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Atlas Takes Heat For Melting Glacier Claim
dtjohnson writes "The 'Times Atlas of the World' claims, while publicizing its newest edition, that global warming has turned 15 percent of Greenland's former ice-covered land 'green and ice-free.' Now, however, scientists from the Scott Polar Research Institute say those figures, based on data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, are wrong. 'Recent satellite images of Greenland make it clear that there are in fact still numerous glaciers and permanent ice cover where the new Times Atlas shows ice-free conditions and the emergence of new lands,' they say in a letter that has been sent to the Times. Others have pointed out that if 15 percent of Greenland ice cover had been lost, then sea levels would have risen by 1 meter... which has not happened. Perhaps yet another climate controversy is brewing."
An update to the Sciencemag.com story pinpoints the probable source of the error: a 2001 map from the NSIDC illustrates Greenland's central ice sheet without showing any of the peripheral glaciers. The Atlas editors may have seen this map and misinterpreted it. Says the article, "Now glaciologists are left trying to figure out how not understate the importance of the extent glacial ice melt, while at the same time correcting the error."
What started out as a well-supported observation that the earth was starting to slowly warm, followed by the suggestion that humans pumping tons of excess carbon dioxide into the atmosphere may be at least partly to blame, has turned into a goddamned politicized mess. On one side you have grant-whores and alarmists, who have taken this reasonable observation and hyped it more-and-more over the last fifteen years into some increasingly alarmist Chicken Little hyperbole. On the other side you have a bunch of bible-thumping right-wing corporatists who think that if we just let mega-corporations do whatever the fuck they want (including pumping whatever shit into the air they feel like), then we would all live in some libertarian utopia.
Frankly, I'm sick of all the bullshit from both sides. I've got a grant-whore "environmental scientist" (when did that even become a hard science?) screaming in one ear that we're all going to die if we don't go all-solar/all-wind in the next twenty years. In the other ear, I've got Jesusy McAnnRaynd telling me that Exxon only wants to give me love and flowers, and would never, ever hurt me. And frankly, I just want to punch BOTH of them at this point.
Both sides have taken to over-exaggerating and over-hyping every bit of evidence they touch. And I've come to distrust them both.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Now glaciologists are left trying to figure out how not understate the importance of the extent glacial ice melt, while at the same time correcting the error.
How about you just be honest in the first place? If you are right about climate change, you don't need to exaggerate your claims. They should speak for themselves.
Except that 9 of the 10 hottest years in our measurements have been after 1998.
1998 was a statistical fluke, an out-lier, due to a very active El-Nino during that particular year. In 2010, the same temperature was reached under very average circumstances.
global temperatures haven't risen since 1998
I'm not going to talk at you about how to do data analysis and averaging. Picking 1998 as a starting point is a canary for someone who is measuring "increase" as "difference since start of plot" and then cherry-picking a high value as their start point.
Even if you use that highly-deceptive "analysis" technique, though, it's not true:
NASA GISS Global Surface Air Temperature Anomaly
1998: 0.70 C
2010: 0.83 C
2010 is the most recent year for which there is data.
NASA GISS Land-Ocean Temperature Index
1998: 0.56 C
2010: 0.63 C
If you look at the tabular data, anyone reasonably familiar with analysis should spot immediately that 1998 is an outlier and that there is an overall positive trend that continues up to 2010.
Good on the scientists for noticing the error of the Atlas company and working to publicly correct it. That is certainly above and beyond the call of duty. I'm not sure how that makes them 'grant whores' though. They are not responsible for the misstatement. They are only responsible for publicly correcting it.
Well, the important thing is that you've framed them both as equally bad so that you can feel superior to anyone who cares.
No, it isn't causing a drought in Texas. There were droughts in Texas at least this bad, long before the argument started.
Not so. The following graph clearly shows that this year is an extreme outlier: http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2011/08/texas-drought-spot-the-outlier/
propaganda will never work against intelligent people.
You say that even as you mention Hitler? There were no shortage of intellectuals and academics that embraced Nazi propaganda. Another example of gullible intelligentsia would be Communism in the early and mid 20th century.
There was a study, and I don't recall enough info about it to cite, that found that belief in ridiculous crap (UFO's, spiritualism, etc.) was MORE common as education levels and intelligence rose... although it dropped off again at the very high end of both.