Reposted from “Haunting the Library” (well worth a bookmark), another clueless journalist combined with an artist/activist makes The Guardian look pretty darned stupid. Five minutes or less of checking would have prevented this blunder.
Guardian Goes “Full Stupid” on Arctic Ice, Contradicts Itself.
The Guardian managed to outdo itself in it’s latest foray into global warming, claiming that Arctic sea ice has declined by three quarters in the last three decades. In a series of “factoids” following an interview with pop celebrity and latest Greenpeace spokesperson for the Arctic ice, Jarvis Cocker, Lucy Seigle, the Guardian’s environment reporter, informed readers that:
Of the Arctic sea ice, 75% has been lost over the past 30 years. Last year saw sea-ice levels plummet to the second-lowest since records began. It is estimated that the North Pole could be ice-free in the summer within the next 10-20 years.
However, the problem with this was not just it’s total departure from both reality and common sense, but the fact that an article in the Guardian only a couple of weeks beforehand had pointed out that this simply isn’t the case.
Quoting the Met Office’s Chief Scientist, Julia Sligo, the article noted that such claims were simply “not credible” –
She also said that suggestions the volume of sea ice had already declined by 75% already were not credible. “We know there is something [happening on the thinning of sea ice] but it’s not as dramatic as those numbers suggest.”
The problem, she explained, was that researchers did not know the thickness of Arctic sea ice with any confidence.
The Guardian. Met Office: Arctic Sea Ice Loss Linked to Drier, Colder UK Winters.
In fact, as the NSIDC points out, the extent of Arctic sea ice is very close to the average for the last three decades, not down by 75% as The Guardian’s environment reporter seems to be confused about:
Overview of Conditions
Arctic sea ice extent in April 2012 averaged 14.73 million square kilometers (5.69 million square miles). Because of the very slow rate of ice loss through the last half of March and the first three weeks of April, ice extent averaged for April ranked close to average out of 34 years of satellite data.
Someone should really help them out over at the Guardian’s environment section. Do you have an hour or two to spare, some basic common sense, plenty of paper and some crayons?
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Here’s the proof that Arctic Sea Ice has not declined 75% in 30 years, this graph of Arctic Sea Ice Extent from good buddy Dr. Peter Gleick using NSIDC data. Here is his original from his Huffington post article where he’s beating up Apollo 17 astronaut Dr. Harrison Schmidt for comparing 1989 and 2009 20 year differences.
I’ve extended that graph of Gleick’s down to the zero line, and annotated the 1980 and 2010 year values and the 75% loss of 1980 value line (3.125) for reference. As you can see, there’s a loooonnnng way to go from 12.5 million square kilometers in 1980 to 3.125 million square kilometers in 2010 to make a 75% loss in 30 years.
The Guardian is only off by 7.675 million square kilometers…close enough for journo work I suppose.
John Peter says:
June 3, 2012 at 4:05 am
I seem to recollect that someone asserted some time ago that things would look grimmer for The Guardian was it not for the large number of papers taken by the BBC every day.
Didn’t Delingpole blog about this?
There are signs that 2010 could be even worse than 2009. A change in Government after next year’s general election is likely to be disastrous for the Guardian’s revenue from public sector job adverts, on which it has long depended, as the Conservatives have strongly hinted they will save money by moving much of the advertising online.
http://thinkinginriddles.wordpress.com/tag/hypocrisy/
Has anyone from the UK filed a complaint with the press commission yet?
‘Facts’ supplied by Greenpeace. They could tell me my name, DOB, blood group an Army serial number and I would double check every one. Twice.
The statement about all of the ‘summer ice will all be gone in X years’ is about as believable and almost as clichéd as ‘97% of scientists agree’. I’m still waiting for the monkeys to type me one work of William Shakespeare, I guess that will happen first.
This should be good news for any group(s) planning to swim and/or paddle their way to the non-North Pole to “show” how much the ice has melted, and take random measurements of whatever ice they encounter, water temps, number of polar bears they spot, etc.
Funny, I haven’t heard of any yet so far this year.
The thing that bothers me about this fault is we can fault the Guardian for reporting that is on the face of it very shoddy and IMHO deliberately misleading.
However, I would have liked to see WUWT take the higher ground and not present the rebuttal in a method designed to minimise the impression of what is occurring to the extent during the summer melt.
This to me creates a bad impression to someone who is seeking to understand the implications of CAGW for any of us on the sceptics side of the fence.
Lets say someone uninformed read the Guardian article and suddenly gets all het up about how global warming is destroying the Arctic. They then find there way here and see this story. If they have any semblance of intelligence they will then dig further and find the current reality lies somewhere in between.
This response to the Guardian article has underplayed what is happening to the summer minimum extent (perhaps not quite as badly as the Guardian has overplayed it).
Both have mislead by omission. Both could lead to a degree of mistrust. WUWT has been and is a valuable source of information against the CAGW disinformation campaign. Its important that it continues to have the strongest credibility for thos who find their way here. Please consider this when drafting such responses.
Phil Clarke says:
“So a guy who has actually been there, collected and published data says the 75% figure is correct” …..
Well if you are relying on this may I suggest you read,
http://globalclimatefacts.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/peter-wadhams-contradicts-arctic-ice-extent-facts/
We can all ‘Cherry Pick’ so called scientific papers and it amazes me that so many people believe them.
An old quote from somewhere said something like this:-
“Definition of an Expert”-Someone who admits that they know so little about the subject that so many of us profess they know so much about.
Well if that’s true then where are the ‘Experts’ today.
“…an article in the Guardian only a couple of weeks beforehand had pointed out that this simply isn’t the case.”
Surely you don’t think Grauniad reporters are stupid enough to waste their time actually reading the thing, do you?
DDP says: “‘Facts’ supplied by Greenpeace. They could tell me my name, DOB, blood group an Army serial number and I would double check every one. Twice.”
Check your address, too. They know where you live, remember?
http://www.prisonplanet.com/greenpeace-to-global-warming-skeptics-we-know-where-you-live.html
Some physicists believe in a theory of multiple universes and that anything that could possibly happen does happen somewhere. There may be a universe in which Hitler won the Second World War. There may even be a universe in which the Guardian’s predictions for the polar ice caps come true!
TO ALL WHO MENTIONED THE 75% REDUCTION was calculated from the 1979 (or thereabouts) max to the 2011 September minimum:
Do think it would have been ‘fair’ to see a report even just one month ago at the beginning of May, that stated the sea had currently more than TRIPLED in just 4 1/2 years since he minimum ice of 2007?
( . . minimum per IARC-JAXA graph in Sept 2007 around 4.2M km2 , at the beginning of May this year it was around 13M km2 . .).
Do you think that the ‘alarmists’ wouldn’t have jumped all over that, claiming it’s totally false’, and the ‘skeptics’ are spreading likes? OR at the very least comment that it’s so WRONG to be so misleading because of the timeframes taken . . .
So, how is this interpretation you are making about the 75 % loss any different?
To me, that is being DISINGENIOUS BEYOND BELIEF . . .
“…Last year saw sea-ice levels plummet to the second-lowest since records began…”
And yet, failing to state that the LOWEST sea-ice levels were in 2007. We were supposed to see ever decreasing levels since then, yet 2008 through 2011 had not exceeded that minimum point.
The pre-eminent analyzer of Arctic sea-ice is the blogger Tamino. He says
Maybe, in the interests of objectivity and balance, he might invent a term of intolerance for those who exaggerate the melting of sea ice.
Just came from a party with lots of libs. Everyone over the age of 30 thinks Obama, Hilary, EPA, etc. are climate nutcases. Delusional fools.I was shocked. They are not buying it anymore/ the more the alarmism, the more these idiots are disbelieved.
Pointman says: @ur momisugly June 3, 2012 at 1:43 am
Last financial year end, the Guardian was running at a loss of £25 million pounds. With reporting like that, I look forward to next year’s numbers.
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Sounds like it is time to put a garlic coated silver stake through its heart and kill it for good.
Cryosat2 measured the average sea thickness across the Arctic basin at 2.5 metres at the end of March 2012.
http://i1-news.softpedia-static.com/images/news2/CryoSat-Releases-First-Sea-Ice-Thickness-Map-2.jpg
The Icebridge radar overflights of the Arctic in late March 2012 measured the average sea ice thickness of the Western Arctic at 3.13 metres. and 3.57 metres above 80N.
http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/312/warc2sithickicebridge20.png
PIOMAS’ sea ice thickness is an average of 1.5 metres in March, 2012 so we should view PIOMAS as an unphysical model (which is really just a joke given that people are putting financial resources into it – talk about wasting public resources).
pat;
Do they resent being suckered?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7139797.stm
Arctic summers ice-free ‘by 2013’
Scientists in the US have presented one of the most dramatic forecasts yet for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice.
Their latest modelling studies indicate northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years.
Professor Wieslaw Maslowski told an American Geophysical Union meeting that previous projections had underestimated the processes now driving ice loss.
Summer melting this year reduced the ice cover to 4.13 million sq km, the smallest ever extent in modern times.
Remarkably, this stunning low point was not even incorporated into the model runs of Professor Maslowski and his team, which used data sets from 1979 to 2004 to constrain their future projections.
“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.”
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And when will it be warm enough for a skinny dip?
manicbeancounter said (June 3, 2012 at 4:44 pm)
“…The pre-eminent analyzer of Arctic sea-ice is the blogger Tamino…”
Every time the name “Tamino” is mentioned, I think of several things:
1. He has to hide who he really is, that way people won’t research him, and find out he’s really not a “climate scientist”.
2. Compare the number of blog hits. OpenMind, unknown. WUWT, 116,717,186 views. And I’m sure that some of OpenMind’s regulars pop in here, just to see what’s up (and to gather material for his blog). It seems that more of his articles are “rebuttals” to what’s been posted here, than anything else. More people would see his response if he posted here.
3. Look how he has to get his donations. “…You can help support this blog with a donation. Any amount is welcome, just click the button below. Note: it’ll say “Peaseblossom’s Closet” and the donation is for “Mistletoe” — that’s the right place…” Talk about Heartland hiding who their donors are.
So I think I’ll believe what I see here, instead of listening to the residents of “Peaseblossom’s Closet”.
BTW, come on here to refute or explain any of the above, Mistletoe. We sure can’t get heard over there…
henrythethird says:
June 3, 2012 at 7:37 pm
manicbeancounter said (June 3, 2012 at 4:44 pm)
“…The pre-eminent analyzer of Arctic sea-ice is the blogger Tamino…”
Every time the name “Tamino” is mentioned, I think of several things:
1. He has to hide who he really is, that way people won’t research him, and find out he’s really not a “climate scientist”. …
Just search the original climategate emails. Tamino is outed there.
The Guardian morally bankrupt and a financial cliff dangler. Just the way it would like the UK to be.
It never fails to amaze me that almost nobody ever considers the effects of ocean salinity and man made soot on the Arctic ice pack.
Salinity in the upper levels of the Arctic is the lowest of all the oceans, which simply means it freezes at higher temperatures than it would in other oceans. Tiny changes in salinity can have a major effect on the extent of the Arctic ice cap.
Man made soot emissions, when landing on sea ice, or glaciers, obviously absorb more of the sun’s energy and are an aid to melting.
Neither salinity, nor soot, are significant factors in the Antarctic, hence little or no change there in ice extent when compared to the Arctic.
The Antarctic tells climate the way it is, the Arctic is manipulated by salinity and soot.
Jarvis Cocker is best known for jumping on stage and simulating breaking wind during Michael Jackson’s performance of “Earth Song” at a major British music awards ceremony in 1996.
http://youtu.be/dZEWomOQVno
For a more complete explanation:
http://youtu.be/O9sDTYrc-zc
For the record, I largely agree with Scott. I did write “the sloppy mingling of different measures in the article”. I just wouldn’t call the 75% number patently false. I say sloppy. Misleading at most.
TO ALL WHO MENTIONED THE 75% REDUCTION was calculated from the 1979 (or thereabouts) max to the 2011 September minimum:
That is not the case. September 1979 to September 2011 shows a reduction in volume of 75%, the data is in the link I posted above. The minimum daily volume in 1979 was 16870 cubic km (maximum 33002), in 2011 it had declined to 4090.
jones says:
June 3, 2012 at 6:30 am In response to Alan the Brit
Gentlemen,
Thank you both for reminding me of one of the sweetest moments on television in recent history. Toynbee looked like she had been fed a sh*t sandwich as Richard Littlejohn (who I don’t normally like either) made public her hypocrisy. Even time that nasty little Marxist opens her mouth that clip should be played in the background.
Also, the Guardian and BBC environment ‘journalists’ have even more in common than I thought as none of them have a science degree between them.
JS
PS For our American cousins, have a read of the comments posted against stories in the environment section of the Guardian to see what we in Europe are up against.
.. Aaaaaaand.. we need sea ice for wot, exactly – sinking another Titanic mayhaps? Oh.. right! We need a vast expanse of uninhabitable death-zone for Greenies to cry over if it vanishes and, in the meantime, to cry about in case it does. Notably, no greenies live there and I don’t believe polar bears like living there either, but seals and fish can only be caught at the water’s edge, which is why there are no polar bears at the pole, or greenies for that matter..
REPLY: Without getting into a long discussion, it provides an important part of Earth’s temperature regulation – Anthony