Sea Ice Thickens
On August 19, 2000 the New York Times published a front-page story claiming that open sea sighted by Dr. James J. McCarthy director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, at the North Pole was clear evidence of global warming.
The story implied that this hasnt occurred since the Eocene epoch 55 million years ago. McCarthy described the reaction to the sighting, “There was a sense of alarm. Global warming was real, and we were seeing its effects for the first time that far north.”
Ten days later the Times ran a retraction in a Science Times article that quoted Dr. Mark Serreze, a climatologist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., as saying, “Theres nothing to be necessarily alarmed about. Theres been open water at the pole before. We have no clear evidence at this point that this is related to global climate change.”
Perhaps due to this embarrassing gaffe, the New York Times is shying away from publishing further sea ice stories. That might explain its failure to mention sea ice thickening in the Antarctica. According to the Agence France-Presse (October 31, 2001), “Global warming might be a popular worry but scientists on Antarcticas coast this southern summer are recording some of the thickest sea ice ever seen.”
“To my knowledge this is the greatest summer sea ice extent thats ever been recorded in McMurdo Sound,” said Michael Cameron a seal expert working from New Zealands Scott Base. “Everybodys guess is that its due to this giant iceberg off of Cape Bird blocking the swells that would normally break up any sea ice in the area.” The sea ice near McMurdo Sound was 40 percent thicker than normal last year, and this year its even thicker.
Of course, if the New York Times had reported this, they would have explained that thicker Antarctic sea ice is just the sort of thing one would expect with global warming.
Junk Science in Science
The October 26 issue of Science carried a study that attempts to use data from the Nenana Ice Classic, a betting lottery where participants guess the date and time when the frozen Tanana River, near the town of Nenana southwest of Fairbanks, Alaska, breaks up, to detect global warming.
A tripod connected to a clock mechanism on shore is secured to the ice on the river. When the ice melts the tripod is swept downriver tripping the clock and recording the time. This lottery has occurred every year since 1917, thereby providing a continuous record of ice breakup.
The Science study suggests two mechanisms to explain the ice breakup: thermal effects where the ice melts and dynamic effects where the ice is broken up by mechanical forces upstream. The first would be attributed to temperature, the latter to precipitation.
The study claims that there has been a trend towards earlier breakup that is correlated with a warming trend. But this conclusion is dubious, according to John Daly who maintains the “Still Waiting for Greenhouse” website. A look at the whole Nenana record shows significant cyclical variation ice breakup, but overall there is no trend.
The authors of the study, however, begin their statistical analysis at the year 1949, a very cold year. They also excluded the breakup of 2001, which was very late, later in fact than the breakup in 1917. The trend found in the analysis is entirely dependent on the starting and ending dates chosen.
Moreover, as Daly points out, the authors dismiss the possibility of dynamic effects as the major cause of earlier ice break up and claim that there are no significant precipitation and snowfall trends.
“Thats not how the Alaska Climate Research Center sees it,” writes Daly. “As we can see [from their chart] there has been a significant increase in tital snowfall during the 20th century, the inevitable effect of which would be greater mechanical forces acting upon the river ice from upstream, causing it to break up earlier than would be the case with thermal melt alone.”
For a more comprehensive critique of the study, go to www.john-daly.com/nenana.htm.
Etc.
- The city of Marrakesh, Morocco, the site of COP-7 was likely chosen for its considerable charms and pleasant climate. Its interesting to note, however, that since 1924 there has been no warming and perhaps an overall cooling in that city (www.john-daly.com).
- IPCC Chairman Robert Watson told Kyodo News Service (October 18, 2001) that, “I could envision that the U.S. will sooner or later be part of the international debate on climate because industries in the U.S. will demand it.” Fortunately, Dr. Watsons expertise as a scientific bureaucrat makes his political prophecies as credible as his climatic predictions.