Subscribe to Receive the Daily Report

Tuesday, September 10th, 2013

Arctic Sea Ice Delusions Strike the Mail on Sunday and Telegraph

Author:     DANA NUCCITELLI
Source:     The Guardian (U.K.)
Publication Date:     Sunday 8 September 2013 23.26 EDT
 Link: Arctic Sea Ice Delusions Strike the Mail on Sunday and Telegraph
Stephan:   Several of you sent me one version or another of the story first published in the British newspaper, The Mail, picked up by another British paper The Telegraph, then published here in the U.S. by many Rightist climate denier sites. The basic argument is that there has been a 60 per cent growth of Arctic sea ice, thus climate change is either not happening or has stopped. Some who sent it to me questioned it, others said it was proof I was wrong about climate change. As with most climate change denierism what we have here is yet another example of an incorrect interpretation of data by the willfully ignorant. Here is the reality. Click through to see the charts which are very helpful.

When it comes to climate science reporting, the Mail on Sunday and Telegraph are only reliable in the sense that you can rely on them to usually get the science wrong. This weekend’s Arctic sea ice articles from David Rose of the Mail and Hayley Dixon at the Telegraph unfortunately fit that pattern.

Both articles claimed that Arctic sea ice extent grew 60 percent in August 2013 as compared to August 2012. While this factoid is technically true, it’s also largely irrelevant. For one thing, the annual Arctic sea ice minimum occurs in September – we’re not there yet. And while this year’s minimum extent will certainly be higher than last year’s, that’s not the least bit surprising. As University of Reading climate scientist Ed Hawkins noted last year,

‘Around 80% of the ~100 scientists at the Bjerknes [Arctic climate science] conference thought that there would be MORE Arctic sea-ice in 2013, compared to 2012.’

Regression toward the Mean

The reason so many climate scientists predicted more ice this year than last is quite simple. There’s a principle in statistics known as ‘regression toward the mean,’ which is the phenomenon that if an extreme value of a variable is observed, […]

Read the Full Article