|
- |
Inconvenient truth for Al Gore as his North Pole sums don’t add up There are many kinds of truth. Al Gore was poleaxed by an inconvenient one yesterday. The former US Vice-President, who became an unlikely figurehead for the green movement after narrating the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, became entangled in a new climate change “spin” row. Mr Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, stated the latest research showed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years. In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.” However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast. “It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.” |
Only Siberia was colder
Edmonton was the coldest place in North America yesterday morning and the second chilliest in the world.
The Edmonton International Airport saw a record low of -46.1 C and -58.4 C with the windchill, outfreezing even the Arctic.
« The cold high pressure has been moving down from the Arctic over the Prairies, » said Environment Canada meteorologist John McIntyre, adding British Columbia and Saskatchewan also experienced plummeting temperatures. « We are right now in the centre of the heaviest, coldest air. »
Only Dzalinda, Siberia, appeared to be colder, with a weather station there recording temperatures of -48 C.
But the coldest day ever recorded in Edmonton remains unbeaten at -48.3 C with a windchill of -61 C on Jan. 26, 1972.
Yesterday’s frigid temperatures broke the previous record for Dec. 13, which was -36.1 C set in 2008, as well as the record for the coldest day in December, a low of -44.5 C set on Dec. 9, 1977. Cold Lake, Grande Prairie and Whitecourt also had record lows yesterday.
http://www.edmontonsun.com/news/edmonton/2009/12/13/12141366.html
Maslowski n’est pas le seul à fustiger le rapport. Le chercheur norvégien Ola M. Johannessen qualifie le travail de « commande politique » et considère le rapport « très superficiel et sans aucune assurance de qualité »
http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/klima/1.6912801