Category Archives: Uncategorized

The January 2018 Fram Strait Cyclones

January 13, 2018Uncategorized, WavesAvalanche, Cyclone, Fram Strait, Greenland, Longyearbyen, Sentinel, Svalbard, TemperatureJim Hunt

We’ve covered similar events in the recent past, but this one looks like it will take the proverbial biscuit.

Here’s the 6 hour wave forecast for the Fram Strait from 12:00 UTC this afternoon:

Look at the scales carefully then compare the wave height and period with previous similar events. Here’s the cause of those giant waves, two powerful cyclones off Greenland pumping heat and moisture northwards from a long way south:

Also bear in mind the current sea ice area around Svalbard:

and the current weather forecast for the capital Longyearbyen:

Note in particular the anomalously high temperatures and the severe weather warnings for both rain and avalanches. In the middle of January.

Finally, for the moment at least, here’s a Sentinel 1B image of the sea ice in the Fram Strait earlier this morning:

[Edit – January 14th]

The temperature in Longyearbyen is forecast to drop below freezing point early on Tuesday and then remain there, which I guess counts as good news?

However the southernmost of the two cyclones off Greenland is now down to a central MSLP of 942 hPa:

[Edit – January 15th]

The cyclone now centred near Iceland looks as though it bottomed out at a MLSP of 939 hPa earlier today:

Watch this space!

Is the Son of Storm Frank Heading for the Arctic?

January 14, 2016UncategorizedAlex 2016, ECMWF, Storm Frank, Surf, UKMOJim Hunt

Strange things are happening in the North Atlantic at the moment. It’s the middle of January, and currently Hurricane Alex is heading straight for Greenland:

By the time he gets there Alex is due to meet another strong storm already spinning north of Newfoundland:

That combination is forecast by Magic Seaweed to bring some interesting surfing conditions to my local beach break here in Soggy South West England this coming weekend:

Somewhat further into the future here is MSW’s surf forecast for the British Isles in one week’s time:

and here is their forecast for the Arctic Circle a day or so later:

A lot may change over the next week of course, but here’s ECMWF’s current prognosis for 192 hours from now, courtesy of MeteoCiel:

Finally, for the moment at least, here’s a reminder of what Storm Frank did to the sea ice in the Arctic at the very end of 2015:

IPSO Powerless to Prevent The Great White Con

April 5, 2015UncategorizedBob Ward, Daily Mail, Dana Nuccitelli, David Rose, Extent, IPSO, Judith CurryJim Hunt

In a blog post earlier this year entitled “IPSO, the press regulator created in the aftermath of the Leveson Inquiry, is not up to task” Bob Ward, Policy and Communications Director of the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy at the Grantham Research Institute, made a prophetic statement:

IPSO is also currently considering a complaint I made against another article by David Rose in The Mail on Sunday in September 2014 which wrongly suggested that Arctic sea ice extent has stopped declining. I am not optimistic that my complaint will be upheld, even though the newspaper again breached Section 1(i) of the Editors’ Code of Practice.

IPSO have now published their ruling on that complaint, and conclude that:

17. The complaint was not upheld.

Remedial Action Required: N/A

Date complaint received: 17/09/2014

Date decision Issued: 16/02/2015

By all means read the ruling in full, but here are our edited highlights:

13. The article presented the author’s view that forecasts regarding the melting of Arctic ice had overestimated the rate of decline. The complainant did not dispute that measures showed that the Arctic ice extent had increased over the last two years. The article had made clear that the long-term trend still showed a decline, and the coverage had included commentary from a number of scientists, expressing a variety of views on the matter, including one who had stated that he was “uncomfortable with the idea of people saying the ice had bounced back”, and warned against reading too much into the ice increases. The article had made clear that scientific opinions regarding the significance of the most recent data varied. In this context, the omission of the information that the measure in 2012 had been the lowest on record, and that 2014 had still been the seventh lowest since records began, was not significantly misleading. The article did not suggest that it had been established as fact that the long-term decline in Arctic sea ice had reversed.

I highlight that paragraph in particular because in our coverage of David Rose’s article here at Great White Con we have disputed that “measures showed that the Arctic ice extent had increased over the last two years”. I wonder what IPSO might make of that information?

The Guardian have recently published an article by Dana Nuccitelli on the IPSO ruling entitled “Ipso proves impotent at curbing the Mail’s climate misinformation“, which now contains this addendum:

We have appended the following response from Rose:

“Like anyone who challenges aspects of the so-called ‘consensus’ over climate change, I’ve grown inured to being called a ‘denier’, as some of the commenters ‘below the line’ claim I am here. It is with some weariness that I must point out, as I did in the article that started this fuss, that I accept that the long-term Arctic ice trend is down, that carbon dioxide of human origin is an important cause of this trend, and that, unchecked, it will lead eventually to ice-free Arctic summers – albeit perhaps not for decades.

“But to be attacked for something I didn’t actually write is unfortunate. The fact remains there are large uncertainties and intense debate among scientists on this and other climate change topics, even if, as has been said, 97 per cent agree that the world is warming and that humans are partly to blame. But that doesn’t take us very far, and there are important differences of opinion. Professor Judith Curry isn’t a ‘contrarian’ but a very distinguished scientist and ice expert with a long record of peer-reviewed publications, though she happens to disagree with Mr Nuccitelli.

We feel compelled to point out to David Rose once again that he actually wrote:

The Arctic ice cap has expanded for the second year in succession.

and that this is both inaccurate and significantly misleading.

Mr. Rose’s comments are also of interest to us because despite recently bringing her attention to the matter once again Professor Judith Curry’s personal blog still contains the inaccurate and/or misleading information first published by the Mail on Sunday on September 8th 2013 in an article by David Rose entitled “And now it’s global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% in a year“.

What sort of “very distinguished scientist and ice expert” would continue to proudly proclaim the following inaccurate information after even the Mail on Sunday had retracted it?

The House of Lords Responds to a Changing Arctic

February 27, 2015UncategorizedAndrew Shepherd, Christopher Booker, David Rose, Extent, Greenland, Robin Teverson, TemperatureJim Hunt

The United Kingdom’s House of Lords are an unlikely bunch to be bundled under the banner of “alarmist” or even “warmist”. Nevertheless their Select Committee on the Arctic has just published a report entitled “Responding to a Changing Arctic“, and in this video the chairman of that committee, Lord Teverson, briefly outlines their findings:

Note that he starts by saying that:

Absolutely the obvious thing first of all is that with the temperatures going up [in the Arctic] at twice the rate of the rest of the world the thing that everybody is seeing is reduction in sea ice which has reduced quite substantially over recent years, and of course a lot of the Arctic is land and we have the melting ice on Greenland particularly, which is causing sea level rises in the rest of the world.

In order to get that message across the committee has also produced the following infographic:

which shows how the temperature over land has been increasing whilst the sea ice extent in the Arctic has been declining. The committee have also made all the learned evidence they received whilst producing their report publicly available. Professor Andy Shepherd from the University of Leeds told the committee that:

The majority of sea ice changes witnessed in “the past 50 or 60 years” could be attributed to greenhouse gas emissions and their effect on temperatures in the Arctic region.

and:

Suggested that the length of the solar melt season had increased by around five days per decade, causing additional melting and retreat of the ice.

How strange then, that David Rose made no mention of any of this when reporting Prof. Shepherd’s views in his “Myth of Arctic meltdown” article of August 31st 2014?

How strange also, that Christopher Booker maintained in his “The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever” article of February 8th 2015 that:

The ice-melt is not caused by rising global temperatures at all.

BBC Radio 4 Swallows Booker’s Bait

February 23, 2015UncategorizedBBC, Christopher Booker, Dana Rohrabacher, David Glenday, Ed Miliband, John Prescott, TelegraphJim Hunt

Here’s a prescient recent “Tweet” of mine to United States Representative Dana Rohrabacher:

Haven't you seen the videos @DanaRohrabacher? Ever thought of penning an op-ed in a UK broadsheet? http://t.co/MYQIN7Vqem CC @caerbannog666

— Jim Hunt (@jim_hunt) February 20, 2015

Two days later a UK broadsheet did indeed publish an article I feel sure Rep. Rohrabacher would approve of. Later the same morning BBC Radio 4 News reported on that article with apparent approval. For the backstory on all this please follow the first link below. Please read on for the text of my maximum 1500 character written complaint to the Beeb!

Us:

I have already spoken to Rachel about this via telephone, but she couldn’t give me a reference number or include a URL along with my complaint, so for completeness:

BBC Radio 4 News at 7 AM on Sunday February 22nd 2015 discussed the morning newspapers. The Observer’s story about Ed Miliband’s appointment of John Prescott as his “climate change advisor” was mentioned. This was followed by a reference to Christopher Booker’s article in The Telegraph. For chapter & verse please see my article at:

https://greatWhiteCon.info/2015/02/the-greatest-scandal-in-the-history-of-science/

and then follow all the links. In brief, as assorted readers over there put it:

“Why do people like Christopher Booker keep getting away with this kind of bullshit? There must be some kind of fine for lying and misleading so blatantly.”

“Hard to believe the BBC can give any credence to such nonsense. I was really shocked and phoned BBC to complain”

or as I summarised my conversation with Rachel:

“The BBC’s apparent belief that Mr. Booker’s article provides some sort of “scientific balance” to Ed Miliband’s remarks about the need for UK plc to up its “climate change” game is so utterly ludicrous that words totally fail me.”

By way of explanation for my disbelief, please see this elementary explanation of the underlying science that I sent to Mr. Booker and his editors 2 weeks previously:

https://greatWhiteCon.info/2015/02/a-letter-to-the-editor-of-the-sunday-telegraph/

Read those links too.

Them:

Dear Mr. Hunt

Thanks for contacting the BBC. This is an automated email acknowledging that we’ve received the attached complaint sent in this name. We’ve attached the case reference and text of the complaint for your records (see below).

We’ll normally include the full text of your complaint to BBC staff in the overnight reports we compile for them about the complaints and other reaction we’ve received today (with all your personal details removed). This ensures it will reach the right people quickly tomorrow morning. We’ll then aim to reply to you within 10 working days, or around 2 weeks, but it also depends on the nature of your complaint and whether the relevant people can respond to us in time.

We aim to use your licence fee as efficiently as we can, so if you complained about the same issues as others we will send our response to you and everyone. For the same reason we may not investigate or reply in great detail if a complaint doesn’t suggest a potential breach of BBC standards, or a significant issue of general importance. You can read about our full complaints procedures and how we consider issues which people raise with us at www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle-complaint/.

This acknowledgment is automatically generated from an unmonitored address so please don’t reply. If you think you’ve received this in error please contact us using our webform at www.bbc.co.uk/complaints, quoting your case reference number.

followed on February 26th by:

Dear Mr Hunt

Thank you for contacting us regarding Radio 4’s “News and Papers” as broadcast on 22 February.

We understand you feel that the article by Christopher Booker in the Sunday Telegraph that was referred to is not a counter balance to Ed Miliband’s views on climate change as you believe it to be scientific nonsense.

We aim to provide the information which will enable listeners to make up their own minds; to show the political and scientific reality and provide the forum for debate. There is broad scientific agreement on the issue of climate change and we reflect this accordingly; however, we do aim to ensure that we also offer time to the dissenting voices.

We value your feedback about this issue. All complaints are sent to senior management and programme makers every morning and we included your points in this overnight report. These reports are among the most widely read sources of feedback in the BBC and ensure your complaint is seen by the right people quickly. This helps inform their decisions about current and future reporting.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.

Kind regards

David Glenday

BBC Complaints

Us:

We’ll keep you posted!

Is The Economist Being “Economical with the Truth” About Arctic Sea Ice?

January 31, 2015UncategorizedASIF, Economist, Gavin Schmidt, GISS, IPSO, NASA, NSRJim Hunt

I was idly scrolling through my Twitter feed this morning when I couldn’t help but notice that Gavin Schmidt, Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, was calling for volunteers to research possible trends in The Economist’s attitude to “climate change” over recent decades:

Interesting media analysis topic for someone with more time than me! (4/4) @TheEconomist
— Gavin Schmidt (@ClimateOfGavin) January 30, 2015

Unable to resist temptation I immediately popped on over to The Economist online and searched for the term “Arctic”, as is my wont. Lo and behold I discovered much to my amazement that they had published an article on that very topic earlier on this very day. However after reading it I have to say I was less than impressed, and reported my findings back to @ClimateOfGavin. I also called The Economist’s “Editorial” number, and spoke to a nice lady with an American accent who told me that she was an “answering service” and assured me that she would pass on my message to an Economist editor, but they almost certainly wouldn’t look at it until Monday. Here’s how the conversation is going:

Them:

The Northern Sea Route is not living up to the hype, either. In 2013 71 ships traversed Russia’s Arctic, according to the Northern Sea Route Information Office: a large increase since 2010, when the number was just four. But 16,000 ships passed through the Suez Canal in 2013, so the northern route is not starting to compete. In 2014 traffic fell to 53 ships, only four of which sailed from Asia and docked in Europe (the rest went from one Russian port to another). The route does not yet link Europe and East Asia.

The decline in 2014 was partly caused by the weather: less sea ice melted last summer than in 2013, so the route was more dangerous.

Now I distinctly recall posting this image:

on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum on August 23rd last year. Over and above that, here’s a couple of freshly minted videos to illustrate the point more vividly. The AMSR2 Arctic sea ice concentration data displayed is courtesy of the University of Hamburg:

[Edit 02/02/15] The Economist’s “man in Tromso” asked to see 2012 as well, so here it is. AMSR2 data wasn’t available in 2012, so this one uses the SSMIS passive microwave radiometer instead:

Set the top two running in sync and then if the difference between 2013 and 2014 isn’t as plain as day to you, my name is Snow White!

[Edit 05/02/15]

In an endeavour to quantify the reduction in ice coverage in 2014 compared to 2013 that’s evident in the animations we’ve combined the regional extents for the Chukchi, East Siberian, Laptev and Kara Seas to produce this chart:

[/Edit]

Hence:

Us:

Please forgive my rather brusque manner, but I arrive fresh from hauling the Mail on Sunday in front of IPSO.

Can The Economist provide some evidence for their rather vague assertion that “less [Arctic] sea ice melted last summer than in 2013”. Can you for example provide a link to an authoritative source?

The latest print edition of The Economist landed on my doormat this morning. I eagerly turned to the “Letters” section, but was disappointed to discover that my virtual “Letter to the editor” sent on Thursday morning must have missed their deadline. Here it is:

CC: Your “Tromso correspondent”

Sir(s),

I read with much interest the “Not so cool” article in your January 31st edition, which suggested “The hype over the Arctic recedes, along with the summer ice”.

I take the point your Tromso correspondent makes that “The Northern Sea Route is not living up to the hype, either”, but I must take issue with the hype that currently reads, in both your print and online editions:

“The decline in 2014 was partly caused by the weather: less sea ice melted last summer than in 2013, so the route was more dangerous.”

All the evidence I have seen (collected together for your edification, including maps, graphs and animations, at https://greatWhiteCon.info/2015/01/is-the-economist-being-economical-with-the-truth-about-arctic-sea-ice/) refutes that statement. The minimum Arctic sea ice area and extent in summer 2014 were both below 2013. According to assorted satellites there was significantly less sea ice bobbing about along the Northern Sea Route in 2014 than in 2013. The official August 2014 forecast published by the Northern Sea Route Information Office maintained that ice conditions would be “Easy” over the entire NSR.

I look forward to seeing this particular piece of “hype” receding in both physical and virtual print in the very near future.

Yours,

Jim Hunt

Them:

We’ll keep you posted!