SEPP Science Editorials

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07-Mar-09 The sea-ice issue - a tempest in a teapot.
SEPP Science Editorial #9-09 (in TWTW Mar 7, 2009) *S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)* The sea-ice issue - a tempest in a teapot. Mar 7, 2009 Conservative columnist George Will is under attack about alleged reporting 'inaccuracies.' See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/ content/article/2009/02/26/AR2009022602906.html?sid=ST2009022702494 The affair as seen by the Columbia Journalism Review: But they are wrong; Will is correct. http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/the_george_will_affair.php?page=all&print=true SEPP Comments: George Will is a 'big boy' and can take care of himself. He certainly needs no help from me. The whole affair seems contrived -- almost like a conspiracy by the AGW (anthropogenic GW) alarmists. By attacking a 'high-visibility' doubter en masse, they hope to intimidate not only Will but others who don't follow the IPCC gospel that preaches AGW. I noticed, and so have many others, that the official source of sea-ice data changed their 'evidence' just after Will's article appeared. They discovered that one of their sensors had gone out of calibration. I don't doubt this fact, but I am curious about the timing of the discovery. The funny thing is that the whole issue of the extent of Arctic sea ice is a 'nothing-burger' -- to use the immortal expression coined by a past EPA chief. No one seems to have commented on the fact that sea ice might tell you something about whether the air and ocean is warming or cooling but it cannot tell you anything about the CAUSE of warming/cooling. ANY kind of warming will melt ice. Simple logic. Personally, I prefer to look at thermometers and not at sea ice. And the thermometers (and also ice-core data) tell us that the Arctic is no warmer now than in the 1930s -- and much colder than centuries ago. *Finally, I want to emphasize that I know of no definitive evidence for AGW. None! But we have strong evidence against significant AGW. See the NIPCC report http://www.sepp.org/publications/NIPCC_final.pdf I fully believe that science will win out in the end -- although it might be easier to convince the public -- and perhaps even politicians -- if the present cooling trend continues for another decade or more. A few years from now, when it becomes clear that Nature, not human activity, rules the climate a lot of Will's critics are going to look pretty silly. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared.* Return to Top of Page