From the “confirmation bias breeds delicious irony” department comes this hilarious moment when one climate alarmist gets pwned by the fake predictions of another.
Back in 2012, Andrew Freedman was working for “climate Central” and published a ridiculous story about sea level rise and New York LaGuardia airport.
I pointed out immediately how ridiculous and wrong his story was…
Freedman was trying to show that LaGuardia was susceptible to sea-level rise, and beclowned himself in the process with the faked-up photos depicting what it looked like. I commented then:
This is a ‘jumped the shark’ moment for Climate Central. Read the whole story here: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/coastal-us-airports-face-increasing-threat-from-sea-level-rise-16126
Gosh, I never knew that sea level rise was so abrupt that it would catch those speedy airliners off guard so fast they couldn’t move out of the way. The climate change onset was so fast…that maybe future archaeologists will find fossilized passengers with half chewed peanuts still in their mouths.
The problem with Freedman’s article depicting 5 and 10 foot sea level rise is that LaGuardia is 21 feet above mean sea level:
Source: http://www.airnav.com/airport/KLGA
I added then: (with a slight grammar/spell correction added today)
So one wonders if there will be a retraction for the statement “What La Guardia Airport could look like with 5 feet of sea level rise” and of course the photo.
…yet it remains published at Climate Central today, and traps the unwary and the confirmation biased.
Today, it came full circle, and trapped former NYT Climate and Environment editor author Andrew Revkin, when he retweeted this:
The photo, when enlarged, is this:
It wasn’t even the right city.
NYT’s former climate and environmental editor author Andrew Revkin, pwned by Climate Centrals former writer Andrew Freedman over a fake image. It doesn’t get any more hilarious than that.
ADDED about 5 mins after publication…
But Revkin at least has the good sense to own up to the mistake:
Now if only Andrew Freedman can convince Climate Central to get rid of that ridiculous article with the faked images.
UPDATE: Other news sources were taken in by the faked up image as well:
They write on their website:
Note: Initially Wrong Photo was posted without knowing. We got the photo from the tweet news. After sharing the news on AeroChapter we came to know that the photo is a wrong one. So we changed it on the website, but couldn’t change what posted on FB because FB has no option to change photos. Also the posting couldn’t deleted because within minutes there are hundreds of shares.
Sorry for misleading. Actually it was not our intention to mislead
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy! Revkin still hasn’t smartened up after being on the cutting edge of all this stuff for years.
Interesting given that the height of the airliner in the foreground places the water depth there at 18′,… 5′ of water would barely be licking at the underbelly
Since there was no impact, if the doors were closed, the fuselages would float. “China Airlines 744 over shot the runway at Kai Tak and was floating in the Bay for a few days. They had to blow the tail [off] the 744.” –Tom Walker, on airliners.net forum.
The image is all too typical of Fake AGW news. Unfortunate that Revkin got misled. Maybe a little more skepticism, Andrew? 🙂
18 “liberal” feet is different than 18 actual feet:-)))
Do they measure feet the way they do tree rings? 🙂
My feet got bigger as I grew older. Maybe theirs did as well.
The photo shown in this WUWT article is not what Climate Central said would result from 5 or 10 foot sea level rise, but 25 foot sea level rise. They have other photos showing lesser (but also incorrect) degrees of the airport being underwater for 5 and 10 foot sea level rises.
Although LaGuardia is not as flood-prone as Climate Central makes it appear, it has parts lower than 21 feet, as evidenced by having been flooded by Sandy.
“Actually it wasn’t our intention to mislead”.
A great example of an statement that negates its own meaning by being stated.
I’ve been taken in by fake photos and fake news, but then I’m not a professional journalist.
and by professional I assume you mean the street walking kind … inn the case of Revkin …
this is revkin’s sense of humor:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/mar/06/climate-change-deniers-top-10
so funny. what a comedian, eh?
This particular piece of fake news/photography is no different to all the other fake news/photography.
Let’s open a photo shop!!!!! Business is booming.
“but then I’m not a professional journalist”
And neither, I suspect, are they.
Those planes should be United, not Delta. IAH is a major United hub. Of course, they have to get the correct city in the background first. 😄
That is Houston Hobby which is south central Houston. IAH is some 35 NM north of Hobby. And about 50 ft higher in elevation.
No, it is not Hobby airport at all.
Steve, please re-read the article and focus on the “Update.” Then you’ll understand why Hobby was referenced.
Do they call the place where the passengers enter, the Hobby Lobby?
No, no we don’t. And it’s just the roads around Hobby that are flooded, not the fields themselves. It’s in an old part of town and the streets are fairly low.
Not quite as silly as the National Geographic illustration of the Statue of Liberty half-submerged.
For the extremists/alarmists, it’s 99% about tugging on emotions, and a tiny kernel of actual science twisted beyond recognition.
Why bother with an obsolete concept like ‘reality’?
C’mon, we’re in the age of ‘post-modern reality’ where everyone is privileged to have their own, personal ‘reality’.
OK, La Guardia is 21′ above sea level. How high off the runway are the cabins?
Reminds me of the answer given to a maths question that talked about the pilots of a VC10 observing the sun on the horizon, asking how high was the VC10? Answer: about 42ft to the top of the tail when standing on the tarmac.
The water level depicted on the plane in the foreground is about 18′.
The underbelly is between 5 – 6′ off the ground
but but I so want to believe………
clap harder
Tried posting a comment earlier but hasn’t shown up. Indeed, I was taken in by confirmation bias and too-swift RT return key. I tweeted to clarify: https://twitter.com/Revkin/status/902239672772038658 And I will add this to my Medium post on communication in a fake-news world as a great fresh case study: https://medium.com/@revkin/to-see-how-information-flows-online-try-a-backtrack-journal-e5e65e56bf6c p.s. I was never a New York Times editor. I was author of Dot Earth from 2007 through 2016 and a staff reporter from 1995 through 2009.
[Cleared you comment, but sent the first to Trash since it didn’t seem like you needed both. If you want both for the record, feel free to let us know. -mod]
This appears to be Mr Revkin, posting here! again acknowledging his error, good for you. He says he was never a NYT editor, which I believe because he is acknowledging a substance error (NYT doesn’t play that way, only acknowledge meaningless errors). I hope Mr. R. will continue to read here, and maybe even begin to wonder why propaganda photos are necessary to promote CAGW if it’s “real, it’s here, blah blah blah.”
I concur with your comment. I’ve followed Andy Revkin for many years, and have found him to be objective and fair-minded. And I didn’t always agree with him. His recent articles in ProPublica have been very good, IMHO.
Yeah, Andy is pretty good. Maybe a little too trusting?
Thanks Andy, corrections made to headline and body of text to say author rather than editor.
“communication in a fake-news world”…..but you really really really wanted to believe it
Hey, we Watts fans need to appreciate the grace and civility Mr. Revkin’s reaction to this episode. I, for one, say Thanks.
no, hell no.
you can catch more flies with sugar than vinegar, sure- if you love you some fly infestation.
he has to fix the harm he causes, not just say ‘oopsie’.
i suppose next you’ll be advocating admiration for a water color painter that just happened to run the reich?
Mr. Revkin: Again you have shown a readiness to acknowledge errors which makes you stand out among other journalists on the climate and environment beat.
nope. that is not his distinguishing characteristic.
let me refer you to mr macgregor and his goat.
he’s not ready to acknowledge anything he can’t lie about – it’s that he can’t get away with lying this time.
if the unabomber said oopsie you’d be all over him with praise, too?
One thing I have to saw about Revkin is, he does at times seem to point out or admit weaknesses in climate science. Gotta respect him for this. But he should be careful, if he points out too many truths, he could end up banished from “the cause” like Roger Pielke Jr.
Or James Hansen. A new kind of skeptic.
Or Dr. Judith Curry.
Glad to see that your self-confidence as an expert on fake news is unshaken by this episode.
Andrew,
Kudos for owning up to it. We don’t see that much these days…if ever.
I’d love it even more if you wrote an article stating that it is a FAKE photo, of LaGuardia and not Houston, and indicate the actual author of the fake image and why it’s inaccurate even as a prediction…:)
Bingo!
i’d like to win the lotto. fantasies don’t need bridles, right?
It looks to me like fake news with air brushes to manipulate stock prices.
Not only is La Guardia 21 ft above sea level, but those planes are under 15 feet of water (that’s 36 ft for those keeping score at home). All in a day’s work for 5 ft of sea level rise.
But Global Warming is making yardsticks shrink. So what WAS 5 feet is now 20.
The yardsticks are shrinking because the water is rising so fast; its one of the effects mentioned in Einstein’s General Relativity theory.
but that 36 ft is easy to get if you just concentrate the water over a small area! 18 ft over half the area equals 36 ft! Easy arithmetic!
I suspect that it’s easier being a skeptic than an alarmist. The alarmists have to have the creativity to make things up. All the skeptics have to do is shoot down the more creative crap. It’s like the jokes write themselves.
no,all the alarmists do is look at the world through their eco telescope and simply describe what they see.
The hard part, for a lot of them, would be to admit that they were wrong.
For that lot, it is easier to continue to make shit up, rather than have their doctor alter their prescriptions.
For the stupid or lazy members of the lot … they just use other peoples made up shit.
(No offense intended Mr. Revkin)
I notice that someone Photoshopped out the polar bears clinging to the wings of the stranded aircraft..
Good catch. If you look closely, you can still see the claw marks.
What about the missing penguins?
Well, they only give you a bag of peanuts, so I’m sure the polar bears made quick work of those penguin! But with all that water, at least they got more than half a can of soda to drink!!
Proper last sentence, Now if only WUWT can convince Andrew Revkin to get rid of that ridiculous AGW-alarm baked on with pseudo-science.
anrevk, “a fake-news world”
Nothing new about that, at least ever since Walter Duranty. You follow a great tradition at NYT, Andy.
yafersure.
he’s the baghdad bob of the globalists
shark fins…. how cool to sit in a plane under water and see marine life..
That’s why we have passenger oxygen masks.
In the unlikely event of a 35 ft sea level rise, pull the life vest out of the pouch, put it over your head and whistle Yellow Submarine.
A sealed aircraft would float. When they sink, it’s leaks coming through the damage. If nothing else, they would not neatly maintain their positions as the water flowed in — who need the elevation data to know that?
They aren’t sealed against higher exterior pressure. There is a negative pressure relief valve that lets higher outside pressure into the cabin, and that will let water in. The cabin pressure outflow valve, the main regulator of cabin pressure, does not close completely, so that lets in water, too.
The seams also leak. Lose power and pressurization falls fast. Amphibs have bilge pumps for a reason.
This time one certainly floated, though there may be some pontoons under the slides. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549#
In all fairness, if you check the KLGA link it now says it is at 20.6′. /s
In even more fairness it appears that the “FAA official” field elevation of 21 ft is at the high point of the airport.
Elevations of the runway ends are given on the FAA taxi diagram –
http://155.178.201.160/d-tpp/1709/00289AD.PDF
Still fake and misleading though…:^)
Sharknado 5 or is it 6? It doesn’t take much to make the case for another one.
You’ve just gotta believe, brothers and sisters!
Sure, an’ ye must haave faayth, me boy! The Pope sez so.
Now if only you could get all of the media to stop using pictures of water vapor coming from cooling towers to accompany their articles on the supposed threat of CO2.
Those passengers weren’t delayed, they were drownded.
I hate it when I find passengers who have drowned on the jetway! Very unpleasant.
By the time water rises 35 feet, people will have adapted to breathing under water.
It puts a new slant on the old question, “How many gills in a noggin?”
Hey…they said connecting flights….they didn’t say where, or in what condition, those connections would be made in. They DO provide seat/flotation devices…you were warned.
My pity goes to the luggage handlers….water logged luggage is a hellofalot harder to load than dry luggage.
Lots of BS “flying” here.
“So we changed it on the website, but couldn’t change what posted on FB because FB has no option to change photos.”
This is, of course, wrong.
You can remove and replace FB pictures by editing the post.
You can also add words to an existing post.
And very poor grammar:
“Also the posting couldn’t deleted because within minutes there are hundreds of shares.”
Notice they also say WRONG photo instead of FAKE photo.
Come on now! WUWT is better than this. LaGuardia may be 20ft above mean sea level, but what is local sea level? Or just search “Flooding at La uardia” and see that a 5ft increase from current levels would have a significant impact.
Are you able to comprehend what you just wrote? Have you ever stood on the runway at LaGuardia, under an airliner? I have. The picture is a cock-up, as is your comment, because you’ve really not gotten your mind around the numbers.
Anthony – Do you think the picture from Gloateus at 3:39pm represents a 20+ft surge? I know the Revkin picture is fake, but again, do you know the actual (relative to MSL) sea level height at LaGuardia? I’m also aware that it’s just as likely that LaGuardia will see 5ft of sea level drop before it sees 5ft of increase, but that’s not the point I’m making either.
The point is that the runways at LaGuardia are clearly not 21ft above the local sea level, and I like to think that WUWT cares about that kind of accuracy.
Rebar,
Everything you want to know about LaGuardia Airport. (Data complements of the FAA)
http://www.airnav.com/airport/LGA
All relative to MSL
Runway 13 – 11.6 ft.
Runway 31 – 6.7 ft.
Runway 4 – 20.6 ft.
Runway 22 – 11.5 ft.
Sea Level Rise Trends:
Battery Park – 2.84 mm/yr +/- 0.09 mm/year
Kings Point – 2.5 mm/yr +/- 0.21 mm/yr
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends.shtml
At present rate of sea level rise, it will take 762 years to get even five feet of flooding, let alone up to fuselages.
Previous flooding at La Guardia:
http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/260330/slide_260330_1703556_free.jpg
Gloateus
Serious puddle.
Gene Kelly would have had a field day with his brolly.
Looks like a fine place for the Guinea Pig swim off
Here’s a storm surge map to go along with the photo
http://www.weather.gov/images/okx/Sandy/Inundation_NHCreport.png
Maybe 6 ft? Does Long Island Sound normally have 15ft tides?
Rebar,
That was caused by local rains that temporarily ponded on the runway because the storm surge had already saturated the areas where the water would normally run off. A 5 foot rise in sea level would make local flooding like that a little more likely, but would not cause the airport to be permanently under water.
“…Actually it was not our intention to mislead…. ” Really? What is the intention when posting a photo shopped picture?
Artistic license?
sometimes it is called ‘editorial discretion’.
“Sorry for misleading. Actually it was not our intention to mislead”
Yeah, right.
“Sorry for misleading. Actually it was not our intention to mislead”.
Our primary intention was to, through the hype, make money … the “misleading thing” was an unfortunate peripheral requirement.
Silly media, the Hilary defense only works for Hilary.
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6674/1214/1600/BloomCountyLooseTailsHoffapg25top.jpg
I miss Berkeley Breathed, he was the best.