Posted By Marc Morano - Marc_Morano@EPW.Senate.Gov
Media Hype on ‘Melting’ Antarctic Ignores Record Ice Growth
The media is once again hyping an allegedly dire consequence of man-made global warming. This time the media is promoting the ice loss of one tiny fraction of the giant ice-covered continent and completely ignoring the current record ice growth on Antarctica. Contrary to media hype, the vast majority of Antarctica has cooled over the past 50 years and ice coverage has grown to record levels since satellite monitoring began in the 1979, according to peer-reviewed studies and scientists who study the area.
Climate scientist Ben Herman, past director of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics and former Head of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Arizona, stated, “It is interesting that all of the AGW (anthropogenic global warming) stories concerning Antarctica are always about what’s happening around the [western] peninsula, which seems to be the only place on Antarctica that has shown warming. How about the net ‘no change’ or ‘cooling’ over the rest of the continent, which is probably about 95% of the land mass, not to mention the record sea ice coverage recently.”
Former Colorado State Climatologist Dr. Roger Pielke, Sr., presently senior scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder, chastised the media’s Antarctic reporting as “typical of the bias that many journalists have.” Pielke wrote on March 25, “The media has ignored in their reporting the increase in Antarctic sea ice cover in recent years, with, at present, a coverage that is well one million square kilometers above average.” Pielke added, “Unfortunately, it appears that most journalists just parrot the perspective of the first news release on these climate issues, without doing any further investigation. If this is inadvertent, they need to be educated in climate science. If deliberate bias, they are clearly advocates and the reporters should be clearly and publically identified as having such a bias. In either case, the public is being misinformed!”
Meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo served as the first Director of Meteorology at The Weather Channel, was the Chief Meteorologist at Weather Services International Corporation and served as chairman of the American Meteorological Society’s (AMS) Committee on Weather Analysis and Forecasting. D’Aleo commented on his website Icecap.us on March 25: “The shattered part of the Wilkins ice sheet was 160 square miles in area, which is just 0.01% of the total current Antarctic ice cover (just 0.003% of the extent last September), like an icicle falling from a snow and ice covered roof. No big deal (unless you are standing beneath it). And this winter is coming on quickly. The latest satellite images and reports suggest the ice has already refrozen around the broken pieces. In fact the ice is returning so fast, it is running an amazing 60% ahead (4.0 vs 2.5 million square km extent) of last year when it set a new record. The total ice extent is already approaching the second highest level for extent since the measurements began by satellite in 1979 and just a few days into the Southern Hemisphere fall season and 6 months ahead of the peak. We are very likely going to exceed last year’s record [for Southern Hemisphere ice extent]. Yet the world is left with the false impression Antarctica’s ice sheet is also starting to disappear.”
See full image here Source: The Cryosphere Today
Read much more here.
By Anthony Watts, Watts Up With That
There will be a story featuring Al Gore and his climate views on CBS 60 minutes this weekend. Normally I don’t pay much heed to this program, but Gore is publicly calling those who question the science “almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat”.
To me, a person who has at one time been fully engaged in the belief that CO2 was indeed the root cause of the global warming problem, I find Gore’s statements insulting. In 1990 after hearing what James Hansen and others had to say, I helped to arrange a national education campaign for TV meteorologists nationwide (ironically with CBS’s help) on the value of planting trees to combat the CO2 issue. I later changed my thinking when I learned more about the science involved and found it to be lacking. I’ve never made a call to action on media reporting before on this blog, but this cannot go unchallenged.
The press release from CBS on the upcoming story on Gore is here. You can visit the CBS website here and post comments here.
Here is an excerpt from a long post by Accuweather’s Joe Bastardi on Gore’s appearance on 60 minutes.
By Joe Bastardi, Accuweather
I am absolutely astounded that someone who refuses to publicly debate anyone on this matter and has no training in the field narrated a movie where frames of nuclear explosions were interspersed in a subliminal way in scenes of droughts and flood, among other major gaffes, can say these things and then have them accepted by anyone. See the complete writeup here on the AccuWeather Blog here.
Icecap Note: CBS will abide by the requirement from the Gore camp that all questions be preapproved softball ones. The day of the old hard hittting 60 Minutes journalism is dead. See more here on the questions the old 60 minutes might have asked. CBS has joined, ABC, National Geographic, the green network NBC and the Weather Channel on the list of channels, that I no longer stop on my cable. When will these media networks and print media realize that by continuing to provide assistance to Al Gore and friends in their hoax, they are ensuring our economy continues to descend into a recession or worse and cuts back on their potential revenue. The only companies and groups that will be capable of affording advertising are those that will be warning of armageddon - every night will be fright night. Indeed Al Gore will with help from his environmental activist friends be starting a $300,000,000 ad campaign to push support for quick legislative action before the current cooling trend and new peer ereview research that calls into question most all of the claims of Gore and the alarmists gives too many people cause to question its necessity.
aaenvironment blogspot
The environmental movement remains monolithic in its opposition to nuclear energy. Although global warming is the most serious environmental issue facing the world today, and although nuclear power emits no greenhouse gases that cause global warming, green groups remain unalterably opposed to the technology. This opposition would appear to be illogical in the face of such a universally agreed upon global threat to life as we know it, but the fact remains that no environmental group publicly supports nuclear power. Not one. Nada. None. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid even uses this fact as a weapon in opposing Yucca Mountain as the national repository for spent nuclear fuel.
What is behind this phenomenon? Why would every single environmental group in the United States continue to oppose nuclear power when it is seemingly an off the shelf solution to the global warming problem? We have two hypotheses: 1) the groups continue to believe that the technology is dangerous - even more dangerous than global warming, 2) supporting nuclear energy would be a bad business decision. The environmental movement is a $6 billion per year industry and there is no funding for supporting nuclear power for the groups. No foundation is going to fund pronuclear activities. In fact, supporting nuclear power would render any group bold enough to step forward a pariah in the foundation community, which would be supported by condemnation from the entire environmental movement. Moreover, any green group executive director or board member would risk losing his or her job or board position by independently supporting nuclear power.
The nuclear industry might be salivating over a pending renaissance, but antinuclear groups are also salivating over, and still quietly working for, a resurgence in aggressive opposition to nuclear power, from funders and the general public. See site and comments here.