Which of these states is closest to 20,000 square kilometers in area?
UPDATE: USGS has issued a statement, see below.
WUWT reader “DC” points us to this Gore-esque pronouncement from a USGS scientist about “Antarctic ice loss”.
Jane Ferrigno of the U.S. Geological Survey in a National Public Radio interview
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124178690 (Audio clip available)
Ms. FERRIGNO: The fact that the ice shelves are changing on the peninsula is a significant signal that global change, climate warming, is affecting the ice cover of Antarctica. It’s affecting first the area that’s towards the north, that’s slightly warmer, but the effect of the warming has traveled from the northern part of the peninsula to the southern part of the peninsula, where it’s colder.
…
“RAZ: Give us a sense of how much ice [on the Antarctic peninsula] has been lost over the past, say, 10 years.
Ms. FERRIGNO: I think I’ll go back 20 years, and in the last 20 years, I would say at least 20,000 square kilometers of ice has been lost, and that’s comparable to an area somewhere between the state of Texas and the state of Alaska.
RAZ: So about the size of the state of Texas in terms of ice has been lost in the past 20 years. ”
It gets better.
Ms. FERRIGNO: Well, this is a fairly small amount of ice when you consider the whole Antarctic continent consists of about 13 million square kilometers of ice.
RAZ: I mean, it sounds so dramatic, the size of Texas, right?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. FERRIGNO: It is. It is very dramatic, and it is larger than the size of Texas, but when you consider the entire Antarctic ice sheet, it’s still a fairly minimal amount. But the thing that we’re really interested in seeing is that this is a sort of a red flag because if the warming continues, if the retreat continues, if the amount of ice on the continent starts to flow into the water, then there will be substantial impact to the sea level.
RAZ: That’s Jane Ferrigno. She is a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey.
Jane Ferrigno, thanks for coming in.
Ms. FERRIGNO: Thank you.
Ms. Ferrigno might do well to have a look at this map of the USA and Antarctica compared at Texas A&M University’s Polar Science program to get a sense of scale.
Here’s the story on all the Southern hemisphere sea ice, which includes all Antarctic sea ice, from Cryosphere today:
Maybe Ms. Ferrigno will be embarrassed enough by her geographic ineptitude and will heed Gavin Schmidt’s advice and stop trying to “persuade the public“.
======================================
UPDATE:
Statement from USGS:
The comment by Jane in the NPR interview was an honest mistake. We are sorry for the delay in responding to your email, but Jane has been out of the office. Below is an apology and clarification statement that will be posted on the NPR site soon. Jane will be in the office later today, and if you have any questions, please let me or her know.
From Jane …
I want to apologize to NPR and the listening audience for my misstatement last Sunday, February 28. During the last 20 years, an area more than 20,000 sq. km. (comparable to the size of New Jersey) has broken off the ice shelves of the Antarctic Peninsula. It is the Antarctic Peninsula, the source of the ice loss, that I meant to say was larger than the state of Texas but smaller than the state of Alaska.
Thank you,
Jessica Robertson
Public Affairs Specialist
Office of Communications
U.S. Geological Survey
(703) 648-6624
Anthony, I know I can come here for good information, but now I see I can get a few laughs as well. Thanks.
Surely the changes seen in Antartica just now are no more significant than the break up of the Weddel Sea iceshelf in late 1920’s early 1930’s? In 1927, a whaler encountered an iceberg from this break up which even when it had reached the South Shetland Islands was still around 90 to 100 miles long – so big that the whaler sailed around it to make sure it was a berg and not a new island! The iceshelfs change over time and if the AGW supporters want to use these changes as evidence they need to demonstrate cause and effect.
Glad to see an admission of fault. I did not even get that good of a response… they seemed to think the blunder a more trivial matter. Though I will say she was very nice and responded to me quite quick.
“Hello-
I caught that error as well. Being from Alaska, I do think of Texas as being rather small – but not tiny like NJ!
I found a Statement from the USGS on the Watts Up With That? blog. It’s copied below
Regards, …”
I wonder why the USGS doesn’t post anything on their site? It was their mistake, not NPR’s.
So, the amount of ice lost (off the Antarctic Peninsula, which is WAY North) is only about 0.15% of the entire ice mass extent of Antarctica… and the entire Peninsula is a whole 5.4% of the entire ice mass extent of Antarctica (rough numbers or 13,000,000 sq km, etc., as cited by the article). Makes me REALLY worried…
I wonder how well Jane also knows about the location of the Peninsula, and its susceptibility to ocean currents, etc.
The ice isn’t “lost” just because it cracked off from millenia of independent stresses and floated away to be a shipping hazard for generations.
FGS what an absurd interview overall. Is it the females in science and media doing this brainwashing?
“RAZ: I mean, it sounds so dramatic”
(!!! oohDANGER!!bettergetanannystatetofixeverythingsincemenarelikehatracksformooses!!!)
We need our drama, don’t we (all grown up), girlfriends?
Doesn’t NPR have better things to “report” (tattle-tale) on to the over educated but gullible and stupid twenty somethings trapped in their hocked hybrids?
Crock pot rant. Slow burn.
See, I was right, she misspoke and got mixed up. Several people here pulled apart what she meant and figured it out. It’s a mistake, but not an unforgivable one.
The basic point of this research is that they did a big survey of ice shelves on the Antarctic penninsula and were surprised by the amount of retreat in southern ones. The survey is outside of what would be expected and is just a piece to fit with all the others indicating some weirding of the global climate. This one scientific story doesn’t mean anything conclusive and shouldn’t be taken as proof in and of itself of anthropogenic climate change, it’s just one more point that fits the model. One more piece of evidence for a theory that is proving itself true in one place after another. We don’t have to be alarmist, but we don’t have to deny the whole thing either.
I recommend this article by Bill McKibben likening climate denial to the OJ case, it’s a pretty good one. I do admit he gets a little pushy with the 350.org stuff at the end, but it’s definitely worth a read anyway.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-mckibben/the-attack-on-climate-cha_b_476755.html
From NPR
Correction: During this interview, it was stated that in the last 20 years, at least 20,000 square kilometers of ice have been lost, an area, it was stated, somewhere between the size of Texas and Alaska. That is incorrect. 20,000 square kilometers is roughly the size of New Jersey. The United States Geological Survey says that it is the Antarctic Peninsula, the source of the ice loss, that is larger than the state of Texas but smaller than Alaska.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124178690
As is common the denier/skeptic (pick the term you prefer) community focuses on a small error to obscure a larger truth.
That ‘Sea Ice Anomay’ graph is very puzzling. It plots deviations in the sea ice compared to the mean by 1 to 2 million square km. How can that be?
Any chance the ‘y’ axis is mislabelled?
Mike (21:15:40)
Rumor has it this was not the first time Ferrigno has made this misstatement, and the NPR correction was not made, AFAIK, until we brought it to their attention.
The gross exaggeration is not the only problem here – she was talking about peninsular ice (connected to the Anarctic Peninsula but not on top of it), which is sea ice – not land ice. She failed to make that distinction anywhere (not the first time), and then implied that the 10,000km2/decade decline in this one spot was hugely important… while failing to mention the 100,000km2/decade “statistically insignificant” net increase in Antarctic sea ice (according to EPA estimates).
So lets see here, that makes for gross exaggerations of 10x and 35x in one interview. I’m sure if a non-CAGW Proponent made equivalent gaffs the Real Climate, Tamine, Romm, Gore, etc community would understand it was a simple slip-up and not call attention to it, right?
I like your site but please remove the [snip] Pub from “Scientology,org” in it. I am a rational individual, so not a creasy body.Thank you.
Sorry Drew,
The lady’s mis-statement is representative of how the AGW promoters have been playing fast and loose with the facts, which will no longer be tolerated. There hasn’t been enough study to say what is weird and what is normal.