Today NOAA officially announced www.climate.gov It didn’t take skeptics long to find a sin of omission. WUWT reader Dave N. pointed this one out to me.
Let’s start with the lecture to skeptics in the Dec 31st 2009 story “What the future may hold” which is an article about sea ice extent. The climate.gov website has been in “beta” for a couple of months. It was announced first on WUWT on December 2nd, 2009. There has been plenty of time to correct this story. The story states:
“When you’re in a court of law, you have to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The people who have been focusing on the ‘cooling’ have not been telling the whole truth,”
It appears right below this graphic:
This NOAA.gov story for their new “ClimateWatch magazine”, is written by Michon Scott. It leaves out some important data that is obvious to everyone, skeptical or not.
The sea ice data, cited from NSIDC, stops in 2007. 2008 and 2009 sea ice data and imagery, available to even the simplest of curiosity seekers at the publicly available NSIDC or even Cryosphere Today websites, is not included in the graphic. Mr. Scott chooses the historical satellite record minimum of 2007 as the endpoint for comparison. This leaves a reader who is “not in the know”, with the false impression that sea ice has not recovered in any way.
Sometimes I wonder if these government types have any idea of just how blazingly stupid they look when they lecture skeptics, but purposely dig their own obvious data omission hole in the same article.
Here’s the 2008 and 2009 imagery. It took me all of about a minute of work to find it.
Above: Average, 2007, 2008 and 2009 Arctic sea ice extent. From NSIDC
Or how about Cryosphere Today, showing the 2008 and 2009 minimum days side by side?
You don’t need to work for NOAA to find this sea ice extent imagery.
There’s no excuse for NOAA not showing the 2008 and 2009 sea ice data or imagery in this story. None, zilch, zero, zip, nada.
Suffice it to say, this piece on www.climate.gov is propaganda with a lie of omission. It is not science because it omits a portion of the data that disagrees with the article’s premise.
So to Tom Karl, the new director of this machine, I use the again words written by your employee, Michon Scott with a single substitution.
“When you’re in a court of law, you have to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The people who have been focusing on the ‘warming’ have not been telling the whole truth,”
Rather than lecture us about “truth” while at the same time omitting data not in line with the premise of the article, I suggest that if NOAA is to have any credibility with this website, you should fix this omission and present the true and complete history of the sea ice record. The sooner the better.
For those that agree and wish to complain, a review of NOAA’s “Information Quality” policy might prove useful:
See it here: http://www.cio.noaa.gov/Policy_Programs/info_quality.html
For those who want to make the issue known to the newly appointed man in charge:
thomas.r.karl [at] noaa.gov
He might need a reminder that he works for us, not the other way around.
I have often wondered how far to the left someone has to be to see 0bama as “centrist”. Actually, that is a frightening thought to me.
Anyway, why did they name the Northwest and the Northeast passages “passages” if they’ve never been open before? Again, it’s one of the great mysteries of cognitive dissonance… one can see evidence right in front of them, and yet refuse to see it.
We’ve also seen the historical newspaper scans from 100 years ago, lamenting the imminent collapse of the arctic as it’s all melting away. What, exactly, is unprecedented in climate and/or weather these days?
A refusal to accept prior anecdotal evidence because it’s not “confirmed” or “peer reviewed” is as childish as it gets, and yet that’s what we are seeing.
When it comes to the arctic and antarctic ice, we HAVE to take someone else’s word for what is happening. None of us have been there, or go regularly to monitor things. It is unfortunate that we are forced to take the word of people that we KNOW are biased… and even when they use data sources that are most likely honest, they use their bias to distort what they are showing.
The sea ice data, cited from NSIDC, stops in 2007. 2008 and 2009 sea ice data and imagery, available to even the simplest of curiosity seekers at the publicly available NSIDC or even Cryosphere Today websites, is not included in the graphic.
From Gores film, choose where you start or end but don`t show all the data.
http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/goresfilm.jpg
Wouldn’t it be great if someone set up a mirror of the .gov site but edited it to reflect a skeptic “consensus” – including all the stuff they leave out which skews the conclusion, with many more references – Play them at their own game but keep it real 🙂
Great site Anthony, Keep up the good work!
A comment I left at the climate.gov site:
Looked at the “ocean acidification” pdf. Incredible rubbish! First, the ocean already contains more than 50 times as much co2 as the entire atmosphere; we could burn all the oil and coal on the planet overnight without measurably changing the ocean’s content.
Second, the ocean is full of calcium ions. Try the 7th grade earth science experiment: blow through a soda straw into a glass of hard tapwater. See the limestone particles precipitate out? The whole ocean is a giant buffer that maintains its chemistry within a narrow range.
Why are you spreading this anti-scientific propaganda?
====
Needless to say, I don’t expect any response…
Guess that the main point is to illustrate NOAA leaving out stuff, but it seems to me looking at the ice extent pics you could make of them whatever you like. 2009 looks a like there’s generally a lot less ice than the average. Some types show a recent increase while other types show a decrease. What it all means to me, as a layman in this area, leaves me clueless. Am I missing something? I’m a complete sceptic by the way, (chemistry background), man’s contribution of CO2 to warming and ocean acidification just don’t stack up when the numbers are crunched. It’s so fundamental I wonder why we bother with disproving the rest of it.
“posting as multiple identities is prohibited ~ ctm”
Charles, is there a dispensation for the schitzophrenic?
Reply: Yes and no. I know Charles and I are no Charles. ~ ctm
Robert M Marshall (19:43:42) :
“But it would make for a grand inaugural to have their server shut down by millions of e-mails pointing out their errors and hypocrisy. Let’s do it.”
Robert, are you suggesting that this group should collectively take down a US Federal Computing Resource?
“I want a President smarter than me, and I am pretty damn smart…”
I want a President wiser than me. I’ve know a lot “smart people” who are to dumb to get out of a thunderstorm.
This is a graph of avergage montly Arctic sea ice extent for January (1979-2010):
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20100203_Figure3.png
What “rebuilding” in 2007 and 2008 are you talking about, people? Isn’t the trend line obvious? The ice cover is clearly diminishing over time, are you going to trumpet a “rebuilding” every three or four years before it takes another record plunge?
They tell the truth Anthony. But only the truth they want you to hear….
Wow Henry you display all the hallmarks of an [no name calling of other commenters ~ ctm]. Those hallmarks are an overconfidence (hubris) with regard to your intellect and wisdom in comparison to those you lecture. It would be wrong to suggest you debate because that is clearly below you, or more precisely, you seem to view it as below you. For your information I am from the UK but took the time to read Obama’s “Audacity of Hope” and it was quite clear that he is and was (based upon actions and rhetoric) what I would categorise as far left in many ways. This is because of his view of the huge role of Government in ‘solving’ societal problems.
You may be ‘smart’ but so are many others who are equally well informed and have reached differing conclusions.
I have considerably more time for Mrs Palin than I do your President regardless of IQ scores.
I have researched reasonably well and it’s easy to find the same “dumbass’ insults being directed at Reagan throughout his political career as he was a direct speaker also.
Perhaps a bit folksy for you but you ain’t everyone!
On those 4 images of new and old ice, how come old ice continues to reduce after the max melt? ( it’s less than before in both 2008,2009 ). It can’t have melted, right?. Is this due to the ice spreading itself out?
Even if the latter is true, I don’t think the redistributed old ice shouldf be called new ice. A week old fish sliced into 2 thinner halves doesn’t make it any fresher.
“I do not disagree that Obama is limited by some left of center cabinet choices, but he is a centrist, and this whole Obama as a radical thing is belied by facts…
”
A centrist wouldn’t MAKE those cabinet choices. Most aren’t “left of center” but “far left.”
Obama isn’t a centrist, he just plays the centrist card. He’s willing to “work with republicans” if that means republicans will nod their head to his proposals. If republicans can’t agree with the core of his plan, then he doesn’t promote an alternative plan that they can agree to, he just calls them names.
The country has come to realize that his campaigning self-promotion and evidence of real behavior just don’t jive, which is why his approval numbers have come back to political norms from their lofty highs.
I think what most on here are saying Larus, is that what is happening HAS happened before and WILL undoubtedly happen again. The data shown on the site(s) listed in the comments above shows significant rebuilding of the ice pack over the last 2+ years. It in NO way is a reason to sell all of your belongings and move to the nearest cave.
New NY Times Article:
This will work wonderfully well to make sure everyone stays on-message. A central point that approves all releases really cuts down on all that unsupported non-scientific chatter.
Perhaps asking why it is so cold with all this snow?
Of course not, that was never given a single thought.
And there you have it. Honesty and transparency all around so people can fully trust climate change scientists once more.
And to think people were worried the quality of the NYT’s investigative environmental journalism was going to change after Andy Revkin left. Go figure.
NikFromNYC (21:08:24) :
Nice work!
The “whole truth” should also includes the press release by NASA in 2007 blaming mainly wind and currents for the dramatic loss of ice. As reported by WUWT in 2007.
From NASA:
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/quikscat-20071001.html
————
The NCDC has a page called:
“How do we know the Earth’s climate is warming?”
with lots of indicators stating almost all as fact. Maybe they are not telling the whole truth and when you live in a glass house you should not throw stones.
Lots of half truths below and flagrant lies below:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/indicators/
Taken from the Climatewatch article ”In contrast, the UK Met Office predicted warming beginning in a few years from 2009. Both groups, however, agreed that after a short period of negative or no trend in the early 2000s, global temperatures would begin to rise, perhaps quickly.
In other words, the no-trend period in the Hadley Centre’s data set not only doesn’t surprise these climatologists, it’s consistent with what they have predicted.”
Uh-oh? The Met office was predicting ‘a barbacue summer’ in 2007 that was going to top previous record high 1998. Would that not be some type of trend continuing they were predicting? Now its ‘warming beginning in a few years from 2009’.
Has someone thought to let NOAA know that the BBC is seriously considering dopping the Met office (after 90 years) because their weather forcasts are so inaccurate and just plain wrong.
If the Met can’t even cope with 1 or 2 weeks forcasts, there really is not a lot of hope for them really.
The only people who call FutureGen an earmark, are the southern anti-coal repubs like Coburn who are trying to kill it. Why are they trying to kill it? The gas and oil lobby hates the idea that the plants coming next will be coal and not natural gas.
Meet coal hater, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
As for FutureGen, it is also attempting to allow more coal deposits to be used, like those higher in sulfur in the MidWest, so the West Virginians hate it, but strip mining coal is more enviromentally friendly than mountaintop removal.
To Palin lover-
I wont respond to insane spittle, got a fact?
” CodeTech (01:34:17) :
[…]
Anyway, why did they name the Northwest and the Northeast passages “passages” if they’ve never been open before? ”
Why is the Northwest passage called a passage when it was never open? Well, because they were looking for a passage. A nice writeup about attempts during victorian times:
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/franklin/nwp.html
I wouldn’t make too much of that word. ‘Ultima Thule’ comes to mind. Google for that yourself, i won’t say who was the biggest fan of that myth only that he had a moustache.
koko (22:42:48) :
‘…..you’ll see rising Sea Level and declining Arctic sea ice extent as if the two were somehow correlated’
Archimedes principle : if all sea ice melts, sea level rise is zero. A law of physics not subject to opinion, although propaganda and stupidity are possible reasons for any mistaken beliefs.
I really did think Coburn got FutureGen killed, see comments and post here:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/02/coburn-trying-to-strip-futuregen-earmark.php
…and I was wrong that Coburn was succesful, but you are wrong that it is the biggest earmark ever – ever seen an earmark draw 500 million in private funds?
http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/futuregen/\\
From even conservative companies like CAT:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0820717720100208
Read it and weep kids, Obama loves coal, the lefties hate him for it, it is the southern repubs who hate it.
Larus (02:53:49) :
What “rebuilding” in 2007 and 2008 are you talking about, people? Isn’t the trend line obvious? The ice cover is clearly diminishing over time, are you going to trumpet a “rebuilding” every three or four years before it takes another record plunge?
Try this one:
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20100203_Figure2.png
Looking from October through February inclusive, while still below the 1979-2000 average, the periods shown (2005-06, 2006-07, 2009-2010) are all amazingly similar. Note how 2006-07 started and ended with more ice than 2005-06. Eyeballing those three lines, I can’t really see a difference between them, and 2009-10 is on track to end up just the same as the other two. If there is a “massive loss” it must be in the other seven months, but all three periods are starting at about the same boring amount.
And where are the 2007-08 and 2008-09 lines?
Henry (20:00:13): “As an attorney and a Ph.D. I am terribly offended that they would lump all skeptics in as liars, and then lie. This is no better than Palin screaming about Obama’s use of a teleprompter while using notes and scribbling answers on her hand, NASA should be ashamed.”
Spoken like a true attorney. When arguing, bring in politics as a defense. Pray tell, how do notes written on the palm differ from 3×5 cards? Contrast with a Teleprompter line that the speaker cannot even pronounce correctly.