Jeremy A. Kaplan:
NASA’s claim that Greenland is experiencing “unprecedented” melting is nothing but a bunch of hot air, according to scientists who say the country’s ice sheets melt with some regularity.
A heat dome over the icy country melted a whopping 97 percent of Greenland’s ice sheet in mid-July, NASA said, calling it yet more evidence of the effect man is having on the planet.
But the unusual-seeming event had nothing to do with hot air, according to glaciologists. It was actually to be expected.
“Ice cores from Summit station [Greenland’s coldest and highest] show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time,” said Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data.
But rather than a regular 150-year planetary cycle, the new NASA report
calls the melt “unprecedented,” the result of a recent strong ridge of warm air, or a heat dome, over Greenland — one of a series that has dominated Greenland’s weather since the end of May.
“Each successive ridge has been stronger than the previous one,” said Thomas Mote, a climatologist at the University of Georgia. This latest heat dome started to move over Greenland on July 8, and then parked itself over the ice sheet about three days later. By July 16, it had begun to dissipate, along with the ice, NASA said.
Climate skeptics said the NASA report itself was the only “unprecedented” item.
“NASA should start distributing dictionaries to the authors of its press releases,” joked Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist and the author of the World Climate Report
“It’s somewhat like the rush to blame severe weather and drought on global warming,” Anthony Watts, a noted climate skeptic and the author of the Watts Up With That blog, told FoxNews.com. “Yet when you look into the past, you find precedence for what is being described today as unprecedented.”
So many of the AGW activists use the “unprecedented” melting or severe weather. “Unprecedented” means that an event like this has never happened before in the history of the Earth. So who was available to view the Earth in the past and revord any like event on Green land? Activists use words to stimulate their mindless followers rather than facts!
Uh, no. That is NOT what NASA said.
Here’s the NASA press release of July 24. It does not state that the observed melt is “yet more evidence of the effect man is having on the planet.” It does not imply that, either.
The word “unprecedented” appears only in the title of the Greenland ice cover comparison images: Satellites See Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt. Unless there was an unknown orbital satellite in 1889, the image is indeed unprecedented.
That is from NASA. Goddard is part of NASA. Lora Koenig is a NASA scientist. She’s stating that this has happened before.
This sort of deceptive crapola–attributing statements and meanings that were never said or intended in the first place–is becoming increasingly typical of right wing propaganda.
Also, in the rush to substantiate the global warming deniers’ position, this right-wing article fails to mention the second part of Lora Koenig’s statement, “But if we continue to observe melting events like this in upcoming years, it will be worrisome.”
GREG
you say right wing propaganda, when all the propaganda come from the LEFT,
hell even the young students learn by it, who make them hate the right wing at 7 and some years old,
who tell them they the WHITES are not like us blacks and must be insult and hurt and spread with fuel and set in fire,
what about the older people in this AMERICA always being propagandize by OBAMA’S MEDIAS,
THIS TO GET THEIR VOTES, ESPECIALLY IN THIS TIME OF OBAMA CONSTANTLY CAMPAIGNING,
INSTEAD OF DOING HIS WORK HE WAS ELECTED FOR DOING,that is working to get jobs for AMERICANS INSTEAD OF KILLING THE JOBS, AND GIVING JOBS IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES.
THERE IS NO RIGHT-WING PROPAGANDA, THE CONSERVATIVES ARE TO STRAIGHT TALK TO BE SPREADING LIES, WHAT THEY SAY IS WHAT IT IS LIKE IT OR NOT,
THE TRUTH HURT ONLY THE OTHER DEMOCRATS , THEY LIKE YOU HATE TO BE EXPOSE IN FRONT OF AMERICANS.