New Times Atlas wrong on Greenland ice.

[marchesarosa]

Steve McIntyre and others track down the origin of the Times Atlas misinformation.

climateaudit.org/2011/09/20/the-times-atlas-and-y2k/#more-14596

[StuartG]

"I reckon that if the Times' has done a whoopsie, they aught to have a word with the 'air photo readers' they 'should have gone to spec savers."

This, I reckon, is the nub of the problem. I expect the 'Times cartographers' are more picture lookers than interpreters. They need stereoscopic photography to fully understand the relief of the terrain. If they had had stereo, they would have not made such a mistake.

page 128 [as marked on doc/page 132 on .pdf] shows a similar situation where it says...

"The most important clues
are those afforded by streams and ponds which indicate low
ground. Other clues indicating relief are the alinement
............Photo........
and grading of roads and the shadows cast on and by slopes;
these, especially the latter, may be very misleading. Direct
evidence of relief can be obtained only by stereo examination
of an overlapping pair of aerial photographs.
128"

www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/FM/PDFs/FM21-26.pdf

and adding to that an 'attention to detail'.


Those of you who like photography, would find this a rewarding sideline, as viewing 'in stereo' brings out many more interesting and easily missed points compared to looking at a single photograph. MM's moth comes to mind, if She has taken two or more photos then the insect can be brought out in very lifelike relief, and gives a effect of almost touching the real thing. To do a set of stereo photos, a line of 3 or 4 [or more] should be taken in quick succession so as to overlap with say 30 to 40 %. Print them and lay down in order and use a stereoscope to view. As here...

www.funsci.com/fun3_en/stscp/stscp.htm

About 95% of people can see in stereo. At first it does take time to get the alignment right of the photos under the stereoscope, but once done, you will always be able to do it after that, like riding a 'bike.

StuartG

[marchesarosa]

Lubos Motl gives the authors of the Times Atlas debacle a deserved kicking. motls.blogspot.com/2011/09/ipcc-sky-will-be-full-in-20-years.html#more



This brings me to a recent event, the Atlasgate. The Times Atlas has published a remarkable statement that since 1999, 15% of the Greenland ice has disappeared.

Now, just think how breathtakingly stupid this proposition is. If all the ice of Greenland raises the sea level by 7 meters when it melts down, it's clear that 15% of melted Greenland ice raises the sea level by 1 meter or so. However, even if all the sea level rise were due to Greenland, we would need about 300 years, and not a decade, to achieve such a one-meter sea level rise. Because the actual contribution of Greenland is much less than 3 centimeters per decade, you see that the claim that "15% of the Greenland ice melted in a decade" is wrong at least by two orders of magnitude.

The previous paragraph assumed that you talk about the relative loss of the volume of ice. If you talk about the changing area of the ice sheet, you have to translate it to the volume. If the "thin areas" are disappearing, you could get a smaller relative loss of the volume, say by a factor of 5 (which is still insanely high and in direct contradiction with he most elementary observations of the sea level).

But it is actually somewhat unreasonable to expect that the ice will only disappear at the places where it has been thin. The slopes could grow too large etc. Consider an alternative model: the Greenland ice shrinks to a smaller "generalized pyramid" shape which is however similar to the original one. If that's so, a 15% loss of the area is equivalent to a 7% loss of the perimeter and 22% or so loss of the volume (first, second, third power of something): so you would get an even bigger loss of the volume than 15% which is completely unrealistic.

At any rate, if someone is reading these preposterous claims that 1/6 of the Greenland ice has disappeared in a decade, it shows that he must have lost all of his or her common sense. He or she must have become a complete lunatic. It's as crazy as claiming that Manhattan has already been submerged by the ocean.

It's always a mystery whether the people behind such incredibly stupid claims – recall the "Himalayan glacier disappearing by 2035" for another stunning example – really believe what they're saying or whether they actively spread something they know to be nonsense.

My best answer is that they work hard to fool themselves – to convince themselves to believe this rubbish. And once they win their internal battle against the last traces of intelligence and integrity, they may spread the virus of stupidity to their environment, too.

[marchesarosa]

"It is amazing that out of 5.5 kilos of maps the very thing that they choose to highlight to promote their new atlas turns out to be absolute rubbish. And a cheerful “scientist” (Brian Hoskins, who fulsomely praised the Oxburgh Inquiry) is easily found to verify the lie. You can’t make this stuff up."



Thanks to Climate Audit
climateaudit.org/2011/09/22/brian-hoskins-and-the-times-atlas/#more-14626

[marchesarosa]

Quote from Brian Hoskins, climatologist, about the new Times Atlas from the video above

"a useful tool against climate sceptics"

Could be applied to Hoskins and his junior Bob Ward themselves.

Famous last words? "Tools" at least (not my own joke, alas!).

"Useful idiots", perhaps, this pair of propagandists?

[marchesarosa]

Source: BBC Radio 4: Today Programme
URL: news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9597000/9597092.stm
Date: 22/09/2011
Event: An interview with Collins Geo's Sheena Barclay about the Times Atlas error

People:
Sheena Barclay: Managing director of Collins Geo
Tom Feilden: BBC Today Programme science correspondent
James Naughtie: Presenter, BBC Radio 4: Today Programme

James Naughtie: What's to be done about the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, and its map of Greenland? Some scientists have told the publisher, HarperCollins, that the map is misleading, greatly exaggerating the disappearance of ice in the Arctic. In the Atlas, about 15% of the ice sheet around Greenland - that's an area about the size of the UK and Ireland put together - is shown in green rather than white, suggesting that it's gone, it's no longer ice. Now a group of Cambridge scientists, as you all know by now, wrote a letter this week, saying the Atlas should be pulped, because it displayed what they described as a GCSE error. Sheena Barclay is managing director of Collins Geo, the imprint which publishes the Atlas at HarperCollins. Good morning.

Sheena Barclay: Good morning.

James Naughtie: Now, let's be very clear about this. Is the map accurate or not, in your view?

Sheena Barclay: I think this is a deeply complex issue, and I think the controversy highlights that, that actually depicting the ice in a - with a level of clarity is something very difficult to achieve. What we have endeavoured to do is actually bring greater clarity to the area of the Arctic and Greenland, by utilising the latest data made available to us at the time, and then to depict the ice sheet accurately at the scale that we render the map in the Atlas -

James Naughtie: Well -

Sheena Barclay: - so, in terms of that, it's - if you take the Atlas in its entirety, we do actually represent Greenland as white. What has been misleading is that the press statement that was released by us - we accept now that there was an [sic] information in there, including the 15%, which doesn't relate to what's in the Atlas. That is misleading.

James Naughtie: Right. So the point that the scientists picked up from the press release, saying that the ice sheet had been reduced by 15% in size was not - let's be absolutely clear about this - was not something that is in the Atlas. Is that correct?

Sheena Barclay: It's not something that is in the Atlas. What I think we have done over the last few days is we have engaged directly with the scientific community, and I think the scientific community themselves would accept that this is a very complex issue, and defining the, kind of, de facto information and picture on this is not easy to render on a cartographical map -

James Naughtie: Sure. But the question is: do you think that any clarification, which has been asked for by some of the scientists, in the Atlas, is required or not? If you are confident that it is accurate, on the basis of all the information that's available, and that the press release was wrong, but the Atlas is correct, presumably you're going to continue to publish, and there'll be no correction, no explanation, nothing.

Sheena Barclay: I think the wider cartographic community have wrestled with the issue of what's happening in the Arctic for many years. I think, if you look at all products of this type that are out there, none of us produce anything with the level of clarity that we would all desire to do so. Having engaged with the scientific community and had a very positive response, we feel now at the Times Atlas that we can create a much more detailed map of Greenland, that will represent more effectively the ice cover as it is -

James Naughtie: Well -

Sheena Barclay: - and the changes that are happening. And that's what we are going to do.

James Naughtie: - When you say "more effectively", do you mean "more accurately"?

Sheena Barclay: It's a case of actually how you define the ice itself. And at the scales that we show Greenland, it's actually quite difficult to achieve that -

James Naughtie: Well, you see, what I'm just trying to get to is a very simple point -

Sheena Barclay: - can I -

James Naughtie: - because we know what the arguments have been, in the last few days. It's very simply this: do you stand by the Atlas, and the map of Greenland as it is? Or are you going to either change something, or put in some explanatory material, which will interpret what's there? Are you happy with it as it is, standing on its own? Or not?

Sheena Barclay: We are going to put in some interpretive information, to clarify what's there. I think we accept that when you look at this in its entirety, while we've not had a change of editorial policy, I think, given the changes that are happening in the Arctic, it would be - we want to represent this area to the best of our ability, and display the de facto situation, and as a result, we are going to work with the carto- the scientific community to come up with an explanation that is satisfactory to that community, and relay that information on a map to the wider audience.

James Naughtie: So you accept that -

Sheena Barclay: We'll endeavour to - at the Atlas, we're going to endeavour to do that as quickly as possible. I mean, in the last couple of days, we've been offered data that's not currently published at a high enough resolution, to enable us to much more effectively to do that -

James Naughtie: I can see that. But, just finally, I mean, you are accepting the thrust of their criticism that the map as it stands, without any explanatory material, is misleading.

Sheena Barclay: I think we are accepting that ice cover in general is not depicted to the level of clarity that the wider audience deserves. And we are looking to try and get the best information we can to display that, and yes we will be producing a much more detailed map that, along with the Atlas, will explain the situation in full. And we're going to do that as swiftly as we possibly can.

James Naughtie: Right. Sheena Barclay of Collins Geo, thanks very much for joining us. And Tom Feilden, our science reporter, is here. Tom, what do you make of it?

Tom Feilden: Well - wow! is the first thing to say. I think most contortionists would probably be defeated by the convoluted knot HarperCollins seem to have got themselves into, here. Now if I understand Sheena Barclay correctly, they've still don't accept there's a problem with the Atlas. There was a problem with the press release, and: hey, if people don't like it, let's get together and draw a new map - that seems to be the message. That having been said, the offer to produce a new, revised map, based on all the available data - a consensus map, if you like - on a separate sheet, that can be slotted into the Atlas with an accompanying explanation, is really an unprecedented concession, and should go a long way to addressing the concerns expressed by the scientific community. The question remains whether that technical fix is going to be enough to mollify more sceptical critics, who've seized on the map as yet another example of these exaggerated claims being made about the extent of global warming. And of course it is still pretty damaging for HarperCollins's reputation.