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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

World Atlas ice loss claim exaggerated: scientists

2011-09-20

The Times Atlas of the World exaggerated the rate of Greenland's ice loss in its thirteenth edition last week, scientists said on Monday.
No! Johnson, stop the presses!
The atlas, published by HarperCollins, showed that Greenland lost 15 percent of its ice cover over the past 12 years, based on information from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado in the United States.

The Greenland ice sheet is the second biggest in the world and significant shrinking could lead to a global rise in sea levels.

"While global warming has played a role in this reduction, it is also as a result of the much more accurate data and in-depth research that is now available," HarperCollins said on its website on Monday.

However, a number of scientists disputed the claim.

"We believe that the figure of a 15 percent decrease in permanent ice cover since the publication of the previous atlas 12 years (ago) is both incorrect and misleading," said Poul Christoffersen, glaciologist at the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) at the University of Cambridge.

"We concluded that a sizable portion of the area mapped as ice-free in the Atlas is clearly still ice-covered."
Remember, it isn't the facts that need to be true it is only the narrative that needs to be "true".

Posted by:DarthVader

#6 That's quite true, EC - it's just easier for most people to understand to say the last ice age ended X years ago (when the glaciers began to recede from continental Europe, Canada, and the northern U.S). Actually we're still coming out of the last one. Here's hoping we don't enter another Maunder Mimimum. I'd be glad of another Medieval Warm Period, though I doubt the ski resorts would agree.

Posted by: Barbara 2011-09-20 23:16

#5 Barbara, actually we're still in an ice age (both poles are covered with ice which has NOT been the norm in the history of Earth).

The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this warming period.

Ivar Giaever
Nobel Laureate 1973

Posted by: European Conservative 2011-09-20 22:21

#4 I wish global warming were true. Warmer weather has always meant prosperity -- and we could use some.

ION - read somewhere that the poles tend to have a flip over effect. As one gets colder the other warms up. After a while the cycle reverses. Rinse and repeat. The point is that total ice stays about the same.

Posted by: Iblis 2011-09-20 21:03

#3 The "end" of the last Ice Age: About 12,000 years ago

"known history": A few thousand years. (Which, by the way, includes the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age.)

Color me unimpressed.

Posted by: Barbara 2011-09-20 21:01

#2 I'm probably going to a globally warmed hell for stating that this simply doesn't bother me one bit.

Posted by: European Conservative 2011-09-20 20:20

#1 One thing that's not exaggerated is that one can navigate the Northwest Passage the last few years - and most of the Northeast Passage, which has been exceedingly rare throughout known history.

Posted by: Glenmore 2011-09-20 18:44

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