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NY Times Eats Its Words

The New York Times on August 29 retracted its ridiculous front-page story of August 19 that the North Pole was melting. The reporter, John Noble Wilford, had even asserted that open water appeared at the pole this summer for perhaps the first time in 50 million years, which was only off by 49,999,999 years.

Apparently, the pressure to backpedal was fueled by an AP story that again retailed the claims of Harvard Professor James J. McCarthy without consulting any Arctic experts. However, the Times tried to save face by running another article by Wilford on page 3 of its Science section that did its best to cloud the whole issue. Wilford asserted that regardless of his little mistake, the Arctic has warmed by 11 degrees in the last 30 years. And in a major story in the September 4 Time magazine, “The Big Meltdown”, junk science purveyor Eugene Linden claimed that there’s still plenty of evidence of the deleterious effects of global warming in the Arctic.

The temperature data tells a different story that the fact checkers at the Times and at Time (if they still employ any) may want to consult. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Second Assessment Report, the Arctic has warmed, not by 11, but by 2.7 degrees F in the last 30 years. Moreover, the article looked at the past 30 years because 1969 was conveniently the coldest year since about 1920. The Arctic was warmer in 1935 than it is now. Over the past 70 years, the temperature trend has been essentially zero (see Virtual Climate Alert #29 at www.greeningearthsociety.org.)

The global warming propaganda juggernaut has been lying low this summer due to unusually cool temperatures and a relative lack of natural disasters. Indeed, the tropics this summer are cooler than they have been since satellites began measuring global temperatures in 1979.

According to Dr. John Christy, of Earth System Science Laboratory at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, “Based on the satellite record, which started in 1979, the equatorial tropics experienced its coolest year in 1999, when the composite temperature was 0.34 degrees Celsius below the 20-year average for that region.”

Moreover, “That trend has continued through the first eight months of this year, with temperatures in the tropics 0.39 degrees C cooler than normal,” he said. These cooler temperatures can be attributed to La Nia, which is a cooling of the Pacific Ocean, just as the warmer than average temperatures in 1997 and 1998 can be attributed to the El Nio Pacific Ocean warming event.

The Northern Hemisphere, on the other hand, has been warmer than normal this year. “That has been the trend over the past 20 years,” Christy said. “During that time weve seen a 0.25 degree C per decade warming in the Northern Hemisphere, a very slight cooling in the tropics, and enough cooling in the Southern Hemisphere to almost offset the warming in the north.”

The World Wildlife Fund has released a strident report that claims, “Global warming could fundamentally alter one third of the plant and animal habitats by the end of this century, and cause the eventual extinction of certain plant and animal species.”

“In the northern latitudes of Russia, Canada and Scandanavia,” claims the report, “up to 70 percent of habitat could be lost” due to rapid warming.”

According to Adam Markham, Executive Director of Clean Air-Cool Planet, and one of the reports co-authors, “As global warming accelerates, plants and animals will come under increasing pressure to migrate to find suitable habitat. Some will just not be able to move fast enough.”

The report also claims that species that are isolated, such as those found on islands or in “fragmented habitats” are most at risk. But these species are most at risk due to their isolation not from global warming. Indeed, island species have always been at greater risk from extinction than non-island species.

The report claims, “Already, Costa Ricas golden toad has probably become extinct. Birds such as the great tit in Scotland and the Mexican jay in Arizona are beginning to breed earlier in the year; butterflies are shifting their ranges northwards throughout Europe; and mammals in many parts of the Arctic including polar bears, walrus and caribou are beginning to feel the impacts of reduced sea ice and warming tundra habitat.”

Some of these changes, although true, are actually beneficial to species. The change in butterfly ranges isnt a shift but an expansion. A study in Nature by Parmesan et al, which analyzed the distributional changes of European butterflies, found that “nearly all northward shifts [of butterfly ranges] involved extension at the northern boundary with the southern boundary remaining stable,” thus increasing butterfly habitat and enhancing survivability.

Another study in Nature by Thomas and Lennon found that British bird distributions from 1970 to 1990 experienced a similar habitat expansion. Northern habitat boundaries shifted 19 kilometers while the southern boundary remained stable.

A study that appeared in the Canadian Field-Naturalist by Norment et al studied bird surveys taken along the Thelon River and its tributaries in the Canadian Northwest Territories from the 1920s through much of the 1990s. They found that three bird species had expanded their range southward, nine bird species had expanded their range northward and sixteen bird species were new to the area. Moreover, mammals such as red squirrel, moose porcupine, river otter and beaver had also recently established themselves in the area.

Finally, a review of the scientific literature by Keith and Sherwood Idso, which appeared in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, found that atmospheric CO₂ enrichment increases the temperature at which plants function optimally, negating the need for migration.

The WWF study can be found at www.panda.org/climate. Full citations and reviews of the scientific papers cited above can be found at www.co2science.org.

• The New York Timess embarrassing retraction of its “The North Pole is Melting” story inspired a top ten list by David Letterman on the August 30 Late Show.

Top Ten Signs the New York Times is Slipping

10. Instead of “All The News That’s Fit To Print,” slogan is “Stuff We Heard From A Guy Who Says His Friend Heard About It.”

9. President does something on the TV show “West Wing,” next day it’s on front page.

8. It’s 108 pages, and there’s not one single vowel.

7. For every story, accompanying photo is Tony Danza.

6. Obituary has become list of people editors wish would die.

5. Dick Cheney consistently referred to as “the dude from those Wendy’s commercials.”

4. Notice on sports page: “All scores are approximate.”

3. Only ad in job classifieds: “Wanted — someone who knows how to put together a damn newspaper.”

2. For last two weeks, edited by a disoriented Anne Heche.

1. They’re endorsing George W. Bush.

Hansen Cooks Up New Scenario

NASAs Dr. James E. Hansen has stirred the global warming pot once again. In an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Hansen and his four NASA co-authors estimate that most of the global warming observed in recent decades has been caused, not by carbon dioxide emissions (!), but by increasing levels of other greenhouse gases. These include methane, chloro-fluorocarbons, and various soots.

Based on this new finding, the authors propose an “alternative, more optimistic scenario” to the conventional wisdom that “30 Kyotos may be needed to reduce warming to an acceptable level.” They suggest focusing efforts on reducing these other greenhouse gas emissions in the short term. This would slow the rate of global warming more quickly and cheaply than by reducing carbon dioxide emissions alone.

Hansens pronouncements carry a great deal of weight. A respected scientist, he directs NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies. His dramatic testimony before a Senate committee began the global warming scare in 1988. Last year, he confessed openly and honestlyto the chagrin of many global warming propagandiststhat, “The science is not converging.” The article may be found at www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.170278997.

Journalistic Meltdown Hits NY Times

Top of the page. Two columns. Left side. In a box. With a color photo. Headline: “Ages Old Icecap at North Pole Is Now Liquid, Scientists Find.”

The New York Times scooped the National Enquirer on August 19 with news that the Arctic ice cap has melted at the North Pole. The story by John Noble Wilford began, “The North Pole is melting.” The second paragraph claimed that, “The last time scientists can be certain the pole was awash in water was more than 50 million years ago.”

The shocking story, which will undoubtedly be repeated as gospel for years by environmental cranks, was apparently based on a press release put out by James J. McCarthy, director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. McCarthy is also co-author of one chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes forthcoming Third Assessment Report.

McCarthy saw blue water at the North Pole while serving as a lecturer on a Russian cruise ship in early August. He said that the Russian captain told him that he had never seen open water at the pole in ten previous voyages. (Presumably these go back 50 million years.)

A fellow cruise lecturer, Malcolm C. McKenna, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History, told the Times that, “I dont know if anybody in history ever got to 90 degrees north to be greeted by water, not ice.” McKenna provided the photo that the Times ran.

Apparently the Times published the story without first checking with any polar experts or even with anyone with common sense. Experts were uniformly dismissive and scoffing in their comments. Dr. Peter Wadhams, director of the Scott Polar Institute at Cambridge University, told the Times of London that, “Claims that the North Pole is now ice-free for the first time in 50 million years is complete rubbish, absolute nonsense.”

Ian Allison, a glaciologist with the Australian Antarctic Division, told the Australian that open water at the North Pole was highly unusual, but that global warming was not involved. Instead, he explained that ocean currents pack and break apart huge ice sheets with vast force.

S. Fred Singer, president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, wrote, “I am a veteran of two Arctic expeditions with the US Navy, and I can testify that icebreakers always search for leads to make their way through the ice. After a long summer of 24-hour days it is not unusual to find open leads all over the place, especially after strong winds break up the winter ice.”

Patrick Michaels, climatologist at the University of Virginia, told National Review Online that temperature records show no Arctic summer warming for the past 70 years.

Although ABC News picked up the story hook, line, and sinker, even National Public Radio expressed doubt. It noted that the ice sheet often breaks apart and open water appears.

Oops! Sea Levels are Falling

The island state of Tuvalu in the Pacific Ocean has been one of the most vociferous players in the global warming debate. It has been trotted out by the global warming establishment as an example of the horrific effects of global-warming-induced sea level rise. The country is comprised of nine islands, which are only 12 feet above sea level at their highest point.

New research has shown, however, that sea level has fallen by about 2.5 inches in the last 2 or 3 years, an apparently dramatic reversal from the 1.5 inch per year rise experienced throughout the earlier 1990s. Hilia Vavae, director of Tuvalus Meteorological Service, said, “This is certainly a bit of a shock for us because we have been experiencing the effect of rising oceans for a long time.”

The evidence does not sway Ms. Vavae, however. “We are still facing the daunting prospect of being one of the first countries to be submerged by sea-level rises related to climate change.” As noted by the Sunday Telegraph (London, August 6, 2000), “The Tuvalu government, a vocal critic of the industrialized world at environmental conferences in Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro, has said that the result of its research is a blip and it is expected to make climate change a major issue when it joins the United Nations next month.”

Patrick Nunn, head of geography at the University of the South Pacific of Fiji attacked the data saying, “It is nonsense to try to make predictions about climate change from a data base of only seven years.” Nunn should have looked at the long-term data before making this statement. Sea level data from Tuvalu since 1977 shows no trend. Indeed, sea level remains stable with three punctuated drops in 1983, 1992 and 1998 during El Nio years. The current drop is occurring in the absence of El Nio (www.vision.net.au/~daly).

Any potential global warming will actually cause sea levels to drop in the short term, according to S. Fred Singer, president of the Science and Environment Policy Project. Singers paper, which he presented at a Cooler Heads briefing, is available at the SEPP website, www.sepp.org.

One of the major pieces of evidence upon which global warming theory rests is the long-term temperature record derived from analysis of tree rings. According to this research, these long-term chronologies show a dramatic late 20^th century warming. However, an article in Quaternary Research (September 1999) questions the two critical assumptions upon which these findings rest, namely, “plant-climate relationships remain the same through time” and that “temperature-plant interactions are independent of changes in atmospheric CO₂.” These assumptions are “not supported by physiological data,” according to the article.

If these assumptions arent true, then any temperature records derived from tree rings which do not take into account the effect of CO₂ are wrong. Indeed, the article finds that CO₂ concentrations have an effect on tree growth in three different ways. First, “Processes that determine growth optima in plantsare all highly CO2-dependent.” Second, water-use efficiency “is sensitive to changes in atmospheric CO2.” Third, “leaf-gas exchange experiments indicate that the response of plants to carbon-depleting environmental stresses are strengthened under low CO2 relative to today.”

Nearly all studies of tree ring chronologies have interpreted tree growth in terms of changes in temperature and/or precipitation, not in terms of atmospheric CO₂ content. An article posted by the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change at www.co2science.org notes that “the flawed studies of Mann et al. are fast becoming the centerpiece of the IPCCs misguided, but seemingly intentional, effort to rewrite earths climatic history in an attempt to prod national governments to adopt Kyoto-type measures to combat imaginary global warming.”

An August 6 Washington Post story on the top of the front page reported that the past month was the coldest July in Washington, D.C. since 1918. Neither global warming or global cooling was mentioned as a possible explanation for this continuing pattern of extreme weather (even though record cool temperatures are just the sort of thing that global warming theorists predict will happen).

Vice President Al Gore held a press conference in the summer of 1998 to call attention to record high temperatures in many areas of the country and to blame them on global warming. Gore also chastised the American people for using energy produced by fossil fuels, which was causing global warming. Apparently the demands of the election campaign do not allow him the time to hold a press conference to call attention to the current temperature extremes.

Other places in the U.S. experiencing unusually cold weather include Chicago, which has yet to have a day with temperatures over 90 degrees this summer. This hasnt happened since Ulysses S. Grant was president. “By and largeChicagos heat island has been swamped by a tidal wave of [cool] temperatures,” noted the Chicago Tribune (August 3, 2000).

Maine has also been suffering through “Cool, wet, foggy weather,” says the Portland Press Herald (August 6, 2000), which has been hurting tourism in the state. And both Boston and New York City have been unseasonably cold with New York City experiencing its coolest July since 1914.

Finally, England has been having such cold miserable weather that one frustrated lady wrote a letter to the editor saying, “Sir: We were promised global warming and I want it now,” (The Independent, July 28, 2000).

Of course, other parts of the U.S., such as the West and South, have been suffering through very warm temperatures. So what does all this tell us about global warming? Absolutely nothing. For more stories about the cold weather visit www.vision.net.au/~daly.