As WUWT readers are aware, there has been a great deal of attention paid by the main stream media to the extensive melt on the Greenland icecap that occurred during July (for example, see here, here, here, here, and here). The topic was addressed here at WUWT in two postings here and here. Anthony noted in the later posting that Andrew Revkin was almost alone in taking a more nuanced and skeptical view of the unprecedented nature of the event and has taken a fair amount of heat in comments for his effort.
I’m sure it will confirm the worst suspicions of some of Anthony’s critics, but Fox News has just posted an article on line: NASA’s claim that Greenland is experiencing “unprecedented” melting is nothing but a bunch of hot air, according to scientists who say the country’s ice sheets melt with some regularity.
A heat dome over the icy country melted a whopping 97 percent of Greenland’s ice sheet in mid-July, NASA said, calling it yet more evidence of the effect man is having on the planet.
But the unusual-seeming event had nothing to do with hot air, according to glaciologists. It was actually to be expected.
“Ice cores from Summit station [Greenland’s coldest and highest] show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time,” said Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data.
The writer of the article contacted Anthony for comment:
“It’s somewhat like the rush to blame severe weather and drought on global warming,” Anthony Watts, a noted climate skeptic and the author of the Watts Up With That blog, told FoxNews.com. “Yet when you look into the past, you find precedence for what is being described today as unprecedented.”
Read the whole article here.
I’m sure our readers don’t really need to have it pointed out that the melting event did not melt 97% of Greenland’s ice sheet, but rather occurred over 97% of the surface area of the ice sheet and that the melting event has ended. We will undoubtedly be treated to that 97% statistic for a long time to come.
H/T to commenters PRD and David L. Hagen
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And there is this:
http://www.wired.com/geekmom/2012/07/greenland-ice-sheet-melting/
CBS on Sky news last night also said 97 percent of Greenland’s ice sheet had melted, I thought it was a dishonest if not an unusual way to phrase what actually occurred.
Looks like all of the MSM articles have been cleaned up a little.
Everyone knows, or should know, that 42 is the correct number. Where the ‘97’ keeps coming from is a mystery. But maybe one has to be older than 42 and younger than 97 to know this. Still, the following is true:
“We will undoubtedly be treated to that 97% statistic for a long time to come.” Just remember, that is not the correct answer. (And if this made very little sense to you, search for the number 42.)
Woodworkers have a saying: “Measure twice, cut once.”
NASA and other agencies need to have a rule, maybe:
“Write, review, rewrite, get a second opinion, rewrite, wait a day, think about it, rewrite, make sure the headline writer is onboard, then okay a press release.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PRD says “We won’t worry about how many years of reading this site it took me to learn what H/T meant.
Thanks for that. It got a big laugh from me. Funny how the unexpected remarks will do that.
Fox has skeptics on their shows regularly like Joe Bastardi and Chris Horner. I like to believe that’s why they’re the #1 in cable news by a long shot.
If melting of 97% of the ice cap surface has ended, does that mean 97% of Greenland’s surface water has frozen in just the last several weeks? This rate of freezing is unprecedented!
I would not call Fox MSM, at least from the standpoint of most AGW adherents. Found the post title misleading. Got me all excited as I expected to see a link to ABC news or AP or something along those lines.
With warmer than average (like there is such a thing) water surround west and east Greenland (http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom_new.gif) why would we not expect some summer melting in excess of average normal norms. More land for Ted Turner’s paranoia of an over populated world. 🙂 He, by example, could go to Oregon and volunteer his early exit.
97%, huh. They really like that figure 97%. I guess it sounds so almost-total but leaves a bit of wriggle room (just in case its needed). But, wait, they can’t hit us with a 97% melt claim (volume, not area) because where did the water go? We’re all supposed to experience massive flooding, right? So if that didn’t happen, they can hardly claim it did. Or, better fun maybe, we can say, “97% melted? It’s gone? Good! That gets rid of the ice problem. The water – what, evaporated? Okay, whatever – but we don’t have to worry about being drowned anymore.”
They can’t have it both ways. Oh, silly me, they’ll try for it all the same. Of course they will.
Here’s a fun fact: If you read the original stories (at least on NYTimes, NPR, and USA Today), NASA never said this event was evidence of global warming. This is a straw man.
highflight56433 says:
July 26, 2012 at 2:03 pm
…
Old ‘cool colours’:
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif
New ‘hot colours’
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom_new.gif
I think this has already been commented on but to re-iterate. I think this claim can be used to advantage. The claim of rising sea levels is based on ice emlt in green land and antarctica (arctic ice is over water so its melting wont change sea levels appreciably). The warmists have made claims of by how much sea levels would rise if all the ice in Greenland would melt and I think it was around 6 meters, So now they claim 97% of it has melted. I think one should ask, if 97% of it has melted then why is there not 6*0.97 meters of sea level rise. So was the claim that sea levels would rise by 6 meters if greenland ice melted a false claim or is the claim that 97% of it has melted a false claim? One has to be wrong and if false claims like this are made and not corrected how can one believe any claim made by these people.
Their answer will of course be that a reported simply got it wrong and its not what they claimed. Actually true but it will still look like a cop out, scaremongering they tried to get away with – especially if one goes on to ask, why they did not speak up to correct the error.
Editorial comment: WUWT in two postings here and here.
I humbly suggest disuse of the “here” and replace it with a linked date. It’s a link. We know it is (here-follow the link). If the hypertext actually contains content, such as a date or company name, the text is so much richer.
Based on reductionist logic a severe a toasting o’er 97% of Greenland should be extrapolated across the globe which means that: as the ice o’re green land — flows like water o’re the damn dam — the plains in Spain — are blackening as bad — as a Cajuns gone mad.
“But in 1889, it did not reach 97%” They had better satellites at that time §.-)
Matt Bergin says:
July 26, 2012 at 1:09 pm
Funny I keep looking at the summit base cam and so far I don’t see any water. As far as I can see the snow doesn’t look like it has melted. The outside temp is -12C. Not a whole lot of swimming going on 🙂
Suggest you try again on Saturday, it may be melting again then.
The MSM said:
“97% of the ice sheet melted …”
===========================
Uh oh!.
It’s early!
My Ark isn’t finished yet!
Don’t just stand there!
Panic!
NOT.
Can we somehow merge those 97% with the 97% of scientists recognizing global warming as catastrophic and man made? As in “97% of scientists claiming man made global warming is catastrophic are having a meltdown”?
I think that 97% of climate scientists use a lot less than 97% of their brains at least 97% of the time!
More unprecedented news – http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2012/07/loss-of-arctic-sea-ice-70-man-made.html
Since day one, amazingly, the media up here (in Iceland) has talked to glaciologists and/or meterologists when running stories on this, every single one of whom has been hesitant to blame this on climate change. Instead, they’ve spoken of unique weather conditions coinciding with the warmest part of summer along with albedo effects of volcanic ash from Iceland and Saharan sand combined with lack of cloud cover due to said weather conditions.
As a comparison. Wikipedia says “If the entire 2,850,000 cubic kilometres (683,751 cu mi) of ice were to melt, it would lead to a global sea level rise of 7.2 m (23.6 ft).” The 2,850,000 cubic km would be 2.85 * 10^18 liters, needing at least 9.5 * 10^20 kJ to melt (at 334 kJ/kg). Lake Superior has 12,000 cubic km of water, needing 2.7 * 10^19 kJ to boil away (a bit more to heat it up to boiling). So melting the Greenland ice cap needs the heat to boil 35 Lake Superiors. If the Solar energy is 173 Petawatts (10^15 watts, and each watt is a joule per second), the whole earth gets 1.5 * 10^19 kJ per day, and someone would need to focus all the suns energy on the Greenland ice cap for 63 days to melt it.
The NZ Herald the AGW/CC PR propagandist also parrotted the same Greenland melting trash today.
It’s a reprint of the UK Independent article by Steve Connor titled: The big thaw: Greenland ice cover is melting away.
The NZ Herald has changed the headline to:
Greenland’s surface melt shocks NASA.
The way to counter this BS is to say “Wow! 97% melt. Did anyone notice a rise in sea level?”
97% melted 0.00001%! Oh, noes!