[CRYOLIST] Fwd: Re: Greenland story - coverage report
Sarah Boon
sarah.boon at uleth.ca
Tue Sep 20 06:44:07 PDT 2011
Cryolisters - Seems the Times Atlas has decided they might want to
consult scientists when creating future editions. However, they make no
comments regarding the accuracy of their 15% figure. See this link
<http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/News_and_Events/News/Pages/Clarification-on-The-Times-Comprehensive-Atlas-of-the-World-13th-edition.aspx>.
Sarah
--
Sarah Boon, PhD
Assistant Professor, Geography
Alberta Water and Environmental Science Building
University of Lethbridge
4401 University Drive, Lethbridge, Alberta
Canada T1K 3M4
Ph. 403-332-4569
Fax. 403-332-4039
http://people.uleth.ca/~sarah.boon
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [CRYOLIST] Greenland story - coverage report
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2011 12:55:36 +0000
From: Jeffrey Kargel <jeffreyskargel at hotmail.com>
To: <tom at sciencemediacentre.org>, <pc350 at cam.ac.uk>, Graham Cogley
<gcogley1 at cogeco.ca>
CC: gm349 at admin.cam.ac.uk, cryolist at cryolist.org,
all at sciencemediacentre.org
Tom,
Wow. Okay, thanks. Of course I'd much rather to not have had to deal
with this story because there had been no mistake, but given that there
was, I am quite pleased that we--and not just our little group, but in
fact a significant segment of the cryosphere community-- was proactive
in correcting this error. Looks like one of the reports has the Times
Atlas starting to think maybe they messed up. (maybe?!!!!!). I am
pleased especially that Ted Scambos so effectively identified what may
be the cause of the Atlas error (misinterpretation of a map that showed
something important but not what the Atlas interpreted it to be).
By all means, add my name to a list of glaciology ghostbusters that you
keep on file. I'd rather keep my guns cool til a big story hits. I
would like to introduce you to one of my colleagues, Jim Torson, who I
used to work with at the USGS (until I resigned in 2005 a protest in
support of the IPCC and in objection to a USGS media office attempt to
prevent me from citing IPCC-published climate modeling in a press
release). Jim already, single handedly, is performing a lot of the type
of duties that apparently you are involved with doing. I could see him
as being part of a U.S. SMC. I have no idea how you go about getting
funded, or if you have funding. I have long admired Jim for his
tireless work. In this case, I don't know who was first to contact me
about the Atlas; Graham and Jim were each on it within minutes of each
other.
--Jeff Kargel
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: tom at sciencemediacentre.org
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2011 11:38:05 +0100
Subject: Greenland story - coverage report
To: pc350 at cam.ac.uk; jeffreyskargel at hotmail.com; gcogley1 at cogeco.ca
CC: gm349 at admin.cam.ac.uk; emm36 at cam.ac.uk; all at sciencemediacentre.org
Dear Poul, Jeff and Graham,
Below is our coverage report for the Greenland articles in which you
were quoted. There is a lot of it! There was always the risk that this
would draw attention to 'another climate error', but all errors should
be corrected regardless of which political hand it appears to play
into. Meeting this head-on was not only brave and principled, but
ensured that the press led with 'scientists correct map-making error'
when they could quite easily otherwise have run with 'NSIC data found to
be dodgy in new climate shame' etc.
As is often the case, there was no 'no risk' option. If you had said
nothing, the scientific community would have been accused by sceptic
groups of complaining when climate change is underplayed, but staying
conveniently silent when it's overplayed -- I think that would be
improper, and much riskier! The best thing scientists can do is be seen
to be consistent, honest and truthful. Your quotes also ensured
prominent reporting of the fact that climate change remains serious and
real, whatever the Times Atlas maps say.
So let me say how impressed I am that you all contributed so quickly and
enthusiastically, especially as 24 hours ago we didn't even know each
other! The whole aim of the Science Media Centre here in the UK is to
ensure accurate, responsible reporting of scientific issues and you have
helped us to achieve that today. There is no SMC in the US (yet) but
there is one recently established in Canada -- Graham, ask me if you
want to know more. SMC Canada have made your quotes available to
Canadian press.
I doubt we've seen the last of this issue, and I would very much like to
keep in touch with you all -- please let me know if I may add your
details to our database for polar/glaciology stories in the future, or
if this one needs any more input. In the lead-up to Durban I will be
putting together a number of climate-related press briefings, including
one on 'the state of the poles' or something like that -- Poul, perhaps
we could talk more about your possible involvement in such a briefing.
A huge thanks again and best wishes to you all -- I hope you're pleased
with the coverage, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
Tom
--
Tom Sheldon
Senior Press Officer
Science Media Centre
215 Euston Road
London NW1 2BE
Tel: 020 7611 8366
E: _tom at sciencemediacentre.org <mailto:tom at sciencemediacentre.org>_
Web: www.sciencemediacentre.org <http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/>
/The Science Media Centre is an independent venture working to promote
the voices, stories and views from the scientific community to the news
media when science is in the headlines. Over 80 supporters including
scientific institutions, media groups, charities, universities,
corporate organisations and individuals fund the Centre, with donations
capped at 5% of the running costs to preserve its independence./
/Science Media Centre is a registered charity (no. 1140827) and a
company limited by guarantee (no. 7560997). Registered in England and
Wales./
**
*_Expert reaction to /Times Atlas/ publication showing Greenland to have
lost 15% of its ice cover_*
*19 September 2011*
**
*_Round-up comments_*
*Dr Jeffrey S. Kargel, Senior Research Scientist at the University of
Arizona, said:*
"The /Times Atlas/ maps have been publicised in the media far and wide.
But make no mistake: this is not what is happening, this is not science,
and this is not what scientists are saying. Greenland specialists have
documented what is actually happening in Greenland, and it involves some
incredibly rapid changes, mainly increasing melting, thinning, and
retreat; and slight thickening in some sectors, but overall Greenland is
a story of massive, rapid retreat. Special dynamics are at play, and
probably climate warming as well.
"However, these new maps are ridiculously off base, way exaggerated
relative to the reality of rapid change in Greenland. I don't know how
exactly the /Times Atlas/ produced their results, but they are NOT
scientific results.
"Just like IPCCs '2035' (one key, massively wrong paragraph), a number
like 15% ice loss used for advertising the book is simply a killer
mistake that cannot be winked away. Worse for science, this is not a
scientific error, but it could be perceived as one once it is corrected
- unless scientists make it clear that this is errant and not of
science origin right from the outset."
*Prof J. Graham Cogley, Professor of Geography at Trent University,
Ontario, Canada, said:*
"Fortunately the mistake about the Greenland Ice Sheet is much more
obvious and indefensible than the Himalayan error. In the aftermath of
'Himalayagate', we glaciologists are hypersensitive to egregious errors
in supposedly authoritative sources. Climate change is real, and
Greenland ice cover is shrinking. But the claims here are simply not
backed up by science. This pig can't fly.
"There are various ways to quantify the scale of the mistake. For
example the global average rate of glacier shrinkage is somewhere near
to 0.2% per year, but that number is heavily influenced by very small
glaciers. Glacier shrinkage on the global scale is difficult to grapple
with, but one clear conclusion is that smaller glaciers shrink much
faster (in percentage terms) than bigger ones. The Greenland Ice Sheet
is the second biggest glacier of all, and the Times Atlas' contention
that it has lost 300,000 sq km in the past 12 years, that is, at a rate
of 1.5%/yr (because its nominal area is 1.7 million sq km), would be
very surprising indeed if it could be validated. The best measurements
in Greenland, which cover only part of the ice sheet, suggest that
1.5%/yr is at least 10 times faster than reality. It could easily be 20
times too fast and might well be 50 times too fast.
"In fact, what may have happened is that somebody, somewhere, has
examined a satellite image and has mistaken the snowline for the ice
margin. Snow is much brighter than bare ground, but it is also a good
deal brighter than bare ice, of which there is quite a lot in summer
around the margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet."
**
*Dr Poul Christoffersen, Glaciologist at the Scott Polar Research
Institute (SPRI), University of Cambridge, said:*
"A recent media release accompanying the publication of the 13th edition
of /The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World/ stated that the Atlas is
'turning Greenland 'green'. Scientists from the Scott Polar Research
Institute were extremely puzzled by this statement and the claim that
'For the first time, the new edition of /The Times Comprehensive Atlas
of the World/ has had to erase 15% of Greenland's once permanent ice
cover -- turning an area the size of the United Kingdom and Ireland
'green' and ice-free'. At the SPRI we believe that the figure of a 15%
decrease in permanent ice cover since the publication of the previous
atlas 12 years is both incorrect and misleading.
"We compared recent satellite images of Greenland with the new map and
found that there are in fact still numerous glaciers and permanent ice
cover where the new /Times Atlas/ shows ice-free conditions and the
emergence of new lands. Furthermore, the low-lying fringe of the main
ice sheet appears to be shown as land, not ice. We concluded that a
sizable portion of the area mapped as ice-free in the /Atlas /is clearly
still ice-covered.
"It is regrettable that the claimed drastic reduction in the extent of
ice in Greenland has created headline news around the world. There is to
our knowledge no support for this claim in the published scientific
literature.
"We do not disagree with the statement that climate is changing and that
the Greenland Ice Sheet is affected by this. It is, however, crucial to
report climate change and its impact accurately and to back bold
statements with concrete and correct evidence.
"A close inspection of the new map of Greenland shows that elevation
contours are noticeably different to the contours in a older map. My
colleague Toby Benham, a scientist at the Scott Polar Research
Institute, was able to reproduce these contours using ice thickness
data. It appears that the /Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World/ may
have used 500m ice thickness to map the ice sheet margin. If so, it is
obviously an incorrect and flawed procedure.
"The volume of ice contained in the Greenland Ice Sheet is approximately
2.9 million cubic kilometres and the current rate whereby ice is lost is
roughly 200 cubic kilometres per year. This is on the order of 0.1% by
volume over 12 years. Numerous glaciers have retreated over the last
decade, capturing the attention of scientists, policymakers and the
general public. Because of this retreat, many glaciers are now flowing
faster and terrain previously ice-covered is emerging along the coast -
but not at the rate suggested in /The Times Atlas/ media release."
*_Coverage_*
BBC News -- quotes Kargel, Cogley
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14983410
Daily Mail -- quotes Kargel, Cogley, Christoffersen
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2039262/Times-Atlas-error-exaggerates-ice-retreat-Greenland.html
Mail Online -- quotes Kargel, Cogley, Christoffersen
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2039455/Atlasgate-learn.html
Telegraph -- quotes Cogley
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8774623/Times-Atlas-accused-of-absurd-climate-change-ice-error.html
Reuters -- quotes Kargel, Cogley, Christoffersen
http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/09/20/idINIndia-59432720110920
Guardian - quotes Kargel
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/19/times-atlas-wrong-greenland-climate-change
Mirror -- quotes Cogley, Christoffersen
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/09/20/row-over-how-much-greenland-has-shrunk-115875-23432761/
Independent - quotes Christoffersen
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/mapmakers-claim-on-shape-of-greenland-suddenly-melts-away-2357516.html
Science AAAS -- quotes Cogley
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/09/atlas-shrugged-outraged-glaciologists.html
*_Clips_*
BBC News - quotes Kargel and Cogley
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14983410
20 September 2011Last updated at 10:11
Richard Black
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/correspondents/richardblack>Environment
correspondent
Greenland ice: Are the Times a-changing?
Description: Description: Map compositeThe Times Atlas map (left); a map
it may have been based on showing only the thickness of the central
portion of the ice sheet (centre); ice extent seen from space (right)
The part of News Corporation that makes Times Atlases is currently
taking the same kind of kicking from scientists that some of its
newspapers took from the general public over phone-hacking
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14045952>.
What it's being kicked for is for claiming, in the edition that came out
last week, that the Greenland ice sheet has shrunk by 15% over 12 years
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/15/new-atlas-climate-change>,
necessitating the re-drawing of its boundaries.
Few books receive as much publicity as the Times Comprehensive Atlas of
the World.
OK, a new JK Rowling or an undiscovered Wilde might get more - but
still, the atlas put up an impressive showing last week, with articles
in a lot of major newspapers and executives interviewed on rolling news
channels.
And top of the agenda in all of the output I saw was the 15% claim.
The problem is, it's not true; and glaciologists have been queuing up to
say why not.
'Killer mistake'
"In the aftermath of 'Himalayagate', we glaciologists are hypersensitive
to egregious errors in supposedly authoritative sources," said Graham
Cogley <http://www.trentu.ca/geography/faculty_cogley.php> from Trent
University in Canada.
"Climate change is real, and Greenland ice cover is shrinking. But the
claims here are simply not backed up by science; this pig can't fly."
As Professor Cogley was the scientist who raised the alarm over
"Himalayagate" <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8387737.stm>
- the erroneous Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
contention that Himalayan glaciers could largely melt away by 2035 - he
is well placed to make the comparison.
Jeffrey Kargel from the University of Arizona, principal scientist on
the GLIMS project <http://www.glims.org/> that's trying to improve
mapping of ice and glaciers from space, was even more scathing.
Description: Description: A fishing boat sails by an icebergGreenland's
ice is melting, but not at the rate suggested by the Times Atlas
"These new maps are ridiculously off base, way exaggerated relative to
the reality of rapid change in Greenland," he fumed.
"I don't know how exactly the Times Atlas produced their results, but
they are NOT scientific results.
"Just like IPCC's '2035', a number like 15% ice loss used for
advertising the book is simply a killer mistake that cannot be winked away."
All this is in addition to the letter from the Scott Polar Research
Institute
<http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/scientists-raise-concerns-regarding-erroneous-reporting-of-greenland-ice-cover/>
letter, which I reported on Monday
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14969399>, that
concluded: "There is to our knowledge no support for this [15%] claim in
the published scientific literature."
Precisely how the Times Atlas team reached its conclusion is not
entirely clear.
In a statement issued on Monday, and in a phone call thereafter to
Sheena Barclay, MD of the HarperCollins imprint Collins Geo which
publishes the atlas, it emerged that the map-makers somehow got the
figure from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
<http://nsidc.org/>.
This Colorado-based institute is one of the world's most respected in
terms of polar science.
But how did the NSIDC's data add up to 15%?
True values
I called up Ted Scambos, one of the researchers there with whom I've
talked regularly down the years, and found that the Times figures were
something of a mystery to him and his colleagues.
At the time of writing (Monday evening UK time, early afternoon in
Colorado), their prevailing theory was that the figure may have been
derived from a map published in the Atlas of the Cryosphere
<http://nsidc.org/cgi-bin/atlas_north?zoomdir=0&zoomsize=2&imgxy=250.0+250.0&imgext=-2433696.965178+-2539490.238345+-174486.274678+-280279.547845&layer=land&layer=coastlines&layer=copyright&layer=&layer=greenland_ice_thickness>,
an online resource that NSIDC maintains.
Description: Description: Himalayan glaciersThe IPCC eventually backed
down on its claims
If this was the source, it was a big mistake, according to Dr Scambos.
"This was intended to be a map of the thickness of the central portion
of the ice sheet - not the peripheral glaciers and... not intended as a
definitive outline of the ice sheet," he told me.
"The Atlas of the Cryosphere is intended to be a public resource, a
quick-look resource, and not a definitive statement."
When I asked whether a phone call to NSIDC could have cleared up any
confusion, he said: "There are probably 1,000 people they could have
called that would have been able to steer them clear of the 15%
number... anybody working in glaciology, any graduate students working
in glaciology, could have steered them clear."
The real proportion of ice sheet area lost over the last 12 years is
more like 0.05%, he said.
The Times Atlas may have intended to highlight dramatic changes to the
world taking place as a result of warming. But Ted Scambos (and he is
not alone) is rather concerned that this episode could have the opposite
effect.
"I'm worried that the importance of the changes that are going on will
be lost on the public, because the true value of what the ice sheet has
lost compared to this 15% number sounds very small.
"Yet if you look at the coastline, if you make measurements along some
of these outlet glaciers, you see stunning levels of change - they're
losing elevation very rapidly, on the scale of tens of metres, some of
them."
Hence all the fears about sea level rise measured in metres
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12687272> as a result of
the sheet melting - not next week, not next year, not in the next
decade; but possibly irreversible once a threshold of warming has been
exceeded.
'Melted away'
Whether a mis-interpretation of the NSIDC map is exactly what happened
will presumably be clarified at some point; in the meanwhile, the Daily
Mail's Michael Hanlon has blogged an account
<http://hanlonblog.dailymail.co.uk/2011/09/atlasgate-will-they-never-learn.html>
of a longer conversation he had with Collins Geo's Ms Barclay, which
sheds a bit more light on the matter.
We should also see the company clarify at some point where it intends to
go next. It took the IPCC several weeks to own up to the Himalayan error
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8468358.stm>; but own up it
eventually did, and embarked on the process of formally amending its report.
Will HarperCollins do likewise?
It has already - for what reason, I do not speculate - sown a little
disinformation through a claim
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14969399> about its
original claim that does not stand up to scrutiny.
"While global warming has played a role in this [15%] reduction, it is
also as a result of the much more accurate data and in-depth research
that is now available," the company said on Monday - adding: "Read as a
whole, both the press release and the 13th edition of the Atlas make
this clear".
Here, I have to admit that I have not read every word on every one of
the atlas's pages, so I might have missed something.
But press releases are intended, partially, to condense what's in the
thing they're publicising - and often, owing to time pressures, they are
all journalists will read.
For t0068e record, here are the glossy document's opening words:
"For the first time, the new edition of The Times Comprehensive Atlas of
the World, published on 15 September, has had to erase 15% of
Greenland's once permanent ice cover - turning an area the size of the
United Kingdom and Ireland 'green' and ice-free.
"This is concrete evidence of how climate change is altering the face of
the planet forever - and doing so at an alarming rate.
"Cartographers of the atlas have sourced the latest evidence and
referred to detailed maps and records to confirm that in the last 12
years, 15% of the permanent ice cover (around 300,000 sq km) of
Greenland, the world's largest island, has melted away."
No mention there of the 15% figure being partially "a result of the much
more accurate data and in-depth research that is now available".
Daily Mail -- quotes Kargel, Cogley, Christoffersen
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2039262/Times-Atlas-error-exaggerates-ice-retreat-Greenland.html
A greener Greenland? Times Atlas 'error' overstates global warming
By Tamara Cohen
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Tamara+Cohen>
Last updated at 9:33 AM on 20th September 2011
The publishers of the world's most prestigious atlas have been caught
out by Cambridge scientists exaggerating the effects of climate change.
In its latest edition, the £150 Times Atlas of the World has changed a
huge coastal area of Greenland from white to green, suggesting an
alarming acceleration of the melting of the northern ice cap.
Accompanying publicity material declared the change reflected 'concrete
evidence' that 15 per cent of the ice sheet around the island -- an area
the size of the United Kingdom -- had melted since 1999.
But last night the atlas's publishers admitted that the 'ice-free' areas
could in fact still be covered by sheets of more than a quarter of a
mile thick.
Description: Description: Greenland
It came after a group of leading polar scientists from Cambridge
University wrote to them saying their changes were 'incorrect and
misleading' and that the true rate of melting has been far slower.
Experts from the University's internationally-renowned Scott Polar
Research Institute said the apparent disappearance of 115,830 sq miles
of ice had no basis in science and was contradicted by recent satellite
images.
Description: Description: Glaciologist Dr Poul Christoffersen of the
Scott Institute says the figure is misleading
Glaciologist Dr Poul Christoffersen of the Scott Institute says the
figure is misleading
There are no official figures on how much ice has melted but one
scientist put it at between 0.3 and 1.5 per cent of the ice sheet.
Publicity for the new atlas read: 'For the first time the new edition
has had to erase 15 per cent of Greenland's once permanent ice cover --
turning an area the size of the United Kingdom and Ireland "green" and
ice-free.
'This is concrete evidence of how climate change is altering the face of
the planet for ever -- and doing so at an alarming and accelerating rate.'
The seven Cambridge scientists who signed the letter are closely
involved with research into changes in the Greenland ice shelf.
They do not dispute that some glaciers have got smaller but say the
overall picture presented is wrong.
Glaciologist Dr Poul Christoffersen of the Scott Institute said: 'We
believe that the figure of a 15 per cent decrease in permanent ice cover
since the publication of the previous atlas 12 years ago is both
incorrect and misleading.
'We compared recent satellite images of Greenland with the new map and
found that there are in fact still numerous glaciers and permanent ice
cover where the new Times Atlas shows ice-free conditions and the
emergence of new lands.
'We conclude that a sizeable portion of the area mapped as ice-free in
the Atlas is clearly still ice-covered. There is to our knowledge no
support for this claim in the published scientific literature.'
If the Times Atlas calculations were correct, the ice sheet would have
been shrinking at a rate of 1.5 per cent per year since 1999.
The Cambridge scientists measure ice loss in volume, not area, and say
it has actually decreased by 0.1 per cent in the past 12 years.
Description: Description: Cold facts: The ice cover in the Polar regions
are crucial indicators of global climate change
Cold facts: The ice cover in the Polar regions are crucial indicators of
global climate change
Graham Cogley, professor of geography at Trent University in Canada,
said: 'Climate change is real and Greenland ice cover is shrinking but
the claims here are simply not backed up by science. This pig can't fly.
'The best measurements in Greenland, which cover only part of the ice
sheet, suggest that 1.5 per cent per year is at least ten times faster
than reality.
'It could easily be 20 times too fast and might well be 50 times too fast.'
Dr Jeffrey Kargel, a hydrologist at the University of Arizona, said it
was 'a killer mistake that cannot be winked away'.
The Times Atlas, which claims to be the 'most authoritative', first came
out in 1895. It is not owned by The Times newspaper but is published by
HarperCollins, which is owned by News Corporation.
A spokesman for HarperCollins yesterday admitted the land shown as green
and described as 'ice-free' could be up to 500m -- more than a quarter
of a mile -- thick.
She said: 'I can see why you could see that as misleading.'
She said the data was provided by the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data
Centre in Colorado. Its lead scientist Dr Ted Scambos said it appeared
the atlas had used a map from the Centre's website which showed 'ice
thickness' not the extent of the ice edge.
He added that the Centre had never been contacted by the atlas's
cartographers.
He said: 'That map would not be appropriate and there are many small
glaciers and ice domes around the perimeter of Greenland that should
have been included in the permanent ice sheet.
'We are very surprised by the mistake because lots of people -- in the
U.S., Europe, Cambridge -- could have steered the atlas away from this
high-profile statement as ice in Greenland is fairly well mapped and the
melting is nowhere near this level.
'Was it a mistake? I can only speculate that the people promoting the
map were thinking differently from the cartographers.
'The problem is that people may think that because the melting is so
much less than 15 per cent it is not something to worry about -- but it
is. Part of the mission of the sceptic community is to throw wrench and
create confusion, when in fact there is a lot of understanding in this
area.'
Mail Online -- quotes Kargel, Cogley, Christoffersen
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2039455/Atlasgate-learn.html
Atlasgate: new map exaggerates climate change
By Michael Hanlon
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Michael+Hanlon>
Will they never learn? Has the penny not yet dropped?
If you want the public to be informed and concerned about climate change
never, ever exaggerate.
Otherwise the sceptics will have a field day saying the whole thing is a
load of scare-mongering conspiratorial nonsense.
Description: Description: An animated projection, showing the different
acidity of the ocean at the United Nations Climate Change Conference
2009, has this new Atlas undone much of the good work in raising
awareness of climate change?
An animated projection, showing the different acidity of the ocean at
the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009, has this new Atlas
undone much of the good work in raising awareness of climate change?
Which, as I will say again and again, it isn't.
So far we've had 'emailgate' (in which a series of emails from the
University of East Anglia were leaked, some of which showed a degree of
laxness about how data had been used and conveyed to journals), and
'glaciergate', in which the rate of melting of some Himalayan glaciers
was ludicrously exaggerated in a United Nations report.
Now we've got what will, with weary inevitably, be known as Atlasgate.
Yesterday, a copy of the new, 13th Edition of the Times Atlas of the
World thundered onto my desk.
Description: Description: The publishers¿ blurb says, they have had to
¿erase 15% of Greenland¿s once-permanent ice-cover¿, an area the size of
the United Kingdom.
The publishers¿ blurb says, they have had to ¿erase 15% of Greenland¿s
once-permanent ice-cover¿, an area the size of the United Kingdom.
The £150 tome is huge, heavy and very impressive, with hundreds of
finely detailed maps printed on expensive paper showing the remotest
jungles and wildest mountain peaks.
It is a thing of beauty. It projects huge authority.
It is also wrong.
And not just randomly wrong, but politically wrong.
At the top of its press release, the publisher claims that the
cartographers have had to completely redraw the map of Greenland,
turning formerly white, ice-covered ground into ' 'green' and ice-free'
land. (hold on to that phrase, it is important).
For the first time, the publishers' blurb says, they have had to 'erase
15% of Greenland's once-permanent ice-cover', an area the size of the
United Kingdom.
A great story.
The world's most comprehensive atlas, bearing the imprimatur of the
self-proclaimed paper of record, showing dramatic, rapid and terrifying
climate change in action.
The trouble is, the map -- and especially the claims made by Collins
Bartholomew in its press release about the map -- seems to be a work of
fiction.
This afternoon scientists have been queuing up to pour scorn on the
claims, using words like 'ridiculous', 'egregious' and 'misleading'.
Although Greenland's ice IS melting (yes, it really is), glaciologists
say it is doing so at nothing like the rate the atlas implies.
Professor Graham Cogley, a glacier expert at the University of Toronto
in Canada says that since Himalayagate 'we glaciologists are
hypersensitive to egregious errors in supposedly authoritative sources.
Climate change is real and the ice cover is shrinking. But the claims
here are simply not backed up by science. This pig can't fly'.
Dr Poul Christoffersen, a glaciologist at the Scott Polar Rresearch
Institute in Cambridge added that he and his colleagues are 'extremely
puzzled' by the Times Atlas claims.
They looked at recent satellite images and the new map and found that
there are in fact still numerous glaciers and permanent ice-cover where
the Times atlas shows ice-free conditions and the emergence of new lands.
It seems that the mapmakers have exaggerated, by a factor of at least
10, and maybe as much as 70, the rate of ice-melt in Greenland,
reinforcing the popular misconception that the whole slab of frozen
water is about to slide off into the Atlantic.
Jeffrey Kargel, of the University of Arizona weighed in emailing, 'these
new maps are ridiculously off base, way exaggerated relative to the
reality of rapid change in Greenland. I don't know how exactly the
Times Atlas produced their results, but they are NOT [his caps]
scientific results.'
I spoke to Sheena Barclay, MD of Collins Bartholomew, the Atlas's
publisher.
She defended the map, saying that the 15% shrinkage in ice-cover is real
and refers to a comparison between the map shown in the current edition
and that in the last edition, published in 1999.
The first problem is those words 'green' and 'ice free'. According to Ms
Barclay, 'ice free' refers to ground covered with less than 500 metres
thick.
So 'green, ice-free land' could refer to land covered with nearly third
of a mile thickness of ice -- thicker than the Empire State Building is
high! I put it to Ms Barclay that this isn't what most people would
think of as 'ice free'.
'Yes, I can see why you would see that as misleading' she admitted,
after a very long pause.
And 'green'? To me (and I would guess everyone else) I think of bleak
Greenlandic hillsides covered with grass or at least moss, perhaps a few
grazing sheep.
It turns out 'green' refers just to the printing colour chosen by the
cartographers to indicate low-altitude land, and not its colour at all.
Which is, er, white.
How did this happen? According to Ms Barclay at the scale of the
Greenland map (1:12,500,000) only ice thicker than 500 metres is shown.
But this is patently not the case. On the same spread in the Atlas, at
the same scale, small ice caps in both Iceland and British Columbia are
also shown in white.
I asked the scientists at the SPRI to confirm that these ice caps were
much thinner than 500 metres and they were able to do so.
It gets worse. The Greenlandic ice cap is marked with a series of
contours at 500-metre intervals.
But nowhere on the map, or in the Key at the beginning of the Atlas, is
it made clear what these contours refer to.
It cannot be altitude as many intersect with another set of contours
which clearly DO show height above sea level.
These contours seem to be ice-thickness contours, produced from radar data.
Fair enough, but this needs to be explained, which it is not, and it
also needs to be explained why other ice-covered areas (including
Antarctica, Iceland, Canada etc) are marked with elevation-contours not
ice-thickness contours.
Worst of all, according to the SPRI, the publishers did not, as they are
claiming, use the same method in 1999 -- when even quite small mountain
glaciers in Greenland were shown, properly, as 'ice covered'.
Apologies for the technicalities, but cartography is a technical
business and this is important.
What seems to have happened -- and I am happy to be corrected if wrong
-- is that a decision has been made to single out Greenland, as the
poster-child of global warming, for special and unique cartographic
treatment which has massively and deliberately exaggerated the extent of
ice-cover loss.
This makes a good story which will, they hoped, give the Atlas some
publicity.
But it has backfired, badly. Scientists who believe in climate change -
and that means nearly all of them -- are dismayed by what has happened.
They know that the sceptics will have a field day with this. And they
are right.
Cartography is not only technical it is hugely political.
Map-makers have always exaggerated and emasculated, straightened out
bent rivers, bent straight ones and redrawn boundaries at the behest of
their political masters.
The earliest European maps put Rome or Athens literally at the centre of
the Earth.
The Chinese world was centred on Peking, and London ruled well into the
20th century.
The Mercator projection, which used to be on every schoolroom wall in
Britain, massively exaggerates the area of the temperate and polar
latitudes at the expense of equatorial lands.
The Mercator has now fallen out of favour, to be replaced by 'equal
area' projections that give places like Africa far more prominence.
Neither projection is 'wrong', they just present the same information in
different ways.
It is ironic that Greenland is at the centre of this particular
cartographic storm because it was this frigid island that was the focus
of a very early piece of politically correct geographical propaganda.
A millennium ago the Viking chieftain and exile Erik the Red named the
place thus, hoping that the pleasant name would attract settlers.
It worked, and the Viking settlement limped on until a series of bitter
summers in the 14th Century made farming impossible and the Norsemen
starved.
Greenland wasn't green then (as Erik knew perfectly well), and it isn't
green now.
It might be one day, but not, probably, for centuries.
Erik's subterfuge took a long time to be rumbled but in the days of the
Internet, Google Maps and satellite photos available in a second, it
took no time at all for the Times Atlas to be caught out.
They have been very, very silly.
Telegraph -- quotes Cogley
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8774623/Times-Atlas-accused-of-absurd-climate-change-ice-error.html
Times Atlas accused of 'absurd' climate change ice error
A new atlas that shows that a large chunk of the Greenland ice sheet
has melted due to climate change has been criticised as "ludicrous"
by leading polar scientists.
Description: Description: Times Atlas makes 'absurd' claims about
shrinking of Greenland ice sheet
Map of Greenland from the 13th edition of The Times Atlas of the World
(left) and a mosaic of MODIS satellite images of the same area acquired
on the 14th and 15th August 2011
By Louise Gray <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/louise-gray/>,
Environment Correspondent
5:05PM BST 19 Sep 2011
The latest edition of the Times Atlas of the World claims 15 per cent of
Greenland's former ice--covered land has turned "green and ice--free" in
the past 12 years.
But scientists at the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge
University say the figures are wrong, and that the ice has melted by
less than one per cent during that time.Professor Liz Morris, a senior
associate at the institute, said a "serious error" had been made.
She said the cartographers appeared to have muddled satellite data on
elevation with ice cover and assumed that below a certain level there
was no ice. In fact the ice sheet carries on to the shore in many areas.
She feared the "ludicrous claim" could be used as the latest tool to
deny climate change, following similar exaggerations about the melting
of the Himalayan ice glaciers.
"We are not saying in any way that climate change and the loss of the
ice sheet is not going on," she said. "The danger is if people quote
these absurd figures the next thing that happens is climate change
sceptics say scientists are making daft claims. We are not. It is the
publicity people."
The 13th edition of the "comprehensive" version of the atlas included a
number of revisions made for reasons of environmental change since the
previous edition was published in 2007.
The break-up of some Antarctic ice shelves due to climate change, the
shrinking of inland waters such as the Dead and Aral Seas, and the
drying up of rivers such as the Colorado River are all documented.
Most strikingly, the publicity claimed that "for the first time, the new
edition of the (atlas) has had to erase 15 per cent of Greenland's once
permanent ice cover - turning an area the size of the United Kingdom and
Ireland 'green' and ice-free.
"This is concrete evidence of how climate change is altering the face of
the planet forever - and doing so at an alarming and accelerating rate."
Graham Cogley, Professor of Geography at Trent University, Ontario,
Canada, said glacier shrinkage happens very slowly - at around 0.2 per
cent a year - rather than the 1.5 per cent suggested by the Times Atlas.
He explained this is still a serious threat to the planet.
"Climate change is real, and Greenland ice cover is shrinking. But the
claims here are simply not backed up by science. This pig can't fly."
The Times Atlas is not owned by The Times newspaper. It is published by
Times Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, which is in turn owned by
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.
A spokesman for HarperCollins said its new map was based on information
provided by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
The spokesman said: "Since The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World
10th Edition, in 1999, we have had to erase 15 per cent of Greenland's
once permanent ice sheet.
"This is based on information provided by the much respected and
widely-cited National Snow and Ice Data Center (Atlas of the Cryosphere,
Boulder, Colorado USA).
"While global warming has played a role in this reduction, it is also as
a result of the much more accurate data and in-depth research that is
now available. Read as a whole, both the press release and the 13th
edition of the Atlas make this clear."
Reuters -- quotes Kargel, Cogley, Christoffersen
http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/09/20/idINIndia-59432720110920
World Atlas ice loss claim exaggerated - scientists
Description: Description: A member of a team of Cambridge scientists
trying to find out why Arctic sea ice is melting so fast, walks on some
drift ice 800 km from the North Pole September 3, 2011. REUTERS/Stuart
McDILL/Files
By Nina Chestney
LONDON | Tue Sep 20, 2011 6:53am IST
(Reuters) - The Times Atlas of the World exaggerated the rate of
Greenland's ice loss in its thirteenth edition last week, scientists
said on Monday.
The atlas, published by HarperCollins, showed that Greenland lost 15
percent of its ice cover over the past 12 years, based on information
from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado in the United States.
The Greenland ice sheet is the second biggest in the world and
significant shrinking could lead to a global rise in sea levels.
"While global warming has played a role in this reduction, it is also as
a result of the much more accurate data and in-depth research that is
now available," HarperCollins said on its website on Monday.
However, a number of scientists disputed the claim.
"We believe that the figure of a 15 percent decrease in permanent ice
cover since the publication of the previous atlas 12 years (ago) is both
incorrect and misleading," said Poul Christoffersen, glaciologist at the
Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) at the University of Cambridge.
"We concluded that a sizable portion of the area mapped as ice-free in
the Atlas is clearly still ice-covered."
Other scientists agreed.
"These new maps are ridiculously off base, way exaggerated relative to
the reality of rapid change in Greenland," said Jeffrey S. Kargel,
senior research scientist at the University of Arizona.
The Times Atlas suggested the Greenland ice sheet has lost 300,000
square kilometres in the past 12 years, at a rate of 1.5 percent per year.
However, measurements suggest this rate is at least 10 times faster than
in reality, added J. Graham Cogley, Professor of Geography at Trent
University, Ontario, Canada.
"It could easily be 20 times too fast and might well be 50 times too
fast," he added.
Last year, a U.N. committee of climate scientists came under fire for
bungling a forecast of when Himalayan glaciers would thaw.
The panel's 2007 report, the main guide for governments in fighting
climate change, included an incorrect projection that all Himalayan
glaciers could vanish by 2035, hundreds of years earlier than
scientists' projections.
Guardian - quotes Kargel
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/19/times-atlas-wrong-greenland-climate-change
Times Atlas is 'wrong on Greenland climate change'
Glaciologists say the ice cover is melting -- but at nowhere near the
'misleading' 15% rate represented by cartographers
John Vidal <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/johnvidal>, environment
editor
Monday 19 September 2011 17.07 BST
Description: Description: Greenland ice cover in Times Comprehensive
Atlas of the WorldDescription: Description: View larger picture
<http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Environment/Pix/columnists/2011/9/19/1316445837067/Map-of-Greenland-in-Times-001.jpg>
The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World shows Greenland as having
lost around 15% of its ice cover between the 1999 10th edition (left)
and 2011 13th edition (right). Scientists argue the depiction is wrong.
Photograph: Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World
Leading scientists have accused the world's top cartographers of making
a blunder in their representation of the effects of climate change
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change> in Greenland
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/greenland>, prompting a robust defence
by the map-makers' publisher.
Maps in the 13th edition of the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World,
published last week
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/15/new-atlas-climate-change>,
show large areas of the eastern and southern coasts of Greenland
coloured brown and pink, and the permanent ice cap now covering a
significantly smaller area than it did in the 1999 12th edition of the
atlas. The atlas shows that 300,000 sq km, or 15%, of Greenland's ice
cover had been lost in the period.
"This is concrete evidence of how climate change is altering the face of
the planet forever -- and doing so at an alarming and accelerating
rate," said the publishers of the atlas, HarperCollins, in information
given to the media last week and reiterated by a spokeswoman on Monday.
But seven researchers at Cambridge University's Scott Polar Research
Institute <http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/> backed by glaciologists in the
US, Europe and elsewhere, have said that both the maps and the figure of
15% are wrong.
In a letter to the editors of the Times Atlas they agree that the
Greenland ice cover is reducing but at nowhere near the extent claimed
in the book. "A 15% decrease in permanent ice cover since the
publication of the previous atlas 12 years ago is both incorrect and
misleading.
"Numerous glaciers have retreated over the last decade. Because of this
retreat, many glaciers are now flowing faster and terrain previously
ice-covered is emerging along the coast -- but not at the rate
suggested. Recent satellite images of Greenland make it clear that there
are in fact still numerous glaciers and permanent ice cover where the
new Times Atlas shows ice-free conditions and the emergence of new lands."
According to the researchers, the volume of ice contained in the
Greenland ice sheet is approximately 2.9m cubic kilometres and the
current rate whereby ice is lost is roughly 200 cubic kilometres per
year -- a decrease of about 0.1% by volume over 12 years.
Other researchers backed the Scott team. "Although many of these regions
have decreased in area and thickness over the past decade(s), reported
in many recent scientific papers, the misinterpretation of enormous
losses of glacierised area from these maps is far off the range in
measured losses," said Hester Jiskoot, a glaciologist at the University
of Lethbridge in Alberta.
"A number like 15% ice loss used for advertising the book is simply a
killer mistake that cannot be winked away," said Jeffrey Kargel, a
senior researcher at the University of Arizona.
Several researchers said the atlas's authors may have confused ice
thickness with ice extent, defining the ice sheet margin at 500m high
(the contour) and colouring brown and pink anything below 500m. "They
[seem to] show the contour as ice thickness, colouring in everything
white that is above 500m. They appear to have missed out the edge of the
ice sheet," said Ian Willis, researcher at the Scott institute.
A spokeswoman for Times Atlas defended the 15% figure and the new map.
"We are the best there is. We are confident of the data we have used and
of the cartography. We use data supplied by the US Snow and Ice Data
Centre <http://nsidc.org/> (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado. They use radar
techniques to measure the permanent ice. We have compared the extent of
the ice surface in 1999 with that of 2011. Our data shows that it has
reduced by 15%. That's categorical," she said.
"You will always have a level of generalisation. But we have compared
like with like. The same criteria were applied to the 1999 data to that
of 2011.
"We are not saying that all of the ice loss is due to climate change. It
is the lion's share but the data has improved over the period."
The NSIDC said it was investigating the claims made by the Times Atlas.
The row echoes a 2010 flare-up, when the UN's climate science body
admitted
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/20/ipcc-himalayan-glaciers-mistake>
that a claim made in its 2007 report -- that Himalayan glaciers could
melt away by 2035 -- was unfounded. The claim was not based on
peer-reviewed scientific literature but a media interview with a scientist.
Mirror -- quotes Cogley, Christoffersen
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/09/20/row-over-how-much-greenland-has-shrunk-115875-23432761/
Row over how much Greenland has shrunk
by Mike Swain, Daily Mirror 20/09/2011
<http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/09/20/>
Decrease font size Increase font size
Description: Description: Times Comprehensive Atlas Of The World maps
showing Greenland in its 1999 edition (left) and in its 2011 edition
(Pic:PA)
A COLD War has broken out between map-makers and polar scientists over
Greenland's permanent ice cover.
The latest edition of the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World has
reduced Greenland's ice mass by 15%.
Map makers say "alarming and accelerating" climate change in the past 12
years has shrunk it by 116,000 square miles -- about the size of the UK
and Ireland.
But scientists at the Scott Polar Research Institute say the ice had
melted on the world's biggest island by 0.1% in that period.
The atlas claim has been compared to Himalayagate, a blunder when United
Nations' scientists said glaciers would disappear from the Himalayan
mountain range by 2035.
But atlas editor Jethro Lennox said: "With every new edition of the
atlas, we are giving people across the globe an up-to-date accurate and
instant picture of the current state of the planet."
The Scott Institute insisted the ice was not melting as it has been
mapped. It said: "It is crucial to report climate change and its impact
accurately and back bold statements with concrete and correct evidence."
Institute glaciologist Dr Poul Christoffersen, of Cambridge University,
said they found the Times Atlas 15% ice shrinkage "puzzling". He put the
loss "on the order of 0.1% by volume over 12 years".
Prof J Graham Cogley, of Trent University, Ontario, Canada, said:
"Fortunately the mistake about the Greenland ice sheet is much more
obvious and indefensible than the Himalayan error.
"Climate change is real, and Greenland ice cover is shrinking. But the
claims here are simply not backed up by science. This pig can't fly."
Independent - quotes Christoffersen
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/mapmakers-claim-on-shape-of-greenland-suddenly-melts-away-2357516.html
Mapmakers' claim on shape of Greenland suddenly melts away
By Enjoli Liston
/Tuesday, 20 September 2011/
Description: Description: Left, a map of Greenland from the new edition
of The Times Atlas of the World and, right, a mosaic of satellite images
of the same area taken on August 14-15
<http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/mapmakers-claim-on-shape-of-greenland-suddenly-melts-away-2357516.html?action=Popup>
*Solar Research Institute*
Left, a map of Greenland from the new edition of The Times Atlas of the
World and, right, a mosaic of satellite images of the same area taken on
August 14-15
Prominent polar scientists have said there is "no support" for
potentially "damaging" claims, made by The Times Atlas of the World last
week, that Greenland's ice cover has shrunk by 15 per cent over the past
12 years as a result of global warming.
The publisher Harper Collins made international headlines when it
declared that the new edition of its "comprehensive" atlas, which claims
to be the "most authoritative" in the world, had been forced to depict
an area the size of the UK and Ireland, previously part of Greenland's
permanent ice sheet, as "green and ice-free" due to climate change.
According to promotional material for the 13th edition of the atlas,
this provides "concrete evidence of how climate change is altering the
face of the planet for ever -- and doing so at an alarming and
accelerating rate."
However, scientists at the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge
University, which investigates climate change in the Arctic and is
headed by the revered glaciologist Julian Dowdeswell, have asserted that
the publisher's claims are flawed.
"Recent satellite images of Greenland make it clear that there are in
fact still numerous glaciers and permanent ice cover where the new Times
Atlas shows ice-free conditions and the emergence of new lands," the
Institute said in a letter to Harper Collins, made public yesterday.
"We do not know why this error has occurred, but it is regrettable that
the claimed drastic reduction in the extent of ice in Greenland has
created headline news around the world... There is to our knowledge no
support for this claim in the published scientific literature."
Dr Poul Christoffersen, the first signatory to the letter, told The
Independent he believed the "inaccurate map" could be damaging to the
credibility of the climate change campaign.
"When things are so obviously incorrect then we are obliged, as
scientists, to bring this to the public's attention," he said.
Harper Collins yesterday stood by the atlas's contentious depiction of
Greenland, and said its assertions were based on "information provided
by the much respected and widely-cited" US National Snow and Ice Data
Centre.
Science AAAS -- quotes Cogley
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/09/atlas-shrugged-outraged-glaciologists.html
UPDATED: Atlas Shrugged? 'Outraged' Glaciologists Say Mappers
Misrepresented Greenland Ice Melt
by Sara Reardon on 19 September 2011, 12:00 PM |
Description: Description: si-icemelt.jpg
<http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/assets/2011/09/19/si-icemelt.jpg>
*Sketchy data*. /The Times Atlas/ (/left/) shows 15% more glacier melt
than scientists believe. A map drawn up by SPRI scientists (/right/)
suggests that the map was erroneously based on ice thickness
Credit: (left) The Times Atlas of the World; (right) Toby Benham
*CAMBRIDGE, UNITED KINGDOM*---So much for claims that climate scientists
deliberately misrepresent their data: glaciologists are broadly and
loudly panning the latest version of /The Times Comprehensive Atlas of
the World
<http://www.timesatlas.com/TimesComprehensiveAtlas/Pages/AtlasDetail.aspx?IDNumber=63021>/,
released last week, which shows Greenland having lost 15% of its ice
cover in the past 12 years due to warming, turning an area the size of
the United Kingdom and Ireland "green." The atlas is published by
HarperCollins on behalf of London's /The/ /Times/ newspaper.
The trouble, researchers say, is that although Greenland's ice sheet is
retreating, the melt is nothing like the scale shown in the atlas and
they are mystified at where the error arose. In a letter sent to
HarperCollins//on Friday evening, researchers at the Cambridge-based
Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) quickly attempted to set the
record straight. "A sizable portion of the area mapped as ice-free in
the /Atlas /is clearly still ice-covered," they wrote. "There is to our
knowledge no support for this claim in the published scientific
literature."
"It's a really bad mapping error," glaciologist Liz Morris of SPRI told
/Science/Insider. If 15% of ice was lost, then sea levels would have
risen by 1 meter. "That obviously hasn't happened," she says. "Most
people with a science background would have spotted something wrong."
While satellite images show that ice in Greenland is certainly
retreating in a way that is "very interesting and dramatic," those
retreat patterns are far too small to show in a map the resolution of
the one in /The Times Atlas/. The 15% retreat, SPRI glaciologists have
worked out, is 150 times the amount of ice loss that has actually occurred.
On the glaciology listserv Cryolist
<http://cryolist.464407.n3.nabble.com/>, experts have been trying to
work out the source of the error. Their best guess so far is that the
cartographers were measuring ice thickness, rather than the actual
height of ice. As ice sheets are thinner where submerged mountains
exist, that would explain why the shape of the ice sheet is "bizarre,"
Morris says.
Another possibility is that from the air, ice sheets appear dark and are
difficult to distinguish from the ground, whereas snow gives off a
glare, says geographer Graham Cogley at the Trent University in Canada.
The extent of the error, he says, "sticks out like a sore thumb." The
global average of glacier melt is about 0.2% per year, and that includes
very small glaciers, which melt more quickly than the massive Greenland
ice sheet. A 1.5% per year decrease in ice cover, he says, is "so
implausible" that any glaciologist would spot it.
Cogley compares this mistake to a case where scientists were reported as
predicting in 1999 that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035,
rather than 2350. This error was propagated through the popular science
press and made its way into an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) report in 2007. Cogley tracked down its source in 2009 and the
IPCC quickly retracted that part of its report---not, however, before
climate change skeptics had publicized the error.
Morris says that scientists are worried about skeptics picking up this
error too as evidence of scientists exaggerating the effects of global
warming. "This was an error on the part of a mapper, not a glaciologist,
and was compounded by the publicity department. As soon as scientists
saw this, there was absolute outrage," she says.
The letter to /The/ /Times/ read: "We do not disagree with the statement
that climate is changing and that the Greenland Ice Sheet is affected by
this. It is, however, crucial to report climate change and its impact
accurately and to back bold statements with concrete and correct evidence."
"It's fair to say that /The/ /Times/ book is the most authoritative,"
says Cogley "That's why it's such a pity they've blundered on this
point. .... I hope they're busily trying to figure out where they went
wrong."
A spokesperson for HarperCollins, told the BBC
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14969399> that the data
came from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), adding
that the 15% retreat since the 10th edition of the atlas was released in
1999 is a result of global warming and "much more accurate data."
Cogley worries about that statement, and says the atlas data is
definitely not accurate. "They might be about to make the mistake IPCC
didn't ... and tough it out" rather than publishing a retraction, he
says. "That pig won't fly."
"We're really nervous about this one; it's such a stupid mistake," says
Morris. "But people can say scientists say [this], and it's just not true."
*UPDATE, 2:25 p.m.: *
Ted Scambos, lead scientist for NSIDC's science team in Boulder,
Colorado, says that researchers have tracked down the probable source of
the error: a map NSIDC published in 2001 that showed the extent of
Greenland's central, thickest ice sheet. It does not, however, show any
of the peripheral glaciers. This map, he says, stands on its own, but
the atlas cartographers most likely took it out of context.
"It's unfortunate NSIDC wasn't contacted," he says. "Folks here respond
quickly; not only could NSIDC have helped, but any number of groups
could instantly have known" that something was wrong. Now glaciologists
are left trying to figure out how not to understate the importance of
the extent glacial ice melt, while at the same time correcting the error.
Sheena Barclay, managing director of Collins Bartholomew, which
publishes /The Times Atlas/, says that she is waiting to hear back from
/The Times Atlas'/ editor, Jethro Lennox, but told /Science/Insider that
it would be "unlike us not to speak to [the scientists at NSIDC] and
corroborate" the findings. But the publisher is standing by the 15%
number, which she says comes from comparing "like to like" data between
1999 and 2011, and accounting for more accurate methods during that
time. The atlas' introduction, she says, explains the issue of ice cap
melt and highlights that more research needs to be done.
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