Yes, Maslowski predicted just two years ago that the Arctic could be ice-free by 2013 — see graph of projected ice volume
UPDATE: The videos of Gore’s talk at COP-15 can be found here. Here is his powerful closing (transcript below) — I have an excellent graph (large PDF) of ice volume trends from several leading scientific institutions based on Maslowski’s 2009 paper at the end:
Arctic summers ice-free ‘by 2013′
That’s the headline from a December 2007 BBC story on Professor Wieslaw Maslowski’s American Geophysical Union talk about “Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer.” In fact, I heard Maslowski in a May 2006 seminar predict that we could be ice-free in the Arctic by 2016 (search my book, Hell and High Water for “ice-free”).
So the flap over the former Vice President’s accurate statement of what Maslowski said is, indeed, symptomatic of an underlying medical condition — one that, I’d add, is often confused for ASS [see "Diagnosing a victim of anti-science syndrome"]:
Al Gore, speaking at Copenhagen, cited the work of Dr Wieslav Maslowki to the effect that “there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.” In fact, according to the Times (UK) “Maslowki, who works at the US Naval Postgraduate School in California, said that his latest results give a six-year projection for the melting of 80 per cent of the ice.”
Now it’s true that projecting a 75 percent chance of completely ice free in 5-7 years and projecting 80 percent ice loss in 6 years are different things. Gore seems to have gotten this slightly wrong. Still, Gore’s point was that arctic ice is melting at an alarming rate and that is indeed what Maslowki’s research thinks. It’s totally fair of the Times to point out the error, but what they did was do a whole long article with the headline “Inconvenient truth for Al Gore as his North Pole sums don’t add up,” leading with the assertion that “The former US Vice-President, who became an unlikely figurehead for the green movement after narrating the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, became entangled in a new climate change ‘spin’ row.” The fact that Maslowki’s real figure is extremely close to Gore’s an supports the same overall point is suppressed all the way until the eighteenth graf of a story otherwise dedicating to implying that Gore in particular, and climate activists in general, are huge liars.
There’s a lot of shoddy reporting in the climate debate, but this is a reminder that all the way back to the 2000 presidential campaign there are some kind of special journalistic rules that apply to Gore.
This is how Gore talked about the Arctic ice in his long talk:
The video below shows where Gore made the disputed statement — doesn’t appear to be the same talk — but I post it just so you’ll see what the anti-science crowd does to the Nobel Prize winner and teller of inconvenient truths:
It always bears repeating that it is ice volume that matters most, and that appears to have had very little recovery, as this figure from a release from several scientific institutions shows — I believe Gore showed this figure:
Again, you may disagree with this projection, but Gore got the story right.
Wonk Room has a transcript of Gore’s powerful closing remarks:
I wish that I had the words to transfer directly from my heart to yours the passion that I feel for this issue. For me, it raises a fundamental question: Who are we as human beings?
Who are we?
If at some future date, the next generation faces the prospect of living in a world with steadily deteriorating prospects and no chance to reclaim the glories of this beautiful earth that we have enjoyed “” if they look back at Copenhagen and ask, “Why didn’t you act? Why did you let this process fall into paralysis, and neither succeed or fail but become a symbol of futility? What were the arguments were again? You didn’t realize that we were at stake?”
If their conclusion was that the generation of human beings alive in the first years of the 21st century gathered together in Copenhagen with the leaders of virtually every nation in the world and instead of forthrightly addressing a mortal threat to the future of civilization, instead decided that the arguments were more important than the solution, that the compromises were just too difficult and allowed the process to fall into paralysis, thus condemning them to a life completely unlike what they deserve, they would be justified in asking of us:
“Who are you?
Didn’t you care?
Did you not feel any connection to us?”
The real source of the passion and the feelings that I have for this issue is a simple conviction: I don’t believe that’s who we are. I believe we are capable of rising to this occasion in spite of the difficulties. I believe that we are capable of resolving the remaining issues to the point where we can meet in Mexico City this July, in the aftermath of a successful action by the United States Senate in April, and conclude a binding international treaty that begins the process and builds our confidence and leads us to make bolder commitments and cuts in global warming pollution and provides the supports that are necessary until, like the Montreal Protocol process, we get to the point where we actually solve this crisis.
We can do it, we must do it, and as I have said many times, I believe political will is a renewable resource. Thank you very much.
Related Posts:
- Arctic ice reaches historic seasonal low; “We are almost out of multiyear sea ice in the northern hemisphere.”
- “It’s like the Arctic is covered with an egg shell and the egg shell is now just cracking completely”
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Wieslaw Maslowski’s research suggests ice-free summers in Arctic by next decade Feb_’09
http://www.earthsky.org/interviewpost/earth/ice-free-arctic-summers-within-a-decade
W. Maslowski: “We’re suggesting that sometime between 2010 and 2016, we might melt all this multi-year ice cover during summer in the Arctic.”
And this:
http://freshnor.dmi.dk/handout_freshnor.pdf
This explains a couple of things …
Apparently Gore referenced a very recent paper by Malowski, in which no claim is made that there’s such a high chance that we could be ice-free in the Artic by 2016 (I assume he didn’t say in his 2006 seminar that we’d be ice free by the year of the seminar – might want to fix your typo!). Apparently – at least Malowski say, I haven’t read the paper myself – he suggests that we might be about 80% ice free in this time frame.
Different answer due to more recent research?
Now Gore’s saying he had based his statement on talks with Malowski “a couple of years go”, which fits with what you report he was saying in 2006.
A reasonable guess would be that Gore assumed that the recent paper would just formalize those statements, or perhaps skimmed the paper and missed the “nearly” qualifier to “ice free”, i.e. that the paper’s a bit more conservative than some of Malowski’s more informal earlier statements.
Big whoopie.
Oh, and it’s not like “80% ice free” is a comforting claim …
It was not that long ago that 2050 was out of the question and in the 1960′s scientist would laugh you out of the room if you proposed an ice free Arctic by 2100. Now people are quibbling about a half a dozen years in the 20-teens. Wake up Anti-Science folks.
A few years ago Gore was fiercely attacked for quoting a research prediction of ice-free summers within 34 years.
http://mediamatters.org/mobile/research/200703210011
Now he’s being attacked for quibbling of 5-10 years. All the deniers hot air has become pathetic to anyone actually listening. Sadly, we need more people to listen.
How many times have we heard the junior deniers say Al Gore is Fat as proof that globull warming is rubbish. It is almost as though Al Gore seeing global warming as a serious problem is sufficient reason to close ones eyes.
It is quickly getting to the stage where will have to fairly precisely define what we mean by ice free.
There is also significant difference between when the Arctic might possibly ice free, or probably ice free or will certainly be ice free.
Clearly summer sea ice is now vulnerable. As some stage we will get the wrong storm at the wrong time of the year and the sea ice will be reduced to a miniscule remnant. When Summer sea ice goes is now a matter of weather not climate.
I have the impression that Gore doesn’t use verbatim notes for his slide shows, I suspect to avoid sounding stilted, and that as a consequence he makes the occasional slip-up. Anyone else doing so would have the same problem, and adding to that the very large amount of fact-intensive public speaking he does, the close attention that’s paid to every word he says and the aforementioned “Gore Derangement Syndrome” as practiced by journalistic “professionals” (and where oh where are the J-school professors denouncing these people?), articles like the one in the Times seem be unavoidable bumps in the road. Fortunately they’re quickly forgotten, although there’s probably a cumulative effect.
Thanks for that link, RoySV. Joe, I think it’s worth a separate post. It’s a delicious irony that what was considered radical just three years ago is now being considered too conservative (relative to the 2030 figure quoted by Mark Serreze). It also bears mentioning that the big-picture distinction between a nearly ice-free summer in 2015 versus one in 2030 is slim indeed.
Also, someone needs to talk to those scientists about giving quotes that make it appear like they’re throwing Al under the bus. OTOH there’s little defense if the reporter has malicious intent.
AOL, where I’m ashamed to admit I’m a subscriber, blew up this “scandal” too. It’s not about Gore personally- the owners of big media companies instruct their staffs to inject “balance” and muddle the issues. It’s a disgrace, really.
To clarify re Maslowski’s projection: It was for 2016 +/- 3 years => an earliest date of 2013. To my knowledge he’s never published this or any more recent modeling result, so I’m unclear as to whether he has something more recent.
Oh, and I should mention a couple other things:
Maslowski used a regional model to get his results, and stated that the reason it showed an earlier date was that unlike the other modeling studies (all of which used GCMs) its fine grid scale was able to properly account for melting from warming currents.
Mark Serreze’s 2030 figure is not a model result, but rather a seat-of-the-pants adjustment to allow for the recent increase in the melt rate. A cynic might point out that Mark likely will still be NSIDC director in 2015, but probably not in 2030. Scientists don’t like to gamble.
With the increasing ocean heat content it’s not very far fetched to picture such scenarios. Take one, or two consecutive very bad years (2007 wasn’t that) having a melting rate for the entire melting period in the top range of the previous years melting rate, you probably end up with Maslowski’s line of thought. When you combine such a year with the fact that the multiyear ice isn’t anymore fixed in anywhere, but moves out of the Arctic ocean, the scenario may even be plausible. My 2 c’s. Times are short (at least for the bears up there).
My rule of thumb is to take the remaining time to scientist-predicted climate change effect and divide by two. Thus, if a climate scientist is predicting an ice-free Arctic summer by 2013-2016, my adjusted prediction is 2011-2013.
I make a similar adjustment with scientific probabilities. Thus, “75 percent chance of complete ice loss in 5-7 years” becomes “87.5 percent change in 5-7 years” OR “75 percent chance in 2.5-3.5 years.
I make similar adjustments to estimate the true safe concentration of CO2. Recommended max concentrations range from 350 ppm (350.org) to 450 ppm (climateprogress.org). Assuming a baseline concentration of 275 ppm (2000 year average before anthropogenic effects), those limit figures are 75-175 ppm above the baseline. Cut that in half, and the more realistic safe limit is 38-87 ppm above baseline, or 313-357 ppm. Actually, my intuition tells me that 313 should be the upper limit, not 357, considering the concentration hasn’t exceeded 300 ppm in 800,000 years of ice core records.
Aren’t we being dishonest with ourselves by claiming 350 ppm or 450 ppm is a safe limit? If we take into account that non-scientific pressures will force compromises in any political process, shouldn’t we push a starting negotiating position that is *below* the proven safe level?
To me, a realistic climate negotiation starts with targeting zero emissions immediately, with a target of 250 ppm concentration. With political compromises, allow for carbon emissions reductions over a four year period (a presidential term) to the level needed strictly to produce renewable energy infrastructure that will ultimately completely replace the carbon infrastructure. We can compromise the target concentration up to 300 ppm, the safe upper limit proven by 800,000 years of ice core records.
If we’re *starting* from a negotiating position of 350 or 450 ppm, haven’t we already lost the fight to save the climate?
Murdoch owns the Times of London and puts a chip in all his employees brains that doesn’t allow them to discuss climate change except derisively, including in this mindless Gore-bashing (by the way, geniuses, Gore did more than narrate “An Inconvenient Truth”) crock.
Murdoch’s ultimate flagship paper: The Times of Hell.
Wonhyo, it’s worth noting that the 350ppm figure didn’t originate with 350.org. It came from this published paper, which is well worth a read:
http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOASCJ/2008/00000002/00000001/217TOASCJ.SGM
The authors state clearly that this target is possibly too high, and may need to be lowered as the science develops.
350.org used this paper as a basis for their campaign.
Apparently Gore was quoting from this document: http://web.arcticportal.org/uploads/7b/ny/7bnyEMy5V-M2u1MweK02mQ/olgaAMSA2009Report.pdf
Page 4, para 2
“There is a
possibility of an ice-free Arctic Ocean for a short period in summer
perhaps as early as 2015.”
It is fine to criticise The Times. But in the same article that you cite why did you not include the alleged quote by Dr Maslowski
“He [Dr Maslowski} added: “I was very explicit that we were talking about near-ice-free conditions and not completely ice-free conditions in the northern ocean. I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this,” he said. “It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at, based on the information I provided to Al Gore’s office.””
What qualifications does Mr Gore have to make statistical interpretations of the output of stochastic climate change models?
“Wonhyo, it’s worth noting that the 350ppm figure didn’t originate with 350.org. It came from this published paper, which is well worth a read:
http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOASCJ/2008/00000002/00000001/217TOASCJ.SGM
The authors state clearly that this target is possibly too high, and may need to be lowered as the science develops.”
I understand what the scientists are saying. They didn’t adequately express the caveat that “this target is possibly too high”. 350 is being bandied about as if that will solve all our climate problems. From a risk management point of view, 350 should have been treated as an extreme upper limit, and a temporary one at that.
Climate advocacy groups made the political mistake of presenting 350 as a “target”. Most people have the impression that all we need to do is get down to 350. Moreover, because of the IPCC reports, most people believe we have until 2050 to reduce emissions 80%.
The unstated reality is that 80% emissions reductions by 2050, with a target concentration of 350 ppm, is likely insufficient to stabilize the climate.
With the understanding that political processes create compromise and delay, climate advocacy groups should be pushing for far more aggressive emissions reductions, on a much shorter time frame, with a much lower CO2 concentration target. This is unfolding like the health care debate, where the Democrats practically gave up the public option at the start of negotiations.
I’d like to pose a couple of questions: What is the most aggressive CO2 reduction proposal that is under consideration in Copenhagen? If this most aggressive proposal is adopted without compromise, how successful will it be in stabilizing the climate?
“The future of ice sheets and sea ice: Between reversible retreat and unstoppable loss” by Dirk Notz helped me understand more about what is happening in the Arctic. He explains how an area that had its ice melt one year can end up with thicker ice in the next year than another area that had maintained a cover of ice, due to the insulating effects of snow cover. He doesn’t think there is a “tipping point” where the albedo change from reflective ice to more absorbent water will tip the Arctic into being ice free at this level of GHG, just a steady melt, and, if GHG was stabilized and removed from the atmosphere, a steady recovery.