Baked Alaska

The New York Times is at it again. They spread a false story a few years ago (`Water at the North Pole') which they were later obliged to retract. Then they published a story about Alaska climate which was publicly repudiated by the Alaska Climate Research Center.

Now they have just published a story titled `Baked Alaska on the Menu?' (New York Times (NYT) 13 Sept. 2003) in which they have mounted similar falsehoods. Their story opens with a heart wrenching story about Kaktovik, an Alaskan village on the Arctic Ocean, where a robin built a nest last year (a pest invasion?), where willows have decided to grow on the nearby river banks (noxious weeds?), and where there are now three types of salmon in nearby waters where none previously existed. "We're not getting as many icebergs as we used to" says one 92-year old. Robins, willows, salmon, fewer icebergs, - life is getting really tough at Kaktovik.

Of course, that's all just newspaper hype and hyperbole, none of it verifiable. And NYT is not noted for its accuracy in reporting such stories as evidenced by recent scandals over plagiarism there.

But let's get down to hard facts. Half-way through the article, they state quite categorically - "Alaska has warmed by eight degrees, on average, in the winter, over the last three decades, according to meteorological records. The U.S. Arctic Research Commission says that today's Arctic temperatures are the highest in the last 400 years, and perhaps much longer." Firstly, the U.S. Arctic Research Commission is an obscure little Washington bureaucracy with only three fulltime staff - an `Executive Director' based in Arlington, VA, an `Administrative Officer' also at Arlington, and a `Senior Staff Officer' in Anchorage, AK. Apparently, the NYT regards them as more authoritative than scientific bodies like the Alaska Climate Research Center that actually reside in Alaska.

Going back to NYT's statement, eight degrees is presumably Fahrenheit (they omitted to say which units applied), or about 4°C. The main weather station on the Alaska Arctic coast is Barrow, and its record of winter temperature is shown below -

As we can see, climate today is not warmer than years ago. The co-warmest years (at -21.13°C) were 1942 and 2001, while the record clearly shows a period of `warmth' during the 1920s and 1930s (in common with the rest of the Arctic), followed by a period of cooling in the post-war period until 1976 (also Arctic-wide), then a climatic recovery in recent years to levels similar to those which existed back in the 1920s and 1930s.

But notice how they qualified their claim "...over the last three decades". The average of the `last three decades' produces a result shown by the thick blue line, achievable only by being selective about the time frame and ignoring previous years when climate was warmer. It's a form of statistical selectivity which has become commonplace in articles and publications by the greenhouse industry. As for the reference to today's temperatures being the highest in 400 years, the above record shows that the 1920s and 1930s must also have been `the highest in 400 years'. But even with the reference to 400 years, we see exactly the same statistical approach at work - 400 years ago, the world, and Alaska, was in the grip of the Little Ice Age, and therefore of course any temperature today will be warmer than that frigid period. It's all in the time frames you choose. The scientific way of presenting data is to present all of it, not just the bits and time scales that suits a desired viewpoint. The NYT to their discredit chose to do the latter.

The final sentence of the NYT story reads - "Unless we act soon, we may find waves lapping the beaches of Ohio". Given that the lowest point of Ohio is around 140 metres above mean sea level, that has to be the most stupid remark of all in a very stupid article. Even if every last lump of ice on the planet, glaciers, Greenland, even Antarctica, all melted into the sea, the sea would rise a maximum of 65 metres, less than half the height of Ohio. Even the normally alarmist IPCC only predicts a maximum sea level rise of less than 1 metre in the next 100 years.

Finally, what of the title - `Baking Alaska'? Is NYT seriously suggesting minus 25°C is `baking'? Even today's mid-summer temperatures at Barrow are barely above freezing

Stupid question Department:

Assuming global warming were true and caused by increased CO2 levels, and that the carbon in the CO2 came from fossil fuels, but those fossils used to be plants and animals that were dependant on plants (that "food chain" thing), and those plants required carbon derived from atmospheric CO2, then aren't we freeing that bound carbon back to the biosphere for further use by plants and animals? Isn't it possible that animals are smaller now than in the past because there is less biomass available in the entire ecosystem?

So, the CO2 we produce comes from fossil fuel combustion, which comes from fossil deposits, which came from plants and animals that depended on CO2 to build the plants the animals ate....

So CO2 -> plants and animals -> fossil fuel -> energy for us + CO2...

Isn't this recycling? I thought recycling was good.

Right. Two web sites document the benefits of CO2:
http://www.greeningearthsociety.org/
http://www.co2science.org/
CO2 is a very scarce and essential nutrient and most plants grow faster in higher CO2 concentrations.

The greening of the earth from increasing CO2 (which may or may not be man-made) has been photographed by satellites. Some people have noticed how in old photographs and in scenes from old westerns barren desert was seen where now in the same location greenery is growing.

Isn't this recycling?

Absolutely. The carbon dioxide that we are emitting now, must have been in the atmosphere when the fossil fuels were, well, unfossilized. Why didn't the world end then.

More than this, the basic model that the eco-nuts are using assumes that the relatively small amounts of CO2 that we put in causes some warming, which results in much more water vapor to evaporate, which is a more potent greenhouse gas, causing more warming.

Hello! This model assumes that the CO2/Water cycle is unstable. No damn wonder it predicts the end of the world.

The CO2/Water cycle isn't unstable. I submit as evidence for this the existence for FReepers.

But then again, maybe we are just living in the "Matrix".

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