King Tut's Hummer: ABC Says Temp Increase 'Greatest in Thousands of Years'

NewsBusters ^ | Mark Finkelstein

[governsleastgovernsbest]

GMA's segment this morning on the big global warming confab in Paris was filled with predictably alarmist rhetoric. But one factoid slipped through the MSM filter that could put a chill on the "it's-all-man's-fault" view of the matter.

First, the alarmism. Reporting from Paris, ABC weatherman Sam Champion informed us:

• "It's really kind of frightening stuff, the stuff that science fiction books and movies are made of. Melting ice, heat waves and even stronger storms."
• "Global warming is with us, and it's going to be with us for centuries."
• "It is the definitive report on global warming, and it's frightening."

Champion ran a clip of a panel member with an urbane European accent stating that February 2nd, 2007 "will perhaps be remembered as the day when the question mark was removed from behind the debate on whether climate change had anything to do with human activity on this planet."

Champion: "They're confirming the warming is very likely man-made. . . More than 90% certainty that man's burning of fossil fuels is heating up our planet."

Added Champion: "One result of global warming -- fewer, but even stronger hurricanes." What? Global warming results in fewer hurricanes? How many charts did the MSM treat us to a year or so ago trying to demonstrate that global warming was responsible for more hurricanes? Is this the global-warming lobby trying to explain away the embarrasssing lack of Atlantic hurricanes this season?

Champion then claimed that "among the shocking conclusions of this report, sea levels could rise nearly two feet, swamping areas world-wide by the end of this century." Champion didn't let viewers know that the report actually gave a range: 7-23 inches. Why did he emphasize only the higher end?

Moreover, as he spoke ABC displayed an animation showing islands sliding into the sea with the graphic "2030" on the screen. So what is it? Seven inches by 2100, or islands disappearing in 23 years?That's when Champion let slip what you might call . . . an inconvenient truth: "the report predicts that the temperature increase this century could be the greatest in thousands of years."

Wait a second! Some time thousands of years ago, temperatures were increasing faster than they are now? Yes. A little Googling bears that out. Have a look at this government paper on the ice age, which includes this statement:

"About 11,500 years ago . . . forests quickly regained the ground that they had lost to cold and aridity. Ice sheets again began melting, though because of their size they took about two thousand more years to disappear completely. The Earth entered several thousand years of conditions warmer and moister than today; the Saharan and Arabian deserts almost completely disappeared under a vegetation cover, and in the northern latitudes forests grew slightly closer to the poles than they do at present. This phase, known as the 'Holocene optimum' occurred between about 9,000 and 5,000 years ago."

Perhaps even more signicantly, the paper paints a picture of mammoth climate changes going back hundreds of thousands of years, repeated cycles of heating and cooling that as recently as 18,000 years ago - a blink in geological terms - had my hometown of Ithaca, NY covered under a huge sheet of ice. Something melted it since then -- and it wasn't man's doing.

We can joke about the Pharoahs' SUVs, but it is obvious that man had no impact on those epochal changes. Is the man's-to-blame movement of today good science, or hubris about the ability of man to influence events?

Pet Peeve: Is their any cheaper shot than the MSMs tendency to show footage, as GMA did here, of the calving of glaciers? While used to suggest dramatic global warming, calving is a phenomenon that has occurred since time immemorial. It's what happens when glaciers reach the sea. In fact, as per this Harvard report, calving occurs when glaciers . . . grow, not shrink!

Mark lives in Ithaca, NY, where the temperature is not forecast to get above freezing any time in the next ten days. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net

[PeterPrinciple]

I am beginning to think we should invest more money in weather rocks.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

King-Tut's-Hummer ping to Today show list.

[HereInTheHeartland]

I hope it gets here soon.
We are in the middle of some truly cold air. We have been spoiled the last few years and now we are having real winter temps.

[Paloma_55]

Global Warming is historically shown to cycle

[Marylander]

Witch hunt bump.

[T. Buzzard Trueblood]

calving occurs when glaciers . . . grow, not shrink!

Yeah, but the left doesn't need facts...they've got ideology!

[LiberationIT]

I haven't heard the news yet. Does anybody know if Al Gore saw his shadow this morning??

Thanks.

[avacado]

LOL!!!

[cripplecreek]

This just in:

GLOBULL WARMING CAUSES MALE IMPOTANCE!!!

[RockinRight]

If it's unstoppable, I'm going to go buy some currently dirt-cheap land around Valdosta, Georgia and wait until it's coastal.

[SouthTexas]

bump

[RockinRight]

[cripplecreek]

Nuff said.

[bondjamesbond]

I am hopeful that this little mini-hissy-fit in Europe this week will be the high-water mark in the Global Warming Hysteria.

[Citizen Tom Paine]

When one hears all that propaganda about climate warming today, think Greenland. When the Vikings discovered Greenland, they named it because of the trees growing there. Now one would not call it Greenland because of trees. There are none. Conclusion: it once was warmer, now it is colder. Period.

[Paloma_55]

OH MY GOD!!!!

I am watching NBC News and they are talking about this like it is a proven fact. The chart I posted shows that global warming is a periodic activity, yet these "scientists" are ignoring that data and the media is jumping on it.

They all look at the last 100 years, and ignore the millions of years of historic data.

They show dry lake beds, melting icebergs, etc...well, look at the chart and what do you expect?!?!?

[Eric in the Ozarks]

He blotted out the sun.

[posterchild]

be remembered as the day when the question mark was removed from behind the debate on whether climate change had anything to do with human activity on this planet

Quite the science, or scientists who can remove such monumental question marks. Many sciences interpolating a large number disparate data points of empirical data cannot do it. Many sciences determining events in the past cannot do it with such certainty. These researchers deserve a Nobel prize! Wonder if they are interested in applying their brilliance to the problem of harnessing nuclear fusion energy to benefit humanity?

[ichabod1]

He was talking this morning (or one of his cohorts) about the horrible possibility that Greenland might thaw. I bet Greenlanders don't look at that as a horrific possibility.