Hey, the latent heat of fusion required to melt all that ice at the North Pole had to come from somewhere!

I think the Times engaged in some Marc Herold-like massaging of the numbers. They added together the temperature increases in the Alaska-Fairbanks report, which comes out to be 9.77. But, they really can't use Nome, which is where the PETA-repulsing Iditarod finishes. So, throw Nome out, and now the temperature increase is 7.49, which rounds out to 7.

This is one more reason to study the recent book "The Skeptical Environmentalist" by Danish author Bjorn Lomborg. He portrays these wild exaggerations of data as the norm within environmental science. The day following this NY Times article there appeared another NY Time's article: "Advancing Glacier Threatens Alaska Fishing Village." Even the Gray Lady can't coordinate its fantasies. I don't know which is more striking: these wild exaggerations, or how long they were able to do it without anyone putting a pencil to it.

It's a shame that the NY Times doesn't get the average temperature figures right, but I notice that UAF professor whose temperature figures you link doesn't suggest that there was anything wrong with the Times account of the massive die-out of trees, etc.

We don't under stand the climatology all that well, but it should clear to anyone who has gone outdoors in the last 5-10 years that something screwy is going on. Of course, about 20 years down the road, we'll probably have a much better understanding of the science-but by then it will probably be too late to do anything about it.

Yes, so let's do something about it, even if we don't understand it! After all, doing something (especially if it totally wrecks the economy, and even if we don't think it'll really have all that much effect) is a lot better than doing nothing.

Or maybe we need to worry about global cooling?
http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/jenkinson.html

Warming? What warming? Alaska weather station data can be found here: http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/stations/stations.htm#Alaska
Thirty year trends (and simple linear regression, too) are a lousy way to demonstrate even regional CLIMATE data. Almost as bad as anecdotal statements like "but it should clear to anyone who has gone outdoors in the last 5-10 years that something screwy is going on. " People only remember extremes. There are climate cycles that last a few years, decades, centuries and even thousands of years.

Looking at the graph of Fairbanks temps, at that Alaska weather site, one can come to conclusions other than a century long warming.
Namely, that there have been several rises and falls and there is a current decline in temperatures!
Anyone interested in looking further, can check online works by Robert Balling and Patrick Michaels.

Bob Strauss, former Asst. State Climatologist, Texas

"Lies, damn lies, and statistics". Numbers, especially large amts of numbers, are easy to manipulate. Even more so given a predisposed point of view a writer is trying to justify. Bush's maverick EPA director has given the radical greens new life as our modern day chicken little. Look for more "data" proving our culture is destroying the world.

"Crack, burn and sag"

Are we sure that this isn't a problem with a recipie for Baked Alaska?

All the people in the world will fit into one average sized county in Texas and if they all farted at the same time and someone lit a match there might be a moment of county warming and that's about it.

Rea is right - disproving the numerical data has no effect on the anecdotal evidence. But it does have an important policy implication - if such severe climatological changes can be the result of such moderate temperature trends, then wide-ranging attempts at stabilizing temperature technologically seem doomed to fail. Even if we managed to eliminate humankind's impact on global temperatures, we'd still be subject to natural fluctuations of a few degrees in each direction that wind up having substantial impact on certain ecosystems. Those opposed to environmental regulations ought to be harping on that rather than carping about exaggerated data.

The statistics may come from quotes by the climatologist that you linked to.

He claims POLAR warming of 7 deg. F in the last 30 years.

Regardless of whether or not you want to defend the status quo, all you have to do is get out of your climate-controlled personal microclimates. Or read the increasingly sought-after anecdotal evidence from native peoples. There is climate change going on. Most climatologists believe there is at least some anthropogenic origin.

Yes, most climatologists believe this, despite ridiculous websites claiming 17,000 atmospheric scientists say it's not true.

Uh, no offense people, but did any of you actually read the article? Leaving aside the fact that you are taking the unsubstantiated word of someone who claims to have compiled the data from 4 Alaskan weather sites, without giving access to the primary data (a bit suspicious, I think...), the possibly exaggerated claim in the firs paragraph is pretty clearly the result of a bit of dumb math by the author.

"In Alaska, rising temperatures, whether caused by greenhouse gas emissions or nature in a prolonged mood swing, are not a topic of debate or an abstraction. Mean temperatures have risen by 5 degrees in summer and 10 degrees in winter since the 1970's, federal officials say. "

My (I think pretty good) guess it that the writer averaged 5 and 10, got 7.5, and said "the temperature has risen about 7 degrees".

If you read the rest of the article, you can see 1) there is lots of corroborating, substantiated evidence, based on peer-reviewed science, showing that the temp is going up, trees are dying from pests previously controlled by the cold, and the sea ice has retreated and 2) the article is about Republican Senator Ted Stevens begging for help from the Bush Administration to pay for the damage caused by Global Warming.

"For villages that hug the shores of the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, melting ice is the enemy. Sea ice off the Alaskan coast has retreated by 14 percent since 1978, and thinned by 40 percent since the mid-1960's, the federal report says. "

One thing to note; this article explicitly acknowledges that the cause of all of this is not known, and yet, instead of applauding the writer for his balance, you pillory him for a possible math mistake, based on some pretty weak testimony?

Anyone else out there who's too lazy to make a few mouse clicks can find that supposedly nonexistent data here.

Those who prefer vague averages from unnamed "federal officials" should feel free to ignore the Alaska Climate Research Center's actual numbers.

(Redfaced, sheepish grin) I apologize, I did not see the link at the bottom of the screen. Thanks for pointing it out. Actually, the real data make the case rather better than the synopsis given by the opposing scientists. The variance in mean temperature seems to my eyeball to be considerably greater than the overall possible change, at least at Barrow station.

Bob Strauss' post above gives some interesting 'scientists' to reference opposing 'evidence' of lack of global warming. i won't comment on the sophomoric column he linked to.

Robert Balling has earned well into the 6 figures from energy interests. Michaels works for the Western Fuels Association. Not exactly non-boased.

Climate is difficult to master - and in the political rhetoric jumble floating about, one must also fact-check the author of anti-ecohype essays to see where their paychecks come from.

Dano: Indeed- pity that the political rhetoric is usually based on picking and choosing whichever sources happen to support the preferred point of view, rather than examining the actual state of the scientific study of the issue. God forbid people should take the climatological community seriously when there's convenient (if critically embattled) books like Lomborg's to point at.

Mr. Orwin is a gentleman. And then there's Dano:

Climate is difficult to master - and in the political rhetoric jumble floating about, one must also fact-check the author of anti-ecohype essays to see where their paychecks come from.

Most of us, I hope, consider fact-checking someone's ass to be a matter of, well, checking his facts. Checking his checks is a species of ad-hominem argument.

Very true, though, that climate is difficult to master. Why, then, do we have people here saying that you can arrive at the truth about it just by stepping outside?

"I did not even bother to read the NYT piece because I knew that they would leave out the simple fact that the Van Allen Radiation belts that protect the earth from solar storms are weakest towards the poles and that the sun has been blasting out some of the biggest Coronal Mass ejections ever recorded. The Solar Max period of sun spots and other activity is lasting longer and is more intense than ever. The NYT is never to be trusted on any issue where science could get in the way of their politics."