Hansen Cooks Up New Scenario; Journalistic Meltdown Hits NY Times;

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.

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