“Fiasco” was the word chosen by one scientist in an e-mail to the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., alerting his colleagues to erroneous claims made by the publishers of the atlas (whose name derives from The Times of London) about the speed at which ’s glaciers are melting.
He also feared that a map in the atlas, along with news accounts repeating an error in the news release, could pull climate scientists into another vortex of damaging controversy.
The news release, echoed by the news media, claimed that Greenland had lost 15 percent of its permanent ice cover from 1999 to 2011.
That translates to 125,000 cubic miles, according to a rough calculation by Etienne Berthier, a glaciologist with the University of Toulouse, enough melted ice to raise sea levels three to five feet.
The corresponding map in the atlas itself indicated that significant portions of Greenland’s coastline had become ice-free.
Glaciologists, previously bruised by an exaggerated claim about the melting of Himalayan glaciers in a 2007 United Nations report that became fodder for skeptics, mobilized as a truth squad.
On blogs, on radio programs and in newspaper columns, they stated emphatically that Greenland has not lost 15 percent of its ice cover in recent years.
The retreat, they said, is more like one-tenth of 1 percent.
1/1OTH OF 1% VERSUS 15%/
HMMMMMM...... THAT'S A HUGE ERROR - OVERSTATING MELTING BY 15,000%.
YUP: FIFTEEN-THOUSAND PERCENTAGE POINTS OFF.
THEY OVERSTATED MELTING BY 150X!
THEY DESERVE TO BE FIRED.
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