This is an OSU press release, timed to appear in Eurekalert for Cancun’s COP16 on December 8th, and reposted here verbatim, including the all caps headline. Even though the “melting on Kilimanjaro due to global warming” has been fully debunked by a recent peer reviewed paper (see Kilimanjaro’s snow – it’s about land use change, tree cutting) Dr. Thompson continues to push this false information.
For example, this is a photo (at left) of Dr. Thompson standing next to an ice spire on Kilimanjaro. Notice any meltwater pools nearby? You won’t, because they aren’t there. Read this quote from this entry to understand why:
The ice cap on Kilimanjaro consists of ice on the 5,700-meter-high flat summit, some with vertical edges, and several slope glaciers, mostly at altitudes where temperatures stay well below freezing and the major source of energy is solar radiation. Considerable infrared radiation is emitted from the glacier surface into the surrounding air, and the glaciers lose the most mass through sublimation-the direct conversion of ice to water vapor. Observers have seen only a trickle of meltwater.
Dr. Thompson seems not to want to understand the process of sublimation on Kilimanjaro – Anthony
RyanM chimes in: Tennis great(est) Martina Navratilova, who recently battled breast cancer, participated in a charity climb/hike up Kilimanjaro this week, but sadly had to turn back due to health concerns. However, an “unexpected blizzard” and really ugly “tropical winter” weather made her climb quite miserable. “We have sent a message down to our base camp to bring up thicker gloves, hand warmers and more heavy clothing. I was expecting it to be cold and snowy, but not so soon.”
CLIMATE SCIENTIST WARNS WORLD OF WIDESPREAD SUFFERING IF FURTHER CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOT FORESTALLED.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – One of the world’s foremost experts on climate change is warning that if humans don’t moderate their use of fossil fuels, there is a real possibility that we will face the environmental, societal and economic consequences of climate change faster than we can adapt to them.
Lonnie Thompson, distinguished university professor in the School of Earth Sciences at Ohio State University, posed that possibility in a just-released special climate-change edition of the journal The Behavior Analyst.
He also discussed how the rapid and accelerating retreat of the world’s glaciers and ice sheets dramatically illustrates the nature of the changing climate.
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| Lonnie Thompson |
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Photo by Thomas Nash
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It is the first time in a published paper that he has recommended specific action to forestall the growing effects of climate change. During the last three decades, Thompson has led 57 expeditions to some of the world’s most remote high altitude regions to retrieve cores from glaciers and ice caps that preserve a record of ancient climate.
In the past Thompson has let his research data and conclusions speak for him but in this paper, intended for social scientists and behavior experts, he voiced his concern regarding the risks that ignoring the evidence of climate change may bring.
“Unless large numbers of people take appropriate steps, including supporting governmental regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, our only options will be adaptation and suffering,” he wrote in the concluding paragraph.
“And the longer we delay, the more unpleasant the adaptations and the greater the suffering will be.”
In the paper (available here), Thompson said that virtually all climate researchers “are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization.”
His opinion isn’t hyperbole, he said, but instead is based on a “very clear pattern in the scientific evidence documenting that the Earth is warming, that the warming is due largely to human activity, that warming is causing important changes to many of the Earth’s support systems, and that rapid and potentially catastrophic changes in the near future are possible.
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“Unless large numbers of people take appropriate steps, including supporting governmental regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, our only options will be adaptation and suffering.” |
“Such future scenarios,” he says, “emerge not, as is often suggested, simply from computer simulations, but from the weight and balance of the empirical evidence as well.”
Thompson listed three options humanity has for dealing with global warming which, he says, “is here and is already affecting our climate, so prevention is no longer an option.”
“Clearly mitigation is our best option, but so far most societies around the world, including the United States and the other largest emitters of greenhouse gases, have done little more than talk about the importance of mitigation,” he says.
He says that there are currently no technological quick fixes for global warming.
“Our best hope,” he says, “is to change our behavior in ways that significantly slow the rate of global warming, thereby giving engineers and scientists time to devise, develop, and deploy technological solutions where possible.”
Thompson prefaced his advice with examples of the Earth’s diminishing ice cover, examples that constitute some of the strongest supporting evidence of the current threat of global climate change:
— The ice fields atop Mount Kilimanjaro have lost 85 percent of their coverage since 1912;
— The Quelccaya ice cap in southern Peru – the largest tropical ice field on Earth, has retreated 25 percent since 1978;
— Ice fields in the Himalayas that have long shown traces of the radioactive bomb tests in the 1950s and 1960s have since lost that signal as surface melting has removed the upper layers and thereby reduced the thickness of these glaciers;
— All of the glaciers in Alaska’s vast Brooks Range are retreating, as are 98 percent of those in southeastern Alaska. And 99 percent of glaciers in the Alps, 100 percent of those in Peru and 92 percent in the Andes of Chile are likewise retreating;
— Sea levels are rising and the loss of ice coverage in the North Polar region continues to increase annually.
“Everyone will be affected by global warming,” Thompson wrote. “But those with the fewest resources for adapting will suffer the most.”
A research scientist with Ohio State’s Byrd Polar Research Center, Thompson is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2007, he received the National Medal of Science, the highest honor the United States gives to American scientists.
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Contact: Lonnie Thompson, (614) 292-6652: Thompson.3@osu.edu
Written by Earle Holland, (614) 292-8384; Holland.8@osu.edu.
Jim, in case you haven’t noticed, a teaching degree is no longer a job ticket.
This post is an example of why I consider the globaloney warming lie to be one of the most serious threats to the well-being of the living forms on Earth. Not only is it 180 degrees wrong on both temperature and carbon dioxide as to what direction the optimums lie in from here; it also encourages absolute irresponsibility about the things that actually DO matter–such as land use patterns on Mt. Kilimanjaro.
As to Jim G’s remarks above-
You do realize that Thompson is not an engineering graduate of Ohio State-right?
IIRC, his undergrad degree is from Marshall in Geology, but I have not checked this. I do recognize your attitude. Usually this kind of self-appointed elitist arrogance comes from Case graduates or maybe Ohio Northern as those are the only typical source of transfers or “re-entry” engineering students at OSU. Fine. But it has seemed to me that the more prominent AGW proponents appear to be largely those from the more commonly (and I use that term advisedly) considered “elite” univesities. It was an Ohio State Collede of Engineering organization, incidently, that sponsored a presentation there by Steve McIntyre.
Regardless, this from US News and World Report:
OSU’s College of Engineering is ranked 26th nationally — among the more than 300 doctoral-granting universities. OSU’s engineering is15th among publics in the category, up from last year’s ranking of 28th overall and 17th among publics.
The only other Ohio school included in the prestigious listing of top universities is Case Western Reserve University, in a four-way tie for 38.
Sorry-“College” not “Collede”-typical by an engineer.
In the 1950s I was what is now called a youth but we were mostly called kids then; sometimes there was a preceding descriptor. We were advised to not eat the snow! It had radioactivity in it, especially strontium 90. We didn’t know what that was, and didn’t care, but we did avoid the yellow snow when we grabbed a handful to eat.
In any case, here is a link to the research mentioned in the post:
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/radsignl.htm
The main thrust of the issue seems to be that if glaciers melt there will be water shortages.
But, will there not be water shortages if glacier ice stays ice?
And won’t it be worse if glacial ice grows?
Those currently living seem to have been born and live in a time when glaciers have melted, grown, stabilized, melted, and so on. Many societies and water users (farmers, orchardists) and their organizations (think USA Bureau of Land Management) have based use (extending plantings) on the most, not the least, water during the ups and downs.
What could go wrong with that?
In another recent thread someone pointed out that the streams and rivers in the mountains are not fed from melting glaciers, but from snowmelt.
/Mr Lynn
We haven’t heard much lately about the raw data used to estimate (yes, sounds like estimating to me) ‘global’ temperatures, but this anecdote reminds me of Anthony’s Surface Stations project, with its appalling compendium of severely compromised measurement sites; and of E. M . Smith’s “march of the thermometers” southward; and of the dearth of recent data from much of the cold north.
I know that many of the meteorologists and climatologists hereabouts agree with the Warmists that ‘the Earth’ has warmed up maybe .7º C over the past century or so. But given the state of the basic data, one has to wonder: Even if the concept of ‘global temperature’ has any meaningful referents (which I doubt), is there adequate data of sufficient quantity to support the observation that there has been any warming at all? Or is even that conceding too much to the Climatists?
Is it not time to focus down on the raw data and insist that those who constantly prattle on about ‘global warming’ actually demonstrate that there has been any?
/Mr Lynn
Mr Lynn says:
“Is it not time to focus down on the raw data and insist that those who constantly prattle on about ‘global warming’ actually demonstrate that there has been any?”
Mr Lynn, you have hit the nail squarely on the head. Assumptions that there has been quantifiable warming must be based on verifiable raw data. And as we have seen from the Climategate emails and the extensive Harry-Read_Me file, the claimed raw data is highly suspect, and very often non-existent; Wei-Chyung Wang and Phil Jones co-authored papers that referenced non-existent weather stations, which is nothing more or less than scientific fraud.
The data is not replicable, and it would never stand up in a court of law. Yet the climate charlatans, led by the UN/IPCC, base their ridiculous claims for reparations on this questionable temperature ‘data’.
Bernie Madoff would completely understand what is going on here.
Contrary to your conclusion, timing concerning the release of this story had nothing to do with the Cancun conference and everything to do with the publication date of the journal in which the paper was carried, which was December 8. It is SOP in science communications to coordinate the distribution of a release to the public with the actual publication date of the journal.
REPLY: Yes, people said the same thing last year about the boatload of articles that came out around Copenhagen. Yet, the pattern repeats itself this year. Besides, this isn’t a real scientific paper, it’s an op-ed. If it had gone through any peer review worth anything the sublimation issue on Kilimanjaro would have been called out.
The fact is that this press release is not science, but a call to action. Big difference. – Anthony
Barry Day says:
December 11, 2010 at 3:43 am
Eidence that Sea level has stayed steady since around 3000 BC
http://www.john-daly.com/
The 1841 sea level benchmark (centre) on the `Isle of the Dead’, Tasmania. According to Antarctic explorer, Capt. Sir James Clark Ross, it marked mean sea level in 1841. Photo taken at low tide 20 Jan 2004.
Mark is 50 cm across; tidal range is less than a metre. © John L. Daly.
Half of my time I spend at a sea lake on the Corinth sea, which used to be the naval base of Corinthians 2500 years ago. There still exist the wharf foundations where they tied their ships, covered only at the very high tides.
In addition, there are rock promontories that hang over the sea, showing clearly sequential erosion levels that are over 6 meters over the sea level now.
The only thing in question is that the area is also a site of major quakes, and it might be that the whole has moved up and down over the centuries and we are now at the same level as the Corinthians 🙂 so a major study would be necessary to draw any solid conclusions.
Barry Day:
December 11, 2010 at 3:43 am
a p.s. The John Daly link is not working. Looking at the temporary storage it seems that he has left us for different shores as there is an obituary.
Anna,
John died in 2004, Phil Jones is on record as saying that he found the news “oddly cheering”. His website has been maintained since by a writer in Chicago called Jerry Brennan. It was working last week when I re-posted an article by John.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/john-l-daly-the-deep-blue-sea/
I linked to the graphs on the site. I just hope I haven’t broken it by causing it to exceed bandwidth limits or something. I’ve relinked to cached copies. I’ll try to email Jerry.
Replying to Anthony:
I’m not responsible for the ” the boatload of articles that came out around Copenhagen” that you claim. It’s easy enough to check on my statement — contact the editor of the journal and ask for the publication date.
Moreover, Thompson’s warning amounts to perhaps 1-2 percent of the volume of the paper, and you’d know that if you read it. The paper was an invited paper at the journal and, of course, underwent peer review. And the sublimation issue on Kilimanjaro was ruled as insignificant by the scientific community a long time ago.
The release isn’t a “call to action” as you claim but an accurate representation of the content of the paper.
REPLY: Well sir, sorry, but you are wrong, and blinded. I never suggested you were responsible for the Copenhagen articles, I’m speaking of the issue beyond OSU world. Sublimation insignificant? What utter rubbish. You’ve presented nothing to bolster the claim or refute the citation I included. Being in the radio and TV news business for 30 years, my opinion is that this headline below is indeed a “call to action”.
CLIMATE SCIENTIST WARNS WORLD OF WIDESPREAD SUFFERING IF FURTHER CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOT FORESTALLED.
It says “this will happen” if….”we don’t do this”. That’s classic CTA marketing.
I’m sorry but when we look at the Thompson scofflaw funding curve , it looks even more like marketing 101. That’s a lot of money. With such money comes responsibility to archive data and make it available.
If you can convince Dr. Thompson to provide his data, I’m sure opinions will change. So far there is zero reason to trust a researcher who refuses to provide his base data for replication by the scientific community while at the same time has an exponential funding curve. The people of the United States demand better. We demand accountability, and you Mr. Holland are contributing to the problem with your (SHOUTING IN ALL CAPS) scare headlines.
– Anthony Watts
Thompson’s data is routinely filed at the World Data Center for Paleoclimatology at Boulder, CO, a part of NOAA, and has been for years.
As for “shouting,” our editorial style is for headlines to be in all caps — Don’t read internet ettiquette.
And while I respect your 30 years of experience, you should equally respect my 42 years of the same kind of experience.
REPLY: Thanks for the reply. I’d simply peruse Eurekalert and look at headlines to see that your ALL CAPS style of headline is the exception for press releases today, perhaps even a singularity. The Eurekalert releases mostly end up on the Internet elsewhere, so “net ettiquette” is germane to the issue.
If the data is all available, why then do we have this issue? See:
Kaufman et al: Obstructed by Thompson and Jacoby
http://climateaudit.org/2009/09/12/the-making-of-kaufman-et-al-2009/
In fact there’s a whole category for missing OSU/Thompson data:
http://climateaudit.org/category/proxies/thompson/
But if Mr. McIntyre is in error, and you can direct either him or me to the data that is missing, but supposedly archived at the World Data Center for Paleoclimatology at Boulder, CO and available for replication, I’ll happily withdraw my claims, and post a positive note on WUWT about it and this available data.
If you wish, I’ll be happy to email you Mr. McIntyre’s contact details so you can provide him with access to the data. I’m sure he will be thrilled to hear this.
Thanks for your consideration. – Anthony Watts
Eurekalert follows the style of its clients, so they reproduce our style. I’ve been on the national advisory board for Eurekalert since it’s inception and it’s primary purpose is providing science news releases to the international science media. It’s secondary purpose is to provide information to the public. In that case, however Eurekalert’s style processes are managed is well with common net ettiquette.
MacIntyre and Thompson have been in correspondence for years and I know for a fact that Thompson has forwarded data to him with the directive that once he publishes in a peer-reviewed journal related to that data, then Thompson will share more. Regardless, their entire data sets are stored at the World Data Center for Paleoclimatology at Boulder.
I have no interest in a dialogue with McIntyre on this, or to do his inquiries for him. My feedback on your blog entry was simply to clarify points on the timing of the release and later on the availability of Thompson’s data sets. That I have done.
Clearly your interest is in perpetuating a specific position on climate change. Mine is simply to report on the science as it develops. You’re entitled to spin things any way you see fit, but as a public institution, we are obligated to report fact — which we have.
REPLY: Congratulations on elevating the refusal of Dr. Thompson and OSU once again to provide open access to the data.
It seems though that the actual evidence at Eurkealert doesn’t support your claim of: “Eurekalert follows the style of its clients, so they reproduce our style.”
Here’s your press release at Eurekalert:
And here’s your press release at OSU:
It seems to me that the Eurekalert editors did in fact have the good sense not to reproduce a headline THAT SHOUTS IN ALL CAPS TO MAKE A
SCIENTIFICALARMING PRESS RELEASE.– Anthony
http://www.john-daly.com is back up and running. Quick work guys, thanks.
Mike L says: December 11, 2010 at 12:08 pmAs to Jim G’s remarks above-
“You do realize that Thompson is not an engineering graduate of Ohio State-right?
IIRC, his undergrad degree is from Marshall in Geology, but I have not checked this. I do recognize your attitude. Usually this kind of self-appointed elitist arrogance comes from Case graduates or maybe Ohio Northern as those are the only typical source of transfers or “re-entry” engineering students at OSU. Fine. But it has seemed to me that the more prominent AGW proponents appear to be largely those from the more commonly (and I use that term advisedly) considered “elite” univesities. It was an Ohio State Collede of Engineering organization, incidently, that sponsored a presentation there by Steve McIntyre.”
You guessed it. But it was Case Institute of Technology in those days and ranked 2 or 3 for the years I attended. Never said he was an engineer from OSU or that I am one for that matter, but he is speaking from OSU, so there you go. Elitist, perhaps, but facts are facts. The liberal “elitists” have destroyed a once prominent science and engineering school by bringing in people just like this to create “CWRU” from the ashes of what was CIT. Nothing of much good is very often free and almost never easy even for the brightest among us. The latest rankings you mention are good proof of this. Today’s “elite universities” are a joke if you look ath the critera by which they are ranked. Not surprising that the AGW crowd is represented among their graduates.
Are Thompson’s data at Boulder publicly available? If Thompson is able to dole it out to McIntyre according to some arbitrary criteria of his own, then we must conclude that Thompson still controls access, no matter where the data are stored.
I realize that many scientists are quite jealous of their often hard-won data, especially if they are not done mining the data for publication, but to deny access to other researchers is at bottom contrary to the ethos and method of science. In this case the data have been obtained using taxpayer monies, so there can be no justification whatsoever for withholding them. It may in fact be against the law.
/Mr Lynn
So…that is what an internet asylum looks like.
Lucky me! I just found a treasure trove of material for my future research on human mass delusions and madness.
CYA