder. If it gets too cold, we can reduce the sea ice extent (pile it up nice and high).
He who controls the sea ice extent controls the climate!
RR Kampen (00:32:02):
“Ice free summer and ’seasonal ice’ will be the fact in less than five years. Do the math.”
That is a very definitive statement. Now that you have been offered a wager that summer sea ice will not fall below 2,000,000 square kilometers within 5 years, what is your answer?
Will you take the bet?
[My prediction: Kampen will chicken out.]
Hi Charles (moderator) and Anthony,
I’ve taken a long time to respond to your wager, because your suggestion is honourable and I’m normally quick to take on a bet I have reasonable trust in.
My conclusion in short: I think your offer is very fair and I am grateful for the realistic idea of leaving me two million square kilometers of ice extent; but the fact of the matter is that I can simply not afford to lose $5000.-. So if I believe I will win the bet at a confidence level of say 90%, I still don’t dare, like I don’t buy a lottery ticket for five hundred bucks right now even on these odds.
At the same time it is beneath any honour to ask you to reduce the stakes.
Financially I expect things will improve but the bet can no longer be valid by then (e.g. because I already won by October 2010 – blocked years can be Arctic killers 😉 ).
Therefore I have no choice but to decline your wager.
And to thank you for your good offer.
Off the record, then: said confidence level of 90% is what I carry. For next year: 10-20%, an extreme circulation pattern (like summer 2007) would be needed. But I believe the erosion is progressing every year (viz. the multiyear ice). The graphs and the essential point that ice break-up occurs wholesale over vast areas when thickness has fallen below a threshold of little under two feet have led me to expect ‘ice-free’ Arctic season for the first time around 2012-2015, per guess in September 2005 that I never saw reason to change yet. I am seriously one of the least surprised on the planet about what happened in 2007. That was off the record.
Finally an interesting aside: the snowfall last Sunday in this country was unheard of in modern times. 1979 (which I remember, nine years old) would have been worse, and then some older winters. I never saw snowfall so dense as to reduce visibility to less than fifty metres. Besides this: three hours of ‘summery’ thunder and that in snow is a first for me (I have seen the blizzard product of 7.03 metres in Februay 1979, beside a million of 2-5 m).
The country has been in total disarray for three days, the entire economy on half power. Temperaturewise it’s fairly cold, especially for the 21st century, but nothing extreme (my hopes are on January, then, my hobby being skating) – that is: around or a couple degrees below freezing. On the other hand, this cold is starting to linger and will make December a fairly cold month despite the very mild first two weeks. It will become the second cold month of 2009 at an anomaly of about -2.5 to -3° C (please check this with GISS around 12 January). Slightly even below last year’s actually.
I submit that the Gore-effect is totally devastating and I’m ROFL with it every day I pull my bike through the fat sludge to get to my office 🙂
Have a great, preferably white, X-Mas!
RR Kampen,
An honest and thoughtful response simply for the fact that you appear to have taken the bet seriously and apparently would not have tried to welch if you accepted and lost.
However, expect to be challenged with more wagers from now on if I see you express certainty on a trend I disagree with and upon which a wager can be placed.
You said clearly you expected the trend would go from the current 4 million km2 to zero. I gave you a free 2 million km2 and you still backed down.
Talk is cheap. Conviction costs. 5,000 dollars is not a trivial amount for me either. I would have had to a lot of juggling to pay off a loss in my current circumstances.
Charles, I would lose my roof instantly… I mean that.
I’d rather have to risk being found ‘cheap’.
90% is not ‘conviction’. It is an educated guess based on some evidence. Like any scientist I don’t spend my life wagering on my guesses, by the way.
I will consider wagers as they come. Personally I think a couple of beers ought to do for any wager in a discussion like this. Getting insight into climate(-change) is just so much more important, for me at least.
Let’s do 1000.
Charles tm,
“Let’s say 1,000 US dollars that summer minimum Arctic sea ice extent will not fall below 2 million square kilometers in the next five years as measured by JAXA.”
That is the wager?
Yes that is the wager.
You say: summer minimum Arctic sea ice extent will fall below 2 million square kilometers in the next five years as measured by JAXA.
I say: summer minimum Arctic sea ice extent will not fall below 2 million square kilometers in the next five years as measured by JAXA.
No can do the wager.
It implies depositing the money somewhere trustworthy and safe during the periode and I cannot muster the amount.
Sorry.
REPLY: Then choose a smaller amount that is less risk. I suggest then $1000. There are any number of banks that can do this. Simply setup a certificate of deposit or savings account. Very easy and safe to do. Millions do so.- Anthony