Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Al Gore lies, what's new...

Speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, Mr Gore said new computer modelling suggests there is a 75 per cent chance of the entire polar ice cap melting during the summertime by 2014.
However, he faced embarrassment last night after Dr Wieslav Maslowski, the climatologist whose work the prediction was based on, refuted his claims.

Dr Maslowski, of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, told The Times: “It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at.
“I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

Read the whole piece: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6815470/Copenhagen-climate-summit-Al-Gore-condemned-over-Arctic-ice-melting-prediction.html

[Update: Additional info indicates that in this case it may be the Professor who is lying, apparently not wanting the indefensible claims he makes to the climate community exposed to a more skeptical audience. - JAH]

(source)

COPENHAGEN - Al Gore's citation of a scientist predicting an ice-free Arctic within a decade appears to have been accurate. It appears the scientist Gore cited, Dr. Wieslav Maslowski, did in fact make this prediction and it was published on December 2, 2009 by the Danish Climate Centre, lending support to Gore's claim that the “figures are fresh.”

On December 14, former Vice President Al Gore told the UN climate summit that the Arctic could be ice free within a decade. “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski 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,” Gore said.

But Dr. Maslowski essentially threw Gore under the bus, according to a December 15, 2009 article in the UK Times:

“However, the climatologist whose work Mr. Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast. 'It's unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr. Maslowski said. 'I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.' Mr. Gore's office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr. Maslowski as a 'ballpark figure' several years ago in a conversation with Mr. Gore.” The UK Times characterized it as Gore's "embarrassing error." But Climate Depot has obtained a handout on the Arctic that is being distributed by the Danish government that cites Dr. Maslowski's Arctic modeling and it appears to vindicate Gore's citation of Dr. Maslowski. The December 2, 2009 handout, published by the Danish Climate Centre is entitled “FreshNor The freshwater budget of the Nordic Seas.

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