600,000! Say what! This will certainly be the reaction of many readers here.
Not to worry, that bogus 600,000 sq km number comes from the leftist TAZ, whose journalists obviously lack fundamental education on rudimentary mathematics. They are not able to do simple subtraction. Or maybe the TAZ expects that its equally enlightened readers cannot. The TAZ writes:
According to Arctic monitoring agency Jaxa, sea ice covered an area of 4.19 million square kilometers on Friday. The previous minimum of ice extent had been recorded at the end of September 2007. Back then ice extent was 4.25 million square kilometers.”
Let’s see: 4,250,000 – 4,190,000 = 60,000. I even did that in my head! Maybe the TAZ miscarried over a zero, can happen to anyone.
But a little later, the TAZ tries to give its lefty, intellectually superior readers an idea of just how big 4.25 million minus 4.19 million square meters really is. It writes:
Already now the ice extent of the Arctic Ocean is about 600,000 sq. km. less than the minimum measured back then [2007]– that corresponds to an area that is larger than Spain.”
Now we see that they not only cannot do math, but that they did not even bother to to check their sources, to compare satellite photos and sea ice sources. But hey, when you’re writing pure propaganda, who needs to let inconvenient things like mathematics, data and facts get in the way?
Yes, some activist media will do whatever it takes to produce a sensational headline. The TAZ calls the Arctic sea ice development “dramatic” and a “sign of racing climate change” and that “the ice is melting from underneath” And the polar bears are going to starve, too:
While shipping routes will be much shorter […] polar bears will suffer under melting ice. Their hunt for seals will be made more difficult; they often have to swim hundreds of kilometres in order to reach hunting grounds, completely exhausted.”
That of course, is assuming the TAZ did the maths right: 60 km minus 30 km, is, duhhh, let me see here…300! 🙂
By now we have a good idea of how well-informed and intellectual TAZ readers must be. It’s no wonder they drive anything they run straight into bankruptcy.
And don’t worry TAZ, I have a screen shot of your piece of brilliant journalism.
Anyone would think it had been warmer than average up there this year
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Temperatures during this years melt season look pretty average to me
The BBC is on this story aswell
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/19362809
“Arctic sea ice melt set to break record”
Expect a whole wave of media howls.
I figured someone should check Spain’s size. Wikipedia says it’s about 500,000 km^2, and Portugal is about 100,000 km^2. So at least they got that part right.
When the Brent Spar was about to be sunk in the Atlantic Greenpeace whipped up a frenzy by saying there were 5500 tons of oil remains on board. Turned out to be 50 to 100. Not that it matters in the deep sea anyway.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Spar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Spar
(The english and German version of the wikipedia accounts vary, yet both have not memory-holed the story yet, sursprisingly.)
Leftists don’t believe in objective reality and a zero more or less means nothing to them. I wouldn’t discount the possibility that the taz added a zero deliberately for effect.
My take on the low ice cover on the Arctic Ocean is this allows for more rapid heat loss from the water to the atmosphere and space. Albedo is high with a small sun angle and a decreasing one as that area transitions to a no-sun winter. TAZ type folks keep telling us the atmosphere (because of a rising CO2 concentration) should be warming rapidly. That seems to have stalled and corresponds time-wise with the lower ice minimums of the last decade or so. If I were a conspiracy type, I would be asking who is paying “climate scientists” to NOT investigate the connection between these two variables.
iNTERESTING, SEA ICE MELTING FROM UNDERNEATH. Haven’t those people even seen ice melt before. Maybe they are lacking the observational techniques, of a clear glass, water, with ice cubes. Such poor people. But then i cannot afford to fly to the confrences that they promote this ???? in but i can afford the water for now.