Democracy Has Prevailed.

April 3, 2012

More On Newsmax And The Global Warming "Hoax"

From Newsmax (that's the 40% Scaife-owned Newsmax, for those who've forgotten) we read:
Skeptics of manmade global warming claims can bolster their position with a new study showing that the Earth went through a previous warming period not caused by human CO2 emissions.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has argued that the Medieval Warm Period approximately 500 to 1,000 years ago was confined to Europe and did not affect the entire planet, “which means the worldwide warming we’re experiencing now is a manmade phenomenon,” the Daily Mail observed.

But a team of scientists led by geochemist Zunli Lu from Syracuse University in New York found the warming was not confined to Europe and actually extended all the way down to Antarctica, affecting the entire planet. The finding indicates that “the Earth has already experienced global warming without the aid of human CO2 emissions,” according to the Mail.
Here's the Daily Mail article - when you read it, you'll only see half of what Scaife's Newsmax decided not to tell you.

First there's this:
Lu says that his research has no direct bearing on the current climate, and points out that his research is restricted to one area in Antarctica, and is not in itself proof that the whole Earth warmed up.
You'll note that Newsmax said that the study showed that the warming went "all the way down to Antarctica, effecting the entire planet."

Perhaps they were confused by the Daily Mail article itself.  It looks to me that the evidence of the Medieval Warm Period (in the form of heavy oxygen found in ikaite crystals was found in Antarctica - but that's not evidence that Antarctica warmed up.  A point left unclarified by the experts at one of England's more popular news tabloids.

Perhaps they should have contacted Professor Lu himself for a clarification.  Oh wait.  Lu already has:
It is unfortunate that my research, “An ikaite record of late Holocene climate at the Antarctic Peninsula,” recently published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, has been misrepresented by a number of media outlets.

Several of these media articles assert that our study claims the entire Earth heated up during medieval times without human CO2 emissions. We clearly state in our paper that we studied one site at the Antarctic Peninsula. The results should not be extrapolated to make assumptions about climate conditions across the entire globe. Other statements, such as the study “throws doubt on orthodoxies around global warming,” completely misrepresent our conclusions. Our study does not question the well-established anthropogenic warming trend.
Newsmax went with the story on how Lu's research cast doubt on global warming on April 1.

Lu's refutation above is dated March 28th.

Good to know Richard Mellon Scaife's money is being so well spent spreading climate misinformation.

I'll be back in a few days - carry on.

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