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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Caption:
I left my brain right here! And now it’s gone. Gone I tells ya!
“My venture fund has $5bn invested in AGW, my assets are $70m, please pray hard for a strong El Nino next year so I can cash out”
What happened to Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency data? I had been collecting daily artic ice data thru Dec 13 2009 then last evening the data was removed back to Dec 10 2009 and has not been updated since.
Richard Lindzen, a climate scientist at the Massachusets Institute of Technology who does not believe that global warming is largely caused by man, said: “He’s just extrapolated from 2007, when there was a big retreat, and got zero.”
Actually, Mount Vernon was Washington’s home, not Jefferson’s. Clinton and Gore were at Monticello.
However, your point is well-taken and I was going to make the same comment a few days ago. I remember it too and wish I had that clip. It’s priceless.
Caption: Al ponders the commercial possibilities of becoming a sceptic.
probably there is definitely a misunderstanding of the ALGORhythms here.
What a disappointment !
WE thought we norwegians were the rulers of the “climate world”.
Publishing scary reports every other week !
And now !!…. hoping to get the attention after giving him the Nobel Peace Price, what do we read ???
(blog.algore.com) The DANISH foreign minister ??!! He is norwegian !!!
Another hit from Al Gore 🙂
And this today from the UK tabloid Daily Express – front piece in the on-line edition http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/146138
The Mail on Sunday had a two page spread on “hiding the decline”.
Perhaps the penny is finally dropping in the MSM.
Don’t forget when he pointed to Antactica in An Inconvenient Truth and said, “If this disappears, sea level world wide goes up 20 ft.” LOL! More like well over 200ft there Mr. Gore. Get your catastrophes straight man!
This clown reminds me of the old addage, “when you give someone enough microphone cord, they will eventually hang themselves with it.”
If Al Gore is smart he will in the future shorten the length of his speeches.
There is plenty of evidence that the number of “factual fabrications” is directly proportional to the length of the speech. A 15-20 second speech is more suitable.
Al Gore: “I give my climate predictions a solid B+”
“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.”
Actually, you do. If you don’t exaggerate them there is no story…
so soo (00:14:53) : said:
“Not seen the Catlin Arctic Survey preliminary results yet which can be found here..”
I looked. The first thing I saw was this line:
“The Catlin Arctic Survey, completed earlier this year, provides the latest ice thickness record, drawn from the only survey capturing surface measurements conducted during winter and spring 2009…”
Wasn’t there a German airbourn expedition at the same time, which successfully ran a radar study with results which contradicted Catlins?
Doesn’t the Arctic become ‘near-ice-free’ every summer? Looking at summer pictures verses winter pictures (I haven’t had the privilege of visiting the poles, myself), it wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination to make that statement. Sort of like saying a man with $1 million is ‘poor’ compared to a man with $5 million…
Quite simply, making an abstract statement such as this cannot be proven false, so appears to be (and will appear to be) true; especially when one presents pictures of a largely ice free area (say, a dozen or so square kilometers out of several million) of the Arctic.
Caption:
Is it getting warmer in here, or is it just me?
Climate Depot has a story up which says Gore’s citing of the claim was accurate. Seems to be several different claims and issues involved, and a plethora of editor’s notes in the CD story.
Curious to see how it shakes out.
@ur momisugly Larry (22:07:24) :
great poem…better than Gore’s.
caption:
“Where’s Bill Clinton when you need him and some sex scandal to distract the public?”
Everything you need to know about Copnehagen is here. If you know exactly how to reduce the previously vibrant economy of a nation to one with quality below that of a Banana Republic you are welcome to speak.
“Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe was among the first heads of state to touch down in the Danish capital, avoiding a travel ban imposed by Western nations because he was attending to a U.N. conference. Mugabe was to address the conference on Wednesday.”
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20091215/Climate/?cid=NET_SZHeadlineRSSLinks&attr=article_news_general_Climate
Perhaps I am being optimistic, but this is the second time the Times has been critical of AGW alarmists in a week. First, in their report of the Met Office “petition” they prominently reported on an anonymous source saying he felt pressured to sign up and now a big headline on Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” that doesn’t add up. This headline is still on the frontpage of the Online version.
The Telegraph in the UK has been decent for a while and this weekend the Mail on Sunday (one of the biggest Sunday papers in the UK) ran a pretty decent article on ClimateGate. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1235395/SPECIAL-INVESTIGATION-Climate-change-emails-row-deepens–Russians-admit-DID-send-them.html – Ignore the tag-line as the article is a good deconstruction)
I also see a note above on the UK Conservative party beginning to question the accepted wisdom as well – perhaps following on from the Australian Liberals ditching their leader over their version of Cap and Trade.
This is starting to look like an inflection point in the official position, which would be about right, given that the inflection in public opinion probably happened 12-18 months ago.
Or perhaps I’m just an optimist….
Schadenfreud is the only word that comes to mind for me!
My entry for the Caption Contest is
“But I thought they had my back”
Caption:
Should know better than ask a climate scientist for an Algoreism
“Later in the day, *Danish* Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and I presented our global report on melting ice.”
Poor Al, he never seems to get anything right.
[ http://blog.algore.com/2009/12/at_cop15.html ]
Climategate seems to be having an effect
This is the first time I have seen one of Big Al’s outrageous statement immediately questioned in the mainstream media. At last we are beginning to see some balance
Ig-dzine (03:43:19) :
“Richard Lindzen, a climate scientist at the Massachusets Institute of Technology who does not believe that global warming is largely caused by man, said: “He’s just extrapolated from 2007, when there was a big retreat, and got zero.” ”
If we would employ the same extrapolation on the data of the past 2 years we would have to conclude that the extent of the summer ice is going to overtake that of the winter ice in less than 10 years.