About the Author

Richard Cochrane is trained in chemistry and metallurgy but is far more interested and practiced as a political and fund raising consultant, writer and amateur historian. He grew up in a Navy family and with his two younger brothers carried on its 500+ year tradition of naval service to Great Britain and the USA then enjoyed a career with one of the largest advertising and public relations agencies working with numerous Fortune 500 companies and many of America's premier educational institutions. He maintains friendships and acquaintanceships around the world. He lives in Santa Barbara, California.

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New Arctic Ice Would Cover Texas and California.

August 28th, 2008 • Richard Cochrane

When nature doesn’t behave as the political agenda would prefer.

In the testament to Junk Science the Washington Post headlines “Scientists Report Further Shrinking of Arctic Ice,” then notes that NOAA has mapped over 400,000 square miles more Arctic ice today than a year ago. By the way that is about the combined land area of Texas, 268601 square miles and California, 163707.

So, obviously some spinning is in order, and WaPo is up to the task. They couch this the same way the press have been treating the recent, ongoing cooling trend: compare things today to a historical average, and then our temperatures are no longer dropping but “above the long-term average.”

So even though Arctic ice is gaining mass over last year, the fact that it is below the long-term average means that it is on the verge of disappearing. Funny how one year, five years, and so on are very, very meaningful when warm, dry, or not so icy, but long-term averages are the only useful metric when nature doesn’t behave as the political agenda would prefer.

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There Are 4 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by Shane on 28 August 2008:

    Richard, the freezing and thawing of Arctic ice is not the only game being played up North. It’s yet another part of the world that has been neglected for too long, especially considering the friction that it is bound to come about when the time comes to draw the borders up. While the US election drags on, the Canadian PM is weighing calling an election,, not only to keep viewers glued to their TV’s and avoid having his minority government defeated but to draw attention to all his government is doing to ensure that they get a big enough piece of the pie, whether it be the size of Texas or California.

    Shanes last blog post..What’s All The Buzz About?

  2. Comment by Richard Cochrane on 28 August 2008:

    Shane - Don’t forget Russia that has ambitions in the north.

  3. Comment by frank obama on 29 August 2008:

    Richard I completely agree with this post. Not only do scientists have more data, more mapping, more accurate instruments and more,more,more…. political agenda they have lost site of the true nature of science. Isn’t or shouldn’t science be the study of all facts to support a theory.

  4. Comment by Richard Cochrane on 29 August 2008:

    Frank Obama - Facts to support or disprove a theory or simply to collect facts.

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