Antarctic Claims

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THE prestigious journal Nature published an article last Friday explaining that the Antarctic has been generally warming and at about the same rate as the rest of the planet.  [1]  Within the scientific community it had been generally been accepted that as a continent, Antarctica, has been getting colder contrary to most of the rest of the planet.  Publication of the article generated much comment and some disbelief. 

At the official US government’s senate minority web site, Marc Morano published a “comprehensive data round up” of responses to the article mostly seeking to debunk the claim that Antarctica is warming . [2]

First author, Eric Steig, has objected to the article by Mr Morano and requested a formal written apology.  Mr Morano has refused.   Following is the email exchange:

—– Original Message —–
From: Eric Steig
To: Morano, Marc (EPW)
Cc: [various journalists, names and addresses withheld]
Sent: Wed Jan 28 23:52:12 2009
Subject: accusation of fraud

Dear Mr. Morano,

On the official US senate minority web site you cite a blog that accuses me of
scientific fraud.  (http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=fc7db6ad-802a-23ad-43d1-2651eb2297d6)

You write:

“A critical analysis of the paper from December 21, 2008, accused the authors of  the Antarctic study of making questionable data adjustments.
(See: Scientist adjusts data — presto, Antarctic cooling disappears – December
21, 2008) The analysis concluded; Looks like [study author] Steig ‘got
rid of’ Antarctic cooling the same way [Michael] Mann got rid of medieval
warming. Why not just look at the station data instead of ‘adjusting’ it (graph
above)? It shows a 50-year cooling trend; the analysis concluded.

You do not comment on this, but simply cite it.  However, you are clearly
implying that you agree with it because you do not comment.  Are you prepared
to either remove this from the web site immediately, or to provide evidence that I have committed fraud?  This is a very extreme accusation.  Indeed, it seems rather like libel to me.  I would like to request a formal apology from you, in writing.

I am cc:ing several journalists on this, so hopefully inaction of your part will be noticed.

In any case, the ‘analysis’ you cite is wrong.  If you look at Figure 3.7 from the IPCC report

http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/graphics/ar4-wg1/jpg/fig-3-7.jpg

you will see that the average temperature trend for Antarctica was positive (warming) not negative (cooling).  This figure shows the average of the Antarctic station data.  This demonstrates that the statement that  “the station data shows a 50-year cooling trend” is plainly wrong.  In the interest of being honest with the American public, don’t you think you should correct this?

Eric Steig
Professor, Department of Earth and Space Sciences
University of Washington

—–Original Message—–
From: Morano, Marc (EPW)
Sent: Thursday, 29 January 2009 3:22 PM
To:  Eric Steig
Cc: Jennifer Marohasy [and various journalists copied into original email by Professor Steig, names withheld]
Subject: Re: accusation of fraud

Professor Steig,

Thanks for writing.

The Senate EPW report in question simply reported on many reactions to your new Antarctic study.

See:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=fc7db6ad-802a-23ad-43d1-2651eb2297d6

The one you are objecting to was just one of several that I excerpted.

The quoted citation will not be removed from our site. But to be completely fair and accurate, I would be glad to publish your reaction to the blog excerpt and allow you to state your case and rebut it.

As you have read, our EPW report links to all sources referenced and allows the public a full counter balance to what much of the media reports on climate change issues.

I would suggest that you should be thanking EPW for providing such a needed public service, instead of displaying such hostility.

Please send me a brief statement I will happily post it right after the blog in question.

Or, if you choose, I can use key portions of the email you have already sent me.

Thank you,
Marc Morano

********************************

Notes and Links

1. Steig, E., D. Schneider, S. Rutherford, M. Mann, J.C. Comiso and D.T. Shindell.  2009.  Warming of the Antarctic Ice-Sheet Surface Since The 1957 International Geophysical Year.  Nature.  Vol 457,  January 22, 2009.

2. Scientists, Data Challenge New Antarctic ‘Warming’ Study. ‘It is hard to make data where none exist’. Comprehensive Data Round Up Debunks New Antarctic ‘Estimate of Temperature Trends’  http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=fc7db6ad-802a-23ad-43d1-2651eb2297d6

3. My initial response to the Steig et al article can be found as a blog post here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/01/modellers-remove-evidence-of-cooling-and-editor-removes-comment-by-climate-sceptic/

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With all of the fervor these days about the dangers of global warming many people are concerned about the fate of Antarctica. The fears are that the ice that makes up the continent is melting faster than normal and not freezing back as it usually does with a very even ebb and flow. The concerns are that this will eventually raise the sea level enough to put major cities and land masses under water and leave millions of people homeless and/or even dead.

So who are making these claims? Well there are many scientists that have been looking at the earth’s climates and weather systems for a long time and trying to make sense of them. The earliest reason for doing this was not to measure the affect of the greenhouse gases that are magnifying the suns intensity and causing the heat to stay within it. They originally wanted to learn about the earth so that they could by recognizing signs be could warn of natural disasters like earth quakes and hurricanes and tsunamis. Since they have kept data to look for these signs they have noticed disturbing trends in things like the average temperature and the increasing sea level and other things like the sized of the ice cap over Antarctica and they seem to only be going in one direction which spells trouble.

Then they start looking for why this is happening, and the buzzword is generally global warming. They cite the increase in certain gases like CO2 which are purportedly on the rise do to the millions of different engines that burn fossil fuels across the world. Supposedly this changes the qualities of the atmosphere that hold in the energy from the sun much like a green house does. What people don’t realize is that these are all theories to explain trends in the environment that no one has any clue about. We know that Antarctica melts in places and at certain times and since we have been measuring these things it appears that the land mass has gotten smaller—but this is very flawed thinking.

You see we have only been able to make specialized measurements like this for several decades which may seem like a long enough time to make good guesses about the earth which is thousands of years old (some even say billions). You just can’t make definitive statements about trends that may just be natural cycles that are 500 years in length. Even 100 year or 50 year cycles would not have been fully measured yet. So we must cool our jets and take ourselves so seriously. We know a lot less about the melting Antarctica and many other things that seem to be slowly headed toward disaster than we think.

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