On December 14, 2008, former presidential candidate Al Gore predicted the North Polar Ice Cap would be completely ice free in five years. As reported on WUWT, Gore made the prediction to a German TV audience at the COP15 Climate Conference:

Al warned them that “the entire North ‘polarized’ cap will disappear in 5 years.”
Watch the video:
Here’s the polar ice cap extent today:
As you can see from the graph above, Arctic sea ice came nowhere close to disappearing during the summer minimum, and has rebounded to be within 2 standard deviations in the last few weeks.
During the summer minimum, the North polar ice cap looked like this:

The sea ice extent today:
Why does anyone listen to Al Gore ?
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Outside the near-frame, looking back, it’s a myth, looking forward, it’s a prophecy.
There was a time when false prophets were either relegated to non citizens and/or suffered physical punishment from the populace.
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
The whole friggin thing is a fantasy.
“looking forward, it’s a
prophecylie.”Fixed!
Today, there is no north polarized cap. It does not exist in any recognizable way, and most scientists would agree.
Hell, I’ll give anyone 10:1 odds that there will not be a recognizable South Polarized Ice 20 years from now….
(From a Clintonian perspective, Gore was correct.)
Today, there is no north polarized cap
of course there isn’t, nor is there a south “polarized cap” as there is no such thing as a “polarized cap” in this context. Polar (ice) caps, on the other hand, are a thing. and we currently have both a north and a south polar (ice) cap.
Ahh….cold hard truths are stubborn things.
In the case of polar bears (another of his fanciful prognostications) they are also very dangerous.
…and that is why a liar like Al Gore is so dangerous, too!
Al “the carnival barker” Gore
I love hanging chad. Imagine what might have happened.
You left out … “multi-millionaire “ … carnival barker, Al Gore
…tobacco baron…
John:
It’s now Al “the blimp” Gore.
He’s been promoted
from carnival barker.
Every prediction of environmental doom,
from DDT, to acid rain, to the hole in the
ozone layer, and even exploding silicone
br-east implants … has been wrong.
AlGore’s wrong predictions
are just a drop in the bucket
of wrong predictions.
Exploding silicone breast implants? That’s deflating.
Circus clown
Al Gore is 100% scam or he is stupid, you pick……
Stephen he is still cashing checks. Man has to earn a living
I hear his home has an obscenely large energy bill.
Yup…each one of them.
All gigantic mansions do.
And his yachts, well…
They are not mutually exclusive.
Steven, You’ve created a False choice (false dilemma) fallacy with the use of the “or” operator.
I choose “both.”
Steven, that is a tough question. Algore flunked out of Seminary School, which suggests stupid, but he also hss raised 300Million$ by scamming, so the stupid part is thrown into question. I hope I don’ wake up in the middle of the night trying to figure this one out.
Stupid or lazy and uninterested ? Also I have come across some people who are not particularly intelligent but they scheme and plot like masters.
“you pick”
Embrace the healing power of “and,” Steven.
Steven J Hill
Both. He is stupid the people advising him are scammers.
The people who give him money are ill-informed, or silly, or both…
OMG, less than 4 Wadhams!
That is virtually zero.
The only question on my mind is, how could humanity possibly survive a slightly less fatally frigid and marginally smaller polar wasteland death zone?
The unspeakable catastrophe of a somewhat less ice-bound frozen Hell taking up a sizable fraction of our planet’s surface is truly the stuff of adult nightmares.
It is a very good thing that no one has ever wasted the time explaining just how deadly a threat melting ice is…we have none to spare!
For the love of all that is just and good on our world…just put an end to this crazy obsession with having plenty to eat and staying warm and healthy!
Our lives depend on it.
An ice free arctic would mean easier access to the mineral wealth of the arctic.
MarkW
No ice for my G&T though. Bummer.
If you are using arctic ice for your G & T, I really want to be your friend.
ROTFL,,,,,,!!!!!!!
True Scots do not put ice in their (Malt) Whisky…
Oh yes they do. Just a dash of spring water to release the flavours.
If it’s warm, there’s no harm in that water being frozen.
Photios
How do you know?
Are you a true Scot?
I identify as a “true Scot”. I would also like to identify as 30 years old, but I am not doing too well there either!
“An ice free arctic would mean easier access to the mineral wealth of the arctic.”
Racist!
My bet is Gore will be skeletal 6ft under by the time 10% of the ice is gone.
Worthlesw parasite, may his atoms wander the universe for eternity, and thats quite a long time in old money.
Half of the USA voters thought the socialist charlatan Al Gore should be president in 2000.
The same group voted for the socialist Obama regime. Twice.
The same group is having an extended #resist tantrum because Donald Trump is our President today.
Seems to be a trend here……
”Seems to be a trend here……”
Yeah fast track evolution, those people are fundamentally different than us,…..
There is no reconciliation, when they talk about reducing the numbers of humans they mean us, and then the savages in their their schithole,……
When they they go all Kalergi they mean their ”new re-educated race of peoples.
Theres nothing but genocide’s coming over the next century,..
The free minds and the hive minds.
Sadly, I have to agree …
50% of any population anywhere are below average intelligence.
50% – 1 ?
That’s a mean thing to say.
Perhaps, but is it true?
LOL! I see what you did there.
not strictly true. for example if the population consists of 8 individuals the following IQs:
10, 130, 70, 70, 20, 70, 120, 70
the average IQ in that population is 70, only one quarter of that population are below average. half that population are exactly average, and the remaining quarter of that population are above average.
In short, you forgot that there is a percentage of the population that could be exactly average.
I’ll refrain from commenting about which % of the population your post would then suggest you belong to 😉
To all those who believed Gore back then, do you still believe him today?
Why pick this prediction? All, as in every one, of the predictions based on AGW hysteria have not come to pass. When will the people realize the king is wearing no clothes?
The play called was end around no one there. The play executed is the gore sneak
RE: “the king is wearing no clothes”….
Argggh – that’s an image of Gore I don’t want in my mind!
Why pick this prediction? All, as in every one, of the predictions based on AGW hysteria have not come to pass.
Indeed, but it would be a very long post indeed if you tried to list all of them in one go. This article focuses on this one failed prediction, there’s no reason other articles can’t tackle other failed prediction.
I saw this plastered on the front page of the Los Angeles Times this morning…oh, wait…
It is a fatal flaw of the human condition-instinctively believe the first thing you hear. If you have the brain capacity, you might analyse it later, then recognise it as a lie.
It should be once bitten, twice shy where the purveyor of lies loses credibility and is ridiculed and ignored. How many of the prophecies of climate doom and gloom have come true? ZERO. Why do total fools keep believing and believing these apocalyptic fairy-tales without any scrutiny? You would expect this blind belief from those still in diapers. The brand of diapers worn by the climate babies is CryBaby brand. These are the ones designed to be full of s…. lean to the left and fall apart with crocodile tears.
Al Gore has predictions that are repeatedly totally wrong, so why should anyone still listen to his rubbish. Judging by his track record, we should be able to confidently predict that his next prediction will again be totally wrong. How convenient that he is raking in billions trading air.
The Emperor is wearing no clothes.
That’s not a problem in a communist country. There you instinctively don’t believe any official message you hear. (That’s not a joke. A joke is: There are three kinds of news on TV – true ones, probable ones, and the rest. True news are sports results. Probable news is a weather forecast.)
Russian races an American in the Olympics, head to head.
Russian loses.
Russian news reports: “Russian athlete makes glorious, heroic effort and clinches Silver Medal. American finishes next-to-last.”
Sometimes the news reports are true
Right on brother. Love this I’m going to use it hope you don’t mind.
I realize Algor is not a scientist – but seeing as how he apparently speaks for so many “climate scientists”, or at least they stay quiet and do not set the record straight, why isn’t this an example of a prediction based on a theory or hypothesis that has now been falsified? And thus the theory should be thrown out or a least not given credence, since there is so much evidence against the propositions that CO2 is the temperature control knob for the planet, and that Man is causing whatever warming is taking place (and just ignoring natural variability and other possible causes on time scales of hundreds and thousands of years, not 30 years or 10 years or one winter or one summer)?
Not Chicken Little
Steven Mosher isn’t a scientists but some on here take him seriously. Gullibility is a fickle thing.
What a petty and childish thing to say. He may or may not be a scientist, but you just proved you’re a “MeanGirl” with nothing to contribute.
Dust the Cheetos off your underwear, take a shower, and get dressed for the day. Maybe some outside air and seeing some actual humans will help you.
Steve, is that you?
HotScot’s comment may be “mean” but it wasn’t wrong. Your comment, however was every bit as childish and petty and mean as you accuse his of being, which by your own logic proves you also are ‘a “MeanGirl” with nothing to contribute’. I hope you are proud of the level of hypocrisy you have reached.
Golly Patty, got your panties in a knot, do ya luv?
Best stay out of the kitchen iffen you cannot stand the heat, there’s a good gal.
Even worse is a sullen crybabies who cannot take a joke.
Maybe a dry knappy and a little beddy-bye time, eh?
We can always call Ace Pole Removal service if need be…your issues may run somewhat, um, deeper, than we have surmised from your twisted knicker sitchee-ashun.
In moderating this stuff, Charles, you have my sympathy – and my admiration. God bless.
I can only imagine how you react to television comedy and the news these days.
Do you call the police on them?
Why would anyone take a trollish English major that can’t construct a sentence or logical thought seriously?
“Steven Mosher isn’t a scientists but some on here take him seriously.”
===========
Mosh’t don’t!
Where’s the link for that?
“I realize Algor is not a scientist – but seeing as how he apparently speaks for so many “climate scientists”, or at least they stay quiet and do not set the record straight, why isn’t this an example of a prediction based on a theory or hypothesis that has now been falsified? ”
The way it works is pretty simple. no single individual “speaks for” the science, least of all Al Gore.
If you want to know the considered judgment of the best in science, then you should read the IPCC report which summarizes the state of the science and then documents the position of the best science.
All of the “death spiral’ stories you hear in the MSM concerning the ice are just that: stories. Individual scientists speaking informally to the press. In some cases they are scientists who have had their views rejected by the IPCC. Don’t get your science from the Press.
The IPCC position is that the arctic ice will remain until at least mid century. The metric of interest is
“Ice free” (-basically 1million sq km or less) for 5 consecutive years.
There is an interesting lesson here. Most folks want their science spoon fed to them. They get their science by reading the MSM, or blogs, or twitter. Or they get their science by wathcing TV. They almost never read the actual science. If you want to know something my suggestion is start with the IPCC reports.
The report represents the “consensus” of the best science. This doesn’t entail the science is correct.
It doesn’t mean it’s true because there is a consensus. It’s just a meta analysis of the actual science. The report also gives you a great reference guide if you want to go deeper and read or individual articles.
The other alternative is to use the method the great philosopher of science, Popper, reccommended:
“If the science has a weak stupid fat spokesmodel, it must be wrong”
”The report represents the “consensus” of the best science. This doesn’t entail the science is correct.”
Science is supposed to be very strictly systematic. Part of that system is to consider any and all deviations from a consensus. Another part of that system is to verify a finding using another method.
Everything else remains hypothesis which is incomplete science. Neither of these things happen in the IPPC. Please refrain from calling it the ”best” science. Correct or not. If the correct systematics where followed, the IPPC would cease to exist. This is not to say that reading their reports would not be instructive, but I will go out on a limb and say it anyway.
Indeed, if the IPCC represents the best science, the sad state of modern science is much worse than we thought.
Exactly Steven:
Another strawman in which the utterings of an individual (Wadhams also re Arctic ice) is used to paint all climate science as wrong.
As you say the IPCC AR’s is where the consensus science is to be found and nowhere else.
Here is the IPCC projection of the decline of Arctice sea-ice ……
Wadhams is supposedly an expert on the Arctic. Why then did he make such a fool of himself with his fatuous prediction? How were non-specialists to know that?
Sorry, but science does not consist of serial runs of an unproved model based on an unproved hypothesis.
Science consists of observation, hypothesis, hypothesis testing with real world data collection in a controlled experiment, and then, usually, hypothesis refinement, etc..
The IPCC is several steps short of science.
Funny how you rail against those bringing up Al Gore’s predictions and yet the science community was, for the most part, completely silent about them when he was making them. Silence equals consent. If you and your fellow travelers would rail against charlatans like Gore when they speak their nonsense, you wouldn’t have to rail against those who bring up their nonsense when their predictions inevitably fail.
missed a slash there didn’t I?
Am probably anxious about something – it is what happens yanno.
Happens to the best of us.
That’s what happens when you don’t eat enough sugar.
The scary part is that this snake oil salesman was almost POTUS!
WALLABY Geoff
A salutary lesson.
Worse – he would have been President during 9/11
The worst part of the Gore scam is that almost all school children in Canadian schools were entertained by being forced to view “An Inconvenient Truth” . What is still happening is that many children are being fed a diet of global warming/ climate change BS in our schools. Go Figure.
There’s always going to be new, young recruits to brainwash – that’s why the propaganda keeps coming.
And they keep attending Gore’s school of nonsense.
The “climate change” movement no longer makes such rookie mistakes. Now they make broad, sweeping claims based on nothing but emotion like “the effects of climate change are already upon us, with more extreme storms, fires, and floods”. Or the claim that the migrant caravan is caused in part by “climate change”. Of course their biggest pseudo-prediction now is of “Climate Catastrophe” by 2030. And now the lying scoundrels and fraudsters in Katowice have claimed “success” in putting together some sort of climate rulebook. Enough to make you sick.
https://cop24.gov.pl/news/news-details/news/success-of-cop24-in-katowice-we-have-a-global-climate-agreement/
COP 24: what an orgy of self-congratulation!
I hear his home has an obscenely large energy bill.
which one ?
All of the. Especially the one he’s occupying at the time.
Will Al pay my heating bill? It’s been fkcuing freezing here for the last several weeks …
I was counting on his prediction of a warming planet, so I decided to NOT replace my old inefficient furnace … because Al promised … all scientificy and whatnot … that I wouldn’t NEED a furnace anymore!
Now I am freezing … AND … my PG&E rates are skyrocketing! Al OWES me!!!!
Quick fact check:
“On December 14, 2008, former presidential candidate Al Gore predicted the North Polar Ice Cap would be completely ice free in five years. As reported on WUWT, Gore made the prediction to a German TV audience at the COP15 Climate Conference:”
Nope. COP15 was December 2009. You have confused that appearance with a (very poor quality) recording made from German TV a year earlier.
Secondly, the headline claims that Gore made a 100% certain forecast of an ice-free Arctic. He did not: he cited a study (by Professor Wieslaw Maslowski) that according to Gore, assigned a 75% probability to the Polar Ice Cap being ice free in summer ‘in 5 to 7 years’. Confusingly, he also mentioned a date of 2030.
Thirdly, the forecast was for summer ice, the fact that ‘it’s still there’ in December would not be a falsification.
We are not ice free yet, however the twelve lowest extents in the satellite era have all occurred in the last twelve years.
Why does anyone listen to you?
Mr. Clarke,
you are correct that he stated a 75% probability, however there were a number of OTHER arctic scientists who didn’t make such probabilities when they predicted ice free summers a few years ahead, they were all 100% wrong, you want to ignore their numerous failures?
You finish with this:
“We are not ice free yet, however the twelve lowest extents in the satellite era have all occurred in the last twelve years.”
Your last lines are a classic example of misleading the issue since the reality is that the decline STOPPED after 2007.
http://www.usmessageboard.com/threads/the-arctic-is-in-even-worse-shape-than-you-realize.726316/page-4#post-21369578
Both MASIE and SII show a flat trend since 2007 for Summer ice cover.
And let us not forget to point out that the thick multi year ice that we were assured was gone forever has now grown back to levels not far from average.
And this in spite of assurances that due to albedo feedbacks, in the end it would all just rapidly melt away all of a sudden like.
Nothing like that occurred, and in fact it rapidly refroze after those minimums were reached.
In fact there is no trend in ice extent for more than 12 years, and average ice thickness is about where it was 60 years ago and 80 years ago.
of course, panic mongering warmistas want to pretend we know nothing about what ice in the Arctic was doing prior to the outlier year of 1980, which was somehow magically transformed into “the beginning of the satellite era” and came after a decades of grave warnings about a new ice age coming, and one big reason for that fear was the rapid growth of Artic ice during the 1970s which culminated in 1980.
It is the original cherry pick, as far as global warming graphs are concerned.
I still have trouble being concerned about polar ice, at all.
+42, the artic can melt completely away and it won’t mean diddly squat (it’s all sea ice, so won’t have any significant affect on sea level). Antarctica melting away, on the other hand, would be a problem if it was to happen, but as it’s gaining mass it’s clearly not happening.
I saw a video recently of predominately British GWACC skeptics (forgotten the title of the video) and there was an assertion with data that the total N + S polar ice volume has remained constant during the time that the Artic ice coverage has fallen during the summer due to an increase in Antarctic ice during the winter in the S Hemisphere. Sorry I forget the author and the reference citation. Can’t get too excited by a decrease in summer Artic ice cover if total N+S polar ice volume has remained constant.
Funny how trends tend to be closest to their minima at the bottom of the cycle.
You might want to recheck the definition of a “fact”.
You qualifications as a fact checker have been self-refuted.
Thank you for that much, anyways.
Philip,
Yes, your clarifications are correct. However, the NSIDC map shows that this year’s minimum was actually slightly higher then 2008’s. Thus, progress towards the minimum being “ice free” is, dare I say, “glacial.”
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
Note: you can zoom in to any section by dragging the mouse to define a rectangle. You’ll need to do that to see that 20018’s minimum was higher then 2008’s. They’re very close.
I guess the fact that arctic ice has been increasing for the last 3 years was skipped during your indoctrination session?
There is no declining trend in Artic sea ice over the last 11 years and your satellite record leaves off the early years ( formerly published) of reduced ice and starts at a cheery picked high point.
Polar Ice Is Disappearing, Setting Off Climate Alarms: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27122017/arctic-antarctic-sea-ice-sheets-2017-year-review-glaciers-disappearing-polar-records
Polar ice has been more or less increasing since 2012.
Ivan, it has STOPPED declining since 2007!
http://www.usmessageboard.com/threads/the-arctic-is-in-even-worse-shape-than-you-realize.726316/page-4#post-21369578
Unfortunately Al Gore is still being listened to, coutesy of the MSM. He reminds me of the rampant priest in his pulpit dishing out fire and brimstone upon his compliant congregation.
I once thought we had moved beyond that; but it appears the new eco religion has moved into the vacuum.
Alasdair
You hit both nail & head. Thanks for putting it so succinctly.
Tar and Feathers. Best known Far-West reply to snake oil scammers and card cheaters. Of which AlGore classifies for both.
The future is secure when the children will know the cool treat of fruit-flavored, shaved ice.
Is Gore still selling carbon [dioxide] credits and living a lifestyle by the seashore?
In addition to being constantly wrong on everything that he pronounces on, Al Gore is a very unattractive man, fortunately. To think that he was nearly President of the U.S.A. is even more frightening.
We continue to struggle with a leftist politically activist media, that has not been challenged within it’s own ranks about the truthfulness of it’s reporting. They are given a wide latitude, from government regulation, and wisely so, because they are the eyes and ears of a public that cannot effectively investigate people in power, disseminate information to the public, and provide for themselves at the same time. It is a profession that comes with a responsibility to those that trust the reporting. They need to police their own conduct, and maintain a default position of skepticism over government policies, or face a public that does not believe what they say. They are losing the trust of the public. It is “government cheeleading” on policies, such as this, that they will either recover from, or become irrelevant and be seen as “just another propaganda outlet”.
As a species, homo sapiens did not evolve at the top of the food chain. We are wired with a “fear response” deeply embedded into our nervous system, in order to survive long enough to reproduce and allow the species to evolve into the top predator we are today. Logic is a time consuming operation, and can be “short-circuited” by fear, as a survival mechanism. We need to overcome this limitation on complex issues, and not let fear drive our responses, to issues that require unraveling many complex and intertwined variables.
The media has failed to present this issue with the inherent skepticism that it deserves and has participated in the demagoguery of those that have pointed out the “complete failure” of the proponents of this “conjecture” to have any compelling evidence to support their position. And too many in the scientific community have watched or participated, as the “scientific method” has been neglected, in order to promote “bought and paid for science”.