Sea Ice Fact Fiction or Myth
February 20, 2009 by Ken
Filed under Uncategorized
On the 18th Feb George Monbiot wrote about Washington Post`s George Will and his supposed Howlers over Climate Change (I think he means Global Warming) Monbiot says George Will’s latest column in the Washington Post affords us a fascinating insight into how certain climate change myths pass through the media unchallenged.
I came to this through an exchange of views in my local paper, so I am only going to look at the relevant one of the fours supposed myths (it looks like the Alarmists also go in for Myths in a big way) Monbiot is being very circumspect only mentioning four!
Claim three:
According to the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.
Fact:
When I contacted to the Arctic Climate Research Center to ask if this claim was correct, the Center’s Bill Chapman wrote this:
No, it is not correct. I don’t know where they are getting that. As of today, there are 1.43m km sq less Arctic sea ice than this same date in 1979. (Roughly the size of two Texas-sized states).You might remember that John Tomlinson made the same claim. So where and how did this myth originate? All clues gratefully received.
The plea at the end for information about the origination of the Myth? Is echoed on Cryosphere Today the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Centre web site where they say;
February 15, 2009
In an opinion piece by George Will published on February 15, 2009 in the Washington Post, George Will states “According to the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.”We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979. This decrease in sea ice area is roughly equal to the area of Texas, California, and Oklahoma combined.
It is disturbing that the Washington Post would publish such information without first checking the facts.
They say the do not know where George Will got his information yet a link just below:
Statement related to Daily Tech article of January 1, 2009
takes us to the originator of the story this turns out to be an article by Michael Asher entitled “Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979” which appeared on the Daily Tech website.
and that article is based on the;
“The data is being reported by the University of Illinois’s Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.”
So I looks like George Will got his information either directly from University of Illinois’s Arctic Climate Research Centre, just like he said, perhaps he was pointed in that direction by the Daily Tech Web site but the information is there and can be freely viewed .
The question is why did Bill Chapman not check his own information before issuing a denial and why is the denial still prominently placed on the University of Illinois’s Arctic Climate Research Centre web site.
Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979
Rapid growth spurt leaves amount of ice at levels seen 29 years ago.
Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards.
The data is being reported by the University of Illinois’s Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.
The response from the University of Illinois
Part of the statement also included a lot of stuff about future predictions which is not relevant, although past predictions might be.
The meat of the statement reads;
Observed global sea ice area, defined here as a sum of N. Hemisphere and S. Hemisphere sea ice areas, is near or slightly lower than those observed in late 1979, as noted in the Daily Tech article.
This statement says clearly that the observed ice area of both the N and S is near or slightly lower than 1979.
So the Daily Tech article is correct the “sea ice area is about the same as it was in 1979” according to this report from The University of Illinois’s.
This makes Monbiot wrong, or rather wrongly informed; because of the incorrect information he was given.
This is perhaps forgivable if somewhat confusing because the person who spoke to Monbiot was obviously referring to the N. Hemisphere only, and the denial would have been based on the second paragraph in The University of Illinois’s statement which reads:
However, observed N. Hemisphere sea ice area is almost one million sq. km below values seen in late 1979 and S. Hemisphere sea ice area is about 0.5 million sq. km above that seen in late 1979, partly offsetting the N. Hemisphere reduction.
Whereas Daily Tech and George Will referred to both north and south.
So was the sea ice area on 28thDec 2008 about the same as that on 28th Dec 1979
Make up your own minds.
But the N. Hemisphere reduction in ice cover is it now very problematic because it has since been reported that the satellite tracking the Arctic has developed a fault and has been showing less ice than there actually was US National Snow and Ice Data Center” has no data currently available! they claim:
“we discovered that starting around early January, an error known as sensor drift caused a slowly growing underestimation of Arctic sea ice extent. The underestimation reached approximately 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles) by mid-February.”
They realised this only “On February 16, 2009, as emails came in from puzzled readers, it became clear that there was a significant problem—sea-ice-covered regions were showing up as open ocean.”
They have since discontinued daily reports whilst the problem is being addressed
One final point The University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Centre say in the statement “In the context of climate change, GLOBAL sea ice area may not be the most relevant indicator.” Please note they say this when they are admitting the Ice level is about the same as is was in 1979 they were not making this point in the summer funny that.
