Posted by
BLOGASSAULT on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 7:15:46 PM
A lot of people read articles from the MSM and go "Wow, I never knew that." or "That story has some pretty scary facts." But what most people don't understand is usually ALL the facts are not included. Usually, it is not the fault of the writer. They are not experts in the field that they are writing about. Information comes to them from others. And sometimes those others have an agenda. And what better way to press that agenda then to give a reporter some fancy charts and highly sophisticated reasoning filled with big scientific words, who will take those charts and fancy words and turn it into a newspaper article. That's what the NY times did with this article.
Now the six-month dark season has returned to the North Pole. In the deepening chill, new ice is already spreading over vast stretches of the Arctic Ocean. Astonished by the summer’s changes, scientists are studying the forces that exposed one million square miles of open water — six Californias — beyond the average since satellites started measurements in 1979.
The key phrase here is "...since satellites started measurements in 1979."
But fortunately we have those that spend their time correcting or at least providing the rest of the story or facts. And at World Climate Report they took on that NY Times article and provided the rest of the facts. It's not that the article is wrong, but it is misleading. It's short some time frame and makes it look worse than what it really is.
Depending on what Revkin meant by “recent times,” perhaps we could help him out as to where he may look in order to find out some information indicating that “widespread Arctic ice retreat” has occurred without any human help. If Revkin meant “since satellites started measurements in 1979” then, he probably has that covered, but if by “recent” he meant within the past 100 years or so, then maybe we could suggest a few other avenues to investigate.
For instance, Dr. Andy Mahoney, a post-doc at CIRES/NSIDC is working on examining some evidence from Russian sea ice charts complied as far back as the early 1930s. Apparently, Dr. Mahoney is finding that some pretty large variations in sea ice extent have occurred across the 20th century, including a period of relatively low sea ice extent that pre-dated a relative increase in sea ice area that occurred just prior to the sea ice decline of the last several decades (those observed in the satellite era). While Dr. Mahoney notes that the early declines don’t appear to be quite as large as the current ones, it is possible that they set the stage for them in that there was not a complete recovery in the intervening period.
Since there is data showing that the ice has fluctuated prior to the satellite era, then of course the article is misleading. That doesn't mean that the writer of the article was intentional trying to mislead, but the hype of global warming is only going to get worse when there is no set way to look at data. If the media dispenses only the parts that those who support man-made global warming, well, then that will be the only side we see.
What happened to the reporting of facts from both sides? Unless it is proven, it would seem natural that you would want to report on both ends of the spectrum for a fair and balanced discussion. But instead it has turned into MSM vs. Right wing bloggers, and talk radio. But everything is so divided these days, why not the news as well?