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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Comment under the times article 🙂
Ben Wilson wrote:
“There is a 75 per cent chance that Al Gore, during the summer months, could be completely fact-free within five to seven years.”
For a split second I thought I read Al Gore would be fat-free……
Al Gore, Steven Schneider, Michael Mann, etc. will NOT go quietly, no matter how we would wish it.
Now that the press is finally listening we must make sure every such utterance from them is greeted with the facts. Not with obnoxious sarcasm, but with reasoned calm facts.
Let them do all the screaming and ranting. The public is fed up with it and ready for the truth (a few years of cold nasty weather can do wonders).
““You mean the Arctic is not ice free?””
I see that Google has a new feature on their front page advertising that you can now check out the effects of Climate Change on Google Earth. So I guess it would be easy to check.
Tipper calling Al
Tipper calling Al
Hey Baby it’s cold outside.
Bill Derryberry
he is starting to look like the Dear Leader (aka Gordon Brown)
to wit – a man whose whole world view is coming apart, while he rushes hither and yon desperately trying to maintain everything is as he believes.
At a personal level I feel sorry for then both – a little
One of the things that’s interesting here is that the scientist, Dr Maslowski, spoke out rather forcefully. Perhaps spontaneously, perhaps because he was contacted by a reporter.
In any event, it’s possible that Mr. Gore’s recent other blunders have begun to catch up to him. Passively allowing oneself to be associated with his hyperbole may now be perceived by some scientists as a risk in it’s own right. Fascinating.
““It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at, based on the information I provided to Al Gore’s office.”
Perhaps a little technicality? From March 2008:
“We speak to Wieslaw Maslowski about his prediction that by the summer of 2013, we will have completely lost ice cover in the Arctic. Dr. Maslowski says that the complete loss of summer ice may actually happen sooner.”
http://beyondzeroemissions.org/media/radio/dr-wieslaw-maslowski-predicted-2013-ice-free-summer-arctic-five-years-ago-now-he-says-ma
“there’s a quote from Wieslaw that perhaps 2013 is even a possibility for the loss of the complete summer ice extent.”
Maslowski did not object to that.
“Matthew Wright: Ok. So now, it was reported in The New York Times that you said that 2013 was a possibility, and perhaps you’d actually projected this some years ago, that we could lose the summer sea ice extent – that’s in the summer solstice is it?
Dr Wieslaw Maslowski: That is correct.” …
“And this way we’re saying that actually if we already have lost probably about 40% volume in the Arctic so far, if we project this trend ongoing for the last 10 – 15 years, we probably will reach zero in summer some time mid next century, mid next decade, I’m sorry.”
Seems he apologized for saying “mid next century”. Later,
“Matthew Wright: So, there’s been other projections from some glaciologists around 2020. So, somewhere in that range. You said 2013 in The New York Times where it was reported, but something between then and 2020 is very in the ballpark and a likelihood.
Dr Wieslaw Maslowski: It’s interesting that the longer we wait and the more we see what is happening, what changes are happening in the Arctic, the sooner people start predicting those changes to completely melted ice in summer in the Arctic – as soon as in the next decade or so.”
I think this is a new word definition moment…
Gored:
as in to be Gored
1) To be denied in public, by the author of the “quote” you are giving in public speech setting.
there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free
Um, the ice cap could be ice-free? He can’t even speak English. Exactly why does anybody with the slightest hint of intelligence believe a word he says any more? If it’s because he’s a “great public speaker”, please read the above quote again…
Good grief!
So now Big Al claims that the “Arctic could be ice free in five to seven years”. But last year he said the “entire north polar ice cap will be gone in five years”.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/14/gore-entire-north-polar-ice-cap-will-be-gone-in-5-years/
Not that I would expect ManBearPig to be consistent, he is a politician, but shouldn’t he have said that the Arctic could be ice free in four to seven years. After all you have to be consistent if you expect people to believe you when you are being super cereal.
Come on, the facts don’t matter. It doesn’t have to be “truth”. Truth-y is close enough, or maybe truth-ish. They don’t worry about the number as long as the sign is correct. The problem is that they have to keep adjusting the start and end time of the data in order to get the correct sign to the trend. And if that isn’t enough, time to “adjust” the data a little more in order to get the “truth”. It now looks as though the warmers have so many balls in the air in this act that it is becoming difficult to keep track of them all.
“Jack Kendrick (19:45:58) :
““You mean the Arctic is not ice free?””
I see that Google has a new feature on their front page advertising that you can now check out the effects of Climate Change on Google Earth. So I guess it would be easy to check.”
Clicking on the graph at the top right of this page is even easier.
“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.”
“Removal” sounds pretty explicit:
“Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007,” the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC.
“So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7139797.stm
Can’t find the original Times article.
And to think… Al was almost President!
There is a God~
He’s lying. We have an unimpeachable source that the ice will be gone four years from today.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/14/gore-entire-north-polar-ice-cap-will-be-gone-in-5-years/
One failed presidential campaign x massive ego / a new cause for global recognition to fuel massive ego = Al Gore
Please feel free check my raw data – not that it’s widely available or even trust worthy
Of course, catching Maslowski in a fibber doesn’t mean that Gore isn’t having an inconvenient moment in the press or with his “advisors”. It’s the sound of a house of cards coming down, the press is in on it, the participants are eating eachother. Quite inconvenient for Gore.
@hysteria,
I don’t feel a bit sorry for him. He shall reap what he sows.
I’m shocked, shocked to find that Al Gore has flubbed the facts.
Oh my god, what have I created?
Maslowski’s been in the news before with a similar prediction. In fact he said that a projection of an ice free north pole by 2013 is arguably “already too conservative.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7139797.stm
A small sampling of scientists who have been in the news predicting ice free summers at the north pole:
Vincent (2013), Serreze (2008), Barber (2008), Drobot (2008), Zwally (2012), Wadhams (2008), Lindsay (2008), Rigor (2008), Mahoney (2008)
Mr. Gore is to be commended. He could have chosen to echo the less conservative prediction of an ice free arctic summer in 2008, had he merely meant to stir alarm.
😉
Can’t blame Al for being confused. Billions are going South. Mught have to sell the house boat. Tipper won’t like that!
“Oh crap… I think I left my Christmas lights, oven, tanning bed, 75 televisions, AC, 31 blenders, a leaf blower and a hair dryer still running at home.”
Yahoo has been showing the original comments by Gore as a headline all day…no correction/retraction article.
No wonder the man keeps reporters at bay when he speaks; fact-checking not allowed. Just look what happens when some real reporters get to do their job and he then has to have his press rep issue clarifications.
The transition from crusader to clown can happen so quickly. What’s worse is when the clown still takes himself seriously.