Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Chart of the Week: Cherry Picking Climate Deniers

graph by Peter Gleick
The Heartland Institute is in the forefront of climate change denial.  It used the above red line to support a claim that "National Snow and Ice Data Center records show conclusively that in April 2009, Arctic sea ice returned 1989 levels of coverage." Yeah, and the world is still flat, folks. At Skeptical Science you can find this chart which is much more indicative of the actual loss of sea ice by volume:
You do NOT need to be Casandra to see the trend line (in blue) is down. The total amount of Arctic sea ice in recent years is the lowest on record. Just ask the polar bears.