Science Disinformation Sites Do Little But Confuse And Undermine Understanding of Climate Change
The climate covering “science” site Watts Up With That repeatedly gets information wrong, misleads readers, and manipulates the climate change issue. (See the middle of this post here for an example, along with here for how unscientific its somewhat ridiculous “science blog of the year” logo is.) And always in one direction as well; that is, no significant example has yet been illustrated where the site has done so in a direction that is not anti climate change.
The chances of this being coincidence — that this just happens to be a site that repeatedly make mistakes of representation or analysis, and at the very same time all those mistakes just happen to go in the same rather strongly biased direction — are next to impossible. Moreover, given the consistent and powerful pattern of a) egregious “mistakes,” and b) mistakes that are unidirectional, this would still probably be very unlikely even if the site did make mistakes that cut the other way once in a while.
It seems to be a site where readers go to get their biases or hopes confirmed rather than learn about the issue, perhaps even without fully realizing it. More troublingly, the site is in turn promoted by many misleading or ideological “news” oriented entities, and often linked to or cited by still many others. And the further compounding irony of the site having been “voted” the science blog of the year — a fact which then in turn seems to further grant a veneer of further legitimacy to citing and reliant news sources — seems to be indicative of the popularity not just of ideas that challenge the general scientific assessment on climate change, but of the popularity of ideas that themselves are far more misleading or erroneous than not that challenge the conventional wisdom on climate change.
Let’s look at another example of how awful the actual science on this “science site of the year” disinformation blog is: A recent post noted how a study this past winter by the venerable Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (“WHOI”), discovered that warmer subtropical waters were mixing with the frigid waters of Greenland’s glacial Fjords.
Fjords are recesses amongst the glaciers that act as fingers of the sea. Cut by glacial abrasion, they tend to be extremely deep and very cold – often deeper and colder even than the continental shelf just offshore where around Greenland, cold waters, fed by Greenland currents, circulate.
The waters of the North Atlantic Current (“NAC”), on the continental slope, a bit further offshore from the shelf, tend to be much warmer. These waters are brought up by the NAC from the subtropics, and are a big part of the reason why much of temperate zone Western Europe, including Britain, Spain, etc. have such moderate weather and mild winters.
If that warmer, originally subtropical waters were to mix with the water up against the northern area glaciers — such as the absolutely frigid waters found in the deep, glacial Fjords just up against and abutting into the continent (and glaciers) itself, this would hasten glacial acceleration. The WHOI study found that the warmer NAC waters were mixing in with the much colder water of the Fjords, passing through the colder Greenland fed continental shelf water, and contributing to such acceleration.
The Watt’s site recently covered this same topic, and once again blatantly mislead readers, and/or exercised terrible science. And, once again, it did so in an extremely biased and anti climate change direction.
In addition to near constant and often highly manipulative editorials, the site’s main modus operandi is to pilfer and repost — often either in full or substantial portion — the work of others. To this it usually adds a misleading or erroneous headline, and also at times some highly misleading sarcasm or sound bite “analysis” that often plays into the most egregious disinformation that the site repeatedly promotes.
In this instance, ‘Watt’s up’ pilfered the WHOI press release on the Fjord study, which was not enough to put the information offered into context without additional scientific knowledge: knowledge, it was expected, that journalists covering this would either have, and/or do the necessary research therein to acquire.
This is something the Watt’s site, once again, nevertheless does not appear to have, nor, one again, lacking such knowledge, to have engaged in acquiring. The site merely pilfered the amorphous press release, and for it’s main (indeed, only), assertion attached a headline to the piece — Greenland glaciers – melt due to sea current change, not air temperature — that is flagrantly erroneous.
The NAC has shifted slightly, and the warmer waters appear to be slightly further north. In addition, increasing ambient air temperatures have warmed the northern waters as well (as well to some degree, the sub tropical waters themselves flowing northward as part of the NAC). The study — which looked at the interaction of these currents and waters both near and proximate to the Greenland shoreline and Fjords — found conclusive evidence of extensive mixing, and guesstimated as to why there was such mixing of the warmer waters with the frigid waters of the Fjords. It concluded:
Our findings support increased submarine melting as a trigger for the glacier acceleration, but indicate a combination of atmospheric and oceanic changes as the likely driver.
The oceanic changes refer to an increase in warmer waters, which is a direct reflection of increased warming. And very slight ocean current shifting — which in itself may or may not be due to the increased warmth of the currents and ocean. The atmospheric changes refer to guesstimated changes in wind patterns seemingly further driving the mixing. Connection or lack of connection between changing wind patterns and increased warming, is unknown.
Thus, Watt’s sole (and headline), assertion is blatantly incorrect. At least part of this (warmer water mixing) aspect of the change in glaciers – increased warmth of the currents and northern waters, is directly tied to slowly increasing ambient air temperatures. The other aspect driving further acceleration, slight ocean current shifting and wind movements, may or may not also be tied to such changing temperatures.
But Watt’s site made an even more egregious mistake; and for a “scientific” site, an inexcusable one. The Woods Hole study only dealt with the question of water driven melting, and looked at the apparent increased exchange of warmer waters with the colder frigid waters of the Fjords as a driver for some or much of the acceleration of the glaciers. The study did not in any way suggest that increasing air temperatures, which help create warmer waters, was not playing a role in this process. And even more importantly, it did not in any way suggest that increasing air temperatures were not playing a role in overall glacial melt — the opposite of the blaring and profoundly misinformative Watt’s up headline. In fact, the study’s lead author, Fiammeta Straneo, pointed out to me how direct melting at the air surface interface as a result of ambient air temperatures is likely as important as the waterborne submarine melting that is leading in turn to increased glacial movement and calving (which itself may also be due at least in part to increased ambient warming).
This serves as yet another example of why even leading “fake balance” journalists do their readers and the issue a real disservice when they cite and rely upon the scientifically off kilter, always unidirectionally and extremely biased misinformation “science” site ‘Watt’s up.’
