Tag Archives: Daily Mail

Has the Arctic Ice Cap Expanded for the Second Year in Succession?

Area, , , , , , ,

According to David Rose’s latest article in the Mail on Sunday it has. This came as shock news to me, because only a couple of days ago I was discussing with “Steve Goddard” how Arctic sea ice extent (using “Steve’s” patent pending personal “DMI 30% clone” metric) had actually decreased since the same time last year!

Before we delve deep into the data, and before the Mail on Sunday makes any “corrections” to David’s misleadingly purple prose, here’s how things look over there at the moment:

 

Them:

2014-08-31_MoS RoseMoS-20140831

As you can see, the Mail’s main claims are:

  • Seven years after former US Vice-President Al Gore’s warning, Arctic ice cap has expanded for second year in row
  • An area twice the size of Alaska – America’s biggest state – was open water two years ago and is now covered in ice
  • These satellite images taken from University of Illinois’s Cryosphere project show ice has become more concentrated

not to mention that:

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that, far from vanishing, the Arctic ice cap has expanded for the second year in succession – with a surge, depending on how you measure it, of between 43 and 63 per cent since 2012.

For some strange reason David neglects to include any numbers for 2013, so….

 

Us:

A quick telephone call revealed that John Wellington doesn’t work at the Mail on Sunday’s, so I sent him an email instead:

Hello again John,

David Rose is at it again, hence so am I. According to his latest words of wisdom:

“The Mail on Sunday can reveal that, far from vanishing, the Arctic ice cap has expanded for the second year in succession”

I don’t suppose David and/or the Mail on Sunday can provide any data to back up that assertion can they?

Best wishes,

Jim Hunt

 

Them:

Hello Jim,

I did wonder if we would be corresponding, again.
I will be in touch after the weekend.

Best regards

John

 

Us:

Hi Tessa,

I’m working on the assumption that you are still responsible for this subject. If not perhaps you can pass this email on to the relevant person?

David Rose is talking about the Arctic on the Mail Online again, so I’m attempting to comment again. Yet again I can’t see my comments (under the nom de guerre “SoulSurfer”) anywhere underneath the article in question. Can you look into it please, and let me know what the problem is?

To make things easier for you I’ve just commented for the third time this morning, as per the enclosed attachment.

Thanks,

Jim Hunt

2014-08-31_1347_MoS

Them:

In an email dated September 6th 2014:

Dear Jim,

Sorry not to reply sooner. The article relied on data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre comparing ice cover on the same date, August 25. In 2012 the figure was 3.91m sq miles, in 2013 it was 5.59m and in 2014, 5.62m. You may wish to note that the article did point out that the long-term trend is still downward.

Best regards

John

 

Us:

In an email dated January 24th 2015:

Dear John,

Sorry not to reply sooner. The PCC decided to laboriously mutate into something called IPSO right around the time of the 2014 Arctic sea ice minimum extent. Hence the brief hiatus. However David Rose is at it again, and he’s now even discussing tricky things like “probabilities”! IPSO do now seem to be getting their act together as well. Did you see their “open letter to publishers” last month?

No doubt I will have more than a few bones to pick with David’s article last weekend, not to mention the subsequent one by Victoria Woollaston. Is that one your responsibility too? For the moment though, perhaps we can pick up where we left off last summer?

Thanks for your information about the long term Arctic sea ice trend and the NSIDC extent numbers. However the article in question also states:

“Figures from the Danish Meteorological Institute suggest that the growth has been even more dramatic. Using a different measure, the area with at least 30 per cent ice cover, these reveal a 63 per cent rise – from 2.7 million to 4.4 million square kilometres”.

Where did David get those DMI numbers from? I asked the DMI, and even they didn’t seem to know!

Best wishes,

Jim Hunt

 

Them:

In the absence of any response from John I called the Mail offices on January 26th 2015. It seems John is out of the office for the next two weeks. His PA is now looking into matters for me.

 

Us:

I sent a further email to John and Poppy on February 2nd 2015:

Them:

Dear Jim,

If you have a complaint about last Sunday’s article, you should set out exactly what it is. If you disagree with any opinions expressed you are welcome to write a letter that we will consider for publication.

You mention that you have sent us a number of inquiries recently. The only other, to my knowledge is that you wanted to know the source of some data that David Rose mentioned in an article some months ago. David Rose told me it came from the official website. Perhaps my colleague Poppy Hall can find it for you since David is probably unwilling to help after your insult.

Best regards,

John

 

Us:

Dear Poppy (and John)

Please would you ask David to let me know where exactly, and on which “official website”, he obtained the DMI extent numbers he quoted in his article last Summer?

FYI John, at Poppy’s suggestion I have also emailed the editorial team @MailOnline. They have yet to even acknowledge receipt of my email of January 26th.

Best wishes,

Jim Hunt

 

Them:

Dear Jim,

David is unable to find the table with the numerical data. But he says that the graph here from the DMI website makes it clear that if you look at 30% concentration, the figures he gave were correct.

I hope this answers your query.

Kind regards,

Poppy

MailRoseDMI-001
 

Us:

Dear Poppy,

Just to clarify, the facts of the matter are that David Rose did NOT obtain the DMI numbers he quoted last summer from a “table with the numerical data” on an “official website”?

Best wishes,

Jim Hunt

 

Them:

We’ll keep you posted!

“Steve Goddard” Reveals How David Rose Misled Mail Readers!

Satire, , , ,

Shock News! In an astonishing revelation over on “Steven Goddard’s” (un)Real Science blog a commenter has revealed exactly how David Rose pulled the wool over the eyes of millions of Mail on Sunday readers last September.

I was eagerly engaged in a “debate” about “The Arctic Catastrophe” with Steve/Tony and his band of merry (mostly) men when the conversation took an unexpectedly enlightening turn:

Them:

If you have eleven minutes to spare, there is a movie made of all last summer’s pictures taken by O-Buoy 7. It gives you something to compare this summer with. It is a little annoying because the ice got slushy and the camera gradually tilted. You may get a crick in your neck, if your head tilts as you watch. Finally you spend around four minutes basically looking at your feet, but the redeeming thing is that the ice cracks up and you are looking at the edge of the water. Then you fall in. You are blown south and bob about in ice-free waters briefly, before the refreeze swallows you up in advancing ice, and you get to see winter set in:

http://obuoy.datatransport.org/monitor#buoy7/movie

 

Us:

Caleb – Here’s an O-Buoy 7 movie I hurriedly put together in October last year, that also shows winter setting in. Since you’re evidently an “Arctic sea ice nutter” too I’d be very interested to hear your comments:

The Great White Con – Update 3 from Jim L. Hunt on Vimeo.

 

Them:

In that particular case you apparently did catch a reporter making a mistake. He likely took a quick glance at an extent map, and didn’t dig deeper. Some of those maps show all “extent”, even down to 15% ice and 85% water, as solid white. (For example, this map:  )

NSIDC high resolution Arctic sea ice extent visualisation on August 16th 2014
NSIDC high resolution Arctic sea ice extent visualisation on August 16th 2014

Because the map shows pure white, the reporter likely jumped to the wrong conclusion that the ice was “Unbroken.” Then it is likely a week passed between when he researched and the piece was printed, and further ice melted during that week.

It is not hard to catch the MSM making such mistakes about sea-ice. Either they are in too much of a hurry, or are lazy, or perhaps have an agenda. The best thing to do is to gently and politely educate them to what the actual facts are. In some cases they really do not know that what is solid white on the map can be as much as 85% open water in reality. Some actually appreciate you doing the research they don’t have the time (or are too lazy) to do.

But make sure you educate them with actual facts. If you feed them bull, and they catch you at it, they never forget it and very rarely forgive it, even if you confess and apologize.

 

Us:

I have made it my mission in life to educate all and sundry with actual facts!

If David Rose appreciates me doing all this research on his behalf he has been remarkably backward in coming forward to convey his eternal gratitude 😥

 

 

Them:

We’ll keep you posted!

 

 

Shock News! Murdoch Plagiarises David Rose Errors

Satire, , , , , , , , ,

Regular readers may recall that on September 8th 2013 the Mail on Sunday published an article by David Rose claiming that the Arctic “Ice Sheet Grew 920,000 Square Miles in a Year“. That was not true, and after we complained to the UK Press Complaints Commission The Mail eventually published a “correction” of sorts.

On September 15th 2013 the Mail on Sunday published another article by David Rose entitled “Global warming is just HALF what we thought: World’s top climate scientists admit computers got the effects of greenhouse gases wrong”, which proudly displayed their erroneous headline from the previous week. The article contained many more errors,  some of which the United Kingdom’s Met Office highlighted on their official blog later the same day:

The article states that the Met Office’s ‘flagship’ model (referring to our Earth System Model known as HadGEM2-ES) is too sensitive to greenhouse gases and therefore overestimates the possible temperature changes we may see by 2100.

There is no scientific evidence to support this claim.

The Mail eventually “corrected” the article in their usual half hearted fashion, whilst simultaneously updating the title to read “Global warming is just QUARTER what we thought“, which doesn’t strike me as being an accurate use of the English language let alone scientifically accurate.

Meanwhile on September 16th 2013 on the other side of the planet Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian published an article written by Graham Lloyd entitled “We got it wrong on warming, says IPCC“, saying things like:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest assessment reportedly admits its computer drastically overestimated rising temperatures, and over the past 60 years the world has in fact been warming at half the rate claimed in the previous IPCC report in 2007. More importantly, according to reports in British and US media, the draft report appears to suggest global temperatures were less sensitive to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide than was previously thought. The 2007 assessment report said the planet was warming at a rate of 0.2C every decade, but according to Britain’s The Daily Mail the draft update report says the true figure since 1951 has been 0.12C.

After a long drawn out enquiry the Australian Press Council has finally announced that in its view The Australian cannot justify publishing inaccurate scientific information by blaming David Rose and The Mail on Sunday. They state that:

The Press Council has considered a complaint about a number of items published in The Australian in September 2013, a week before the release of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The Council has considered the complaint by reference to the following parts of its General Principles: “Publications should take reasonable steps to ensure reports are accurate, fair and balanced”; “relevant facts should not be misrepresented or suppressed”; and “Where it is established that a serious inaccuracy has been published, a publication should promptly correct the error, giving the correction due prominence.”

The Council has concluded that the erroneous claim about the revised warming rate was very serious, given the importance of the issue and of the need for accuracy (both of which were emphasised in the editorial that repeated the claim without qualification). Although based on another publication’s report, the claim was unequivocally asserted in The Australian headline, “We got it wrong on warming, says IPCC”, which also implied the IPCC had acknowledged the alleged error. The impression that the claim was correct was reinforced by The Australian saying the IPCC had been “forced to deny” that it was in crisis talks.

The Council considers rigorous steps should have been taken before giving such forceful and prominent credence to The Mail on Sunday’s claim. Accordingly, the complaint on that ground is upheld.

The Council welcomes the acknowledgements of error and expressions of regret which the publication eventually made to it. But they should have been made very much earlier, and made directly to the publication’s readers in a frank and specific manner. It is a matter of considerable concern that this approach was not adopted.

To summarise, don’t believe everything you read in The Daily Mail or The Australian, particularly if the words in question are written by or plagiarised from David Rose:

 

A Conversation With David Rose

Satire, , , , , , ,

Perhaps “conversation” is somewhat too strong a word? We have somehow managed to engage the Mail on Sunday’s top investigative journalist (AKA David Rose) in a debate about sea ice on Twitter. For some strange reason he tried to change the topic from the Arctic to the Antarctic!

Us:

Them:

 

Us:

Meanwhile we gatecrashed another debate that David Rose was gatecrashing, about a topic we have some experience with.

Them:

Us:


We’ll keep you posted!

New Mail for The Mail

Satire, , , , , , , , , ,

Now seems like an entirely appropriate time to bring the latest “Shock News!” from the Arctic to the attention of the “mass media” here in once Great Britain. Here’s a copy of an email I sent to John Wellington over at The Mail earlier today:

Us:

Re: PCC – Global cooling in an ideal world

Hello again John,

Further to our previous correspondence on this controversial topic here is the latest “shock news” from the Arctic, hot off the presses down here at Ivory Towers:

https://greatWhiteCon.info/2014/03/the-arctic-sea-ice-recovery-vanishes/

In view of the recent inclement weather in this neck of the woods, perhaps you could forward it on to one of your finest investigative reporters for me?

Best wishes,

Jim Hunt

Them:

It’s now March 15th 2014, and this morning I received a “Dear Jim” note from John:

Dear Jim,

Nice to hear from you and I trust you were not hit by the West Country floods, climate-influenced or not.

I have discussed your message with a colleague who is interested in these things and we conclude that March is a little early in the year to be drawing significant conclusions. I have been shown some different graphs that appear to show 2014 is not dissimilar to the last few years. I am attaching these for your information.

Best regards

John

S_stddev_timeseries N_bm_extent cryo_compare_small ssmi1_ice_ext_small

Us:

Dear John,

Thank you for your kind words. We’re situated halfway up Haldon, so we avoided the worst of the inclement weather. The top of the hill took a bit of a battering however.

The entrance to Haldon Forest Park on February 24th 2014
The entrance to Haldon Forest Park on February 24th 2014
Haldon Forest Park on March 8th 2014
Haldon Forest Park on March 8th 2014

Our garden suffered a bit too, but thankfully the house was OK.

A new spring gushes from the side of Haldon Hill on Valentine's day 2014
A new spring gushes from the side of Haldon Hill on Valentine’s Day 2014

Others weren’t quite so fortunate:

http://econnexus.org/the-weather-report-from-soggy-south-west-england/

Regarding your own attachments, perhaps in the first instance you might ask your colleague to explain why he or she chooses to send you a NORSEX Arctic sea ice extent graph rather than one from the NSIDC, which I believe we established last summer is The Mail’s oracle on such matters? Please take a good look at the latest NSIDC equivalent to the Antarctic extent graph you sent me, which I attach for your convenience.

NSIDC Arctic sea ice extent graph for March 13th 2014
NSIDC Arctic sea ice extent graph for March 13th 2014

Whilst you’re at it perhaps you could also ask your colleague to answer at least the first three of these simple questions:

https://greatWhiteCon.info/2014/03/some-sceptical-questions/

You may also wish to pass on to your colleague the shock news that earlier this week the daily atmospheric carbon dioxide readings from Mauna Loa rose above 400 ppm almost 2 months earlier than last year?

https://greatWhiteCon.info/2014/03/our-guardians-sleeping-on-the-job/

Best wishes,

Jim

We’ll keep you posted!

The Arctic Sea Ice “Recovery” Vanishes

Volume, , ,

It’s highly probable that whatever metric you choose to use the 2014 Arctic sea ice maximum area and extent will occur this month. Consequently the volume of nonsense propagated by the “skeptics” amongst the “mass media” is increasing also. Earlier today yesterday’s sea ice metrics were published and currently both the Cryosphere Today Arctic sea ice area and NSIDC daily extent are at all time lows for the date. Needless to say that hasn’t stopped the denialosphere prattling on about an “Arctic Ice Recovery” yet again.

First of all, here’s our evidence:

Cryosphere Today Arctic sea ice area graph, as at March 8th 2014
Cryosphere Today Arctic sea ice area graph, as at March 8th 2014

[Graph from Cryosphere Today interactive Arctic sea ice chart]

NSIDC daily extent graph for March
NSIDC daily extent graph for March, as at March 8th 2014

[Graph courtesy of BornFromTheVoid at the Arctic Sea Ice Forum]

Now I couldn’t help but notice that yet another reproduction of the Mail on Sunday’s erroneous graphic first printed at the time of the 2013 minimum appeared on Steven Goddard’s “Real Climate” blog  last week. Steve has been using a variety of other graphics in his assorted attempts to persuade his readers that there is in fact an “Arctic Ice Recovery”. Needless to say, we beg to differ!

Them:

Shocking Increase In Arctic Ice Dooms The Planet – How Ice Sheet Grew 533,000 Square Miles in a Year

Us:

Whilst we’re on the subject of cherry picking, it looks a lot like the left hand part of the image dates from August 27th 2012 whereas the right hand part dates from August 15th 2013. If you’re interested in seeing a similar image dating from September 8th 2013, when the original version of the image above was originally published in the Mail on Sunday over here in once Great Britain then please feel free to take a long hard look at:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2013/09/santas-secret-summer-swim/

Credible evidence, or not?

Them:

Arctic Ice Recovery

The dirty little secret of Arctic sea ice, is that it is controlled by winter winds – not temperature. Over the last few years, the older thicker ice has pushed into the Beaufort Sea where it survives the winter and slows summer melt. Thus the Arctic continues to “recover.”

ACNFS forecast for Arctic sea ice thickness on March 11th 2014, from the March 3rd model run
ACNFS forecast for Arctic sea ice thickness on March 11th 2014

[Image from the 1/12° Arctic Cap HYCOM/CICE/NCODA archive]

 Us:

Actually the Arctic doesn’t “continue to recover”. Whilst a bit hard to see on their rather cluttered chart the latest PIOMAS Arctic sea ice volume estimates show that the so called “recovery” had almost completely “melted away” by the end of February:

PIOMAS arctic sea ice volume on February 28th from 1979-2014
PIOMAS Arctic sea ice volume on February 28th from 1979-2014

 [Image by Chris Reynolds on the Arctic Sea Ice Blog]

Them:

Planet Doomed By Missing Ice Cube In The Barents Sea

NSIDC visualisation of Arctic sea ice daily extent for March 6th 2014
NSIDC visualisation of Arctic sea ice daily extent for March 6th 2014

Us:

Here’s the thing (well, 2 things actually)

1. Steve’s “map” shows the NSIDC Arctic sea ice extent, but you make no mention of it. Perhaps that’s because that particular metric is currently at the lowest it has ever been on this day of any year since the satellites started attempting to measure it? How on Earth can he possibly characterize that as any sort of “recovery”?

2. Surely the very title of this thread (“ice cube”) implies a volume, does it not? I believe Steve’s an engineer, and so he is presumably well aware that a square and a cube are completely different kettles of fish (metaphorically speaking)? All that being the case, why on Earth would Steve choose to illustrate his point with a “map” of ice extent instead of a “graph” of ice volume?

For the moment we rest our case, but rest assured that there is plenty more where this lot came from!

Has Arctic Sea Ice Already Started to Recover?

Extent, , , , , ,

In a word, NO!! Here we go again.

Them:

According to David Rose’s headline in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday:

Global warming ‘pause’ may last for 20 more years and Arctic sea ice has already started to recover.

There is of course plenty more where that came from, such as:

The 17-year pause in global warming is likely to last into the 2030s and the Arctic sea ice has already started to recover, according to new research.

A paper in the peer-reviewed journal Climate Dynamics – by Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Dr Marcia Wyatt – amounts to a stunning challenge to climate science orthodoxy.

Not only does it explain the unexpected pause, it suggests that the scientific majority – whose views are represented by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – have underestimated the role of natural cycles and exaggerated that of greenhouse gases.

along with a:

Graph that makes a mockery of warming

Us:

If you take a look at the evidence from the NSIDC the Mail on Sunday recently provided us with in support of their previous inaccurate headlines you will discover it says:

Monthly August ice extent for 1979 to 2013 shows a decline of 10.6% per decade.

QED? Apparently not as far as the Mail on Sunday’s concerned. If further evidence is needed please read our previously published “stunning challenge” to Judith Curry’s Arctic sea ice expertise. In brief:

Judith Curry republishes the same nonsense [as The Mail], but then neglects to publish even a similarly mealy mouthed “correction”, let alone anything remotely resembling the information originally published by the NSIDC upon which this collective fantasy is allegedly based. Therefore Judith should be taken seriously, and as a climate scientist rather than a tabloid journalist or a fantasy fiction writer?

We think not.

Them:

David Rose goes on to say (amongst other things) that:

The graph shown above, based on a version published by Dr Ed Hawkins of Reading University on his blog, Climate Lab Book, reveals that actual temperatures are now below the predictions made by almost all the 138 models on which the IPCC relies.

The pause means there has been no statistically significant increase in world average surface temperatures since the beginning of 1997, despite the models’ projection of a steeply rising trend.

Us:

On Dr. Hawkins’ blog, commenting on a previous David Rose article in the Mail on Sunday, he says this:

David Rose has written an article in the Mail on Sunday which, by eye, seems to use the top left panel from the figure below, but without mention of its original source. In the article David Rose suggests that this figure proves that the forecasts are wrong. This is incorrect.

Here’s the figure Dr. Hawkins is referring to:

Ed Hawkins original graphs comparing CMIP5 simulations with observations
Ed Hawkins’ original graphs comparing CMIP5 simulations with observations

Finally, for the moment at least, here’s the text of an email we sent to the Managing Editor of the Mail on Sunday this morning:

Hello John,

Thanks for your additional comments. Unfortunately you still fail to address the primary question I’ve been asking for almost 2 months now, so I will be formally pursuing matters concerning the September 8th article via the PCC from now on.

Moving on I note that you have published another article by David Rose this weekend entitled “Global warming ‘pause’ may last for 20 more years and Arctic sea ice has already started to recover”, which mentions both Judith Curry and Arctic sea ice once again. I already have a few bones to pick with you about this one as well.

1. I posted an online comment on the article yesterday evening. It remains invisible this morning. Your web site says “The comments below have not been moderated.”. My comment included no links, although it did mention the “Great White Con”. Perhaps you could look into that for me, and provide me with an explanation?

2. Do you suppose it would be possible to persuade David to reveal his sources any more swiftly this time around? Where does his misleading graphic entitled “Graph that makes a mockery of warming” and the underlying data come from? At first sight it doesn’t seem to be from Judith Curry’s “Stadium wave” paper for example.

We have yet to receive a reply.

The Mail’s Concentration on Sea Ice Extent

Concentration, , , , , ,

Further to our previous communications about what we refer to here as “The Great White Con” I have now received another email from John Wellington, Managing Editor of the Mail on Sunday.

Them:

Amongst other things it says that:

The incorrect figure published by the NSIDC was taken in good faith. Our writer [AKA David Rose] did not expect an institution of its stature to make such an error, so it is not reasonable to expect him to contact NSIDC to check it, specially as the general idea of an increase in the icepack was consistent with more anecdotal information such as the shipping information. You say we did not produce evidence of the NSIDC mistake. I am attaching a screen grab of their web site before they corrected it.

Mail on Sunday screen grab of NSIDC article entitled "A real hole near the pole"
Mail on Sunday screen grab of NSIDC article entitled “A real hole near the pole”

John’s latest email also included the following statement:

The August NSIDC report begins with a diagram (see  attachment). This shows the Arctic ice sheet stretching from Siberia to the Canadian islands:

Another Mail on Sunday screen grab of NSIDC "Arctic Sea Ice News" article of September 4th 2013
Another Mail on Sunday screen grab of NSIDC “Arctic Sea Ice News” article of September 4th 2013

Us:

You will note I have taken the liberty of annotating The Mail’s screen grabs with what seem to me to be reasonable questions for any vaguely competent investigative journalist to ask themselves when reading the NSIDC’s early September update. At this juncture I can only repeat this question from my most recent missive to The Mail:

This raises any number of questions about the Mail on Sunday misleading its readers, such as “Why didn’t The Mail ask the NSIDC about the apparently conflicting information, much like Bob Ward did, before publishing an article relying on that information?” not to mention “Why can’t David Rose perform accurate arithmetic?”

and provide my own screenshot from the “terminology” page of the NSIDC web site in a no doubt vain attempt to provide John and David with an answer to just one of those questions:

NSIDC explanation of the terms "concentration" and "extent"
NSIDC explanation of the terms “concentration” and “extent”

In brief:

Extent defines a region as either “ice-covered” or “not ice-covered.” For each data cell, it is a binary term; either the cell has ice (usually a value of “1”) or the cell has no ice (usually a value of “0”).

 Do you suppose that given their apparent difficulties in performing elementary arithmetic John and David are able to appreciate the difference between “1 or 0” and “low-concentration sea ice (20 to 80% cover) within our extent outline” or even “near-zero ice concentration“?

How about the readers of The Mail on Sunday, or the Press Complaints Commission for that matter?

The Balding Arctic Exposed

Concentration, , , , ,

I’ve recently received a letter signed by John Wellington who is the Managing Editor of The Mail on Sunday.

Them:

Referring to David Rose’s Mail on Sunday article of September 8th 2013 John says amongst many other things that:

We deny that the article was significantly inaccurate apart from the original headline figure which we have already corrected.

and:

In August, ice did stretch from part of the Siberian shore to the Canadian islands. The image published in the newspaper and online supports this statement as does the enclosed image from the NSIDC site which shows the ice extent on August 18.

Here’s that image, which comes from the August 19th 2013 edition of the National Snow and Ice Data Center’s “Arctic Sea Ice News” entitled “The balding Arctic“:

National Snow and Ice Data Center graphic showing Arctic sea ice extent on August 18th 2013
NSIDC graphic showing Arctic sea ice extent on August 18th 2013

Us:

I’m currently writing a reply to John’s letter. Amongst many other things it directs his attention to this very article and says:

Images showing sea ice “extent” reveal remarkably little about whether an “ice sheet” is “unbroken” or not. If that is what you want to illustrate then an image showing “concentration” is much more helpful. In their report of September 4th upon which David Rose’s article is supposedly based, at least in part, the NSIDC helpfully provided such an image. The Mail on Sunday didn’t publish that image, or a similar image from 2012. In order to correct this inaccuracy they should do so.

Since they’ve evidently read the NSIDC’s news that the Arctic was “Balding” towards the end of August and there was “A real hole near the pole” by early September John and David should be aware of this already, but it seems a refresher course is necessary. On August 19th the NSIDC pointed out that:

Satellite data from the AMSR-2 instrument and MODIS show an unusually large expanse of low-concentration sea ice (20 to 80% cover) within our extent outline (15% or greater, using the SSM/I sensor) spanning much of the Russian side of the Arctic and extending to within a few degrees of the North Pole.

While some of the low concentrations recorded by AMSR-2 may be due to surface melt on sea ice, the MODIS image confirms that a large region is covered by isolated floes.

On September 4th the NSIDC also helpfully pointed out that:

A large hole (roughly 150 square kilometers or 58 square miles) of near-zero ice concentration appears to have opened up at about 87 degrees North latitude.

Here is a “true-color” image from September 4th 2013 using MODIS bands 1, 4 and 3, helpfully made available by NASA to anyone who might be interested via the EOSDIS Worldview web site:

NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the North Pole area on September 4th 2013 derived from bands 1,4 and 3 of the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite
NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the North Pole area on September 4th 2013 derived from bands 1, 4 and 3 of the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite

The lines in this image converge on the North Pole, the same location as the little cross in the NSIDC extent image near the top of this article. Let’s play “Spot the Difference” yet again shall we. Would you say that the sea ice underneath the clouds looks “broken” in this Worldview “true-color” image? How about in the the University of Bremen concentration images often shown by the NSIDC, or in the NSIDC “extent” image above, or in the NASA “extent” videos so beloved by David Rose and the Mail on Sunday?

Russia’s Northern Shores

Concentration, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Regular readers will have realised by now that we’ve been pestering the Mail and The Telegraph with telephone calls and emails for weeks now. That’s because, as The Economist put it last weekend:

There are climate facts—and facts are stubborn things.

Both The Mail and The Telegraph have now corrected a couple of the gross inaccuracies they printed (virtually and/or physically) on September 8th, but many more remain. One of those is the identical phrase in both articles saying:

An unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia’s northern shores.

The fact of the matter is that this statement is untrue. I’ve recently received a couple of letters about this from “The Daily Telegraph” signed by “Robert Winnett, Head of News”. Here’s an extract from the first one:

Them:

Reputable evidence exists to show an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia’s northern shore.  This can be seen on the National Snow and Ice Data Center’s website [in the article] “A Real Hole Near the North Pole“.  The site states that the average ice extent for August 2013 was 6.09 million square kilometres, which is more than half the size of Europe.

Us:

Have I got news for you Robert!  If you’d read any of the articles on here, or watched any of the videos I linked to in my emails, that wasn’t the “fact” I was quibbling about. The fact is that the Arctic “ice sheet” was not “unbroken” and did not “stretch… to Russia’s northern shore” on September 8th 2013 and for considerable periods of time both before and after that date. Here’s an extract from The Telegraph’s second letter:

Them:

In reply to your enquiry, the Telegraph’s policy is to correct clear inaccuracies once we are alerted to them – and in appropriate cases update articles on our website.

Us:

I thought I’d already made this perfectly plain, but evidently not, so here’s yet another alert about clear inaccuracies in the “reporting” of climate science in The Telegraph: