Exposing Fake News Story on North West Passage
Skeptic scientist rips bed-wetting author of press article making false and alarmist claims about melting Arctic ice, rising sea levels and other climate ‘catastrophes.’
Anglo-Dutch retired Chemical Analyst, with lifelong expertise in the effects carbon dioxide (CO2) has gotten so sick of gullible journalists eager to promote alarmist junk climate science that he been re-educating one such peddler of poop, Fred Grimm for his story ‘New studies and new catastrophes give climate change deniers a lot to deny’ (Miami Herald, August 10, 2017).
Schreuder wrote to Grimm after reading Grimm’s grim piece which featured the photo (above) of Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica traversing the Northwest Passage. The scientist’s email to Grimm went:
Mr Grimm,
RE: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/fred-grimm/article166587642.html
From your above-mentioned article one gets the impression that you didn’t do enough research before putting pen to paper. Allow me to fill you in, so you may be better informed.
1. The official record: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/northwest-passage-msv-nordica-1.4227619
Records kept by Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans show that the previous earliest passage of the season happened in 2008, when the Canadian Coast Guard ship Louis L. St-Laurent left St. John’s in Newfoundland on July 5 and arrived in the Beaufort Sea off Point Barrow, Alaska, on July 30.
2. The earlier record: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Passage
For centuries, European explorers sought a navigable passage as a possible trade route to Asia. An ice-bound northern route was discovered in 1850 by the Irish explorer Robert McClure; however, it was through a more southerly opening in an area explored by the Scotsman John Rae in 1854 that Norwegian Roald Amundsen made the first complete passage in 1903–1906. Until 2009, the Arctic pack ice prevented regular marine shipping throughout most of the year. Arctic sea ice decline has rendered the waterways more navigable for Ice navigation.
It therefore appears that the earliest complete NW Passage was achieved in 1906, just over a hundred years earlier than the official Canadian record.
Somehow, the official record of a 2008 passage did not make it into the Wiki records, which state that “until 2009 pack ice prevented regular shipping”, so maybe in 2008 it was just one single icebreaker that made it through and not along the main passage?
Next, let us look at how many options there are for making it through that NW Passage. From that same Wiki page, I copied this image for you:
There are quite a few routes to chose from and the route that was taken by your quoted Finnish icebreaker appears to have been the most southerly one, as it would not have been possible to use the wider and more navigable northern route, which is the only one that would support regular shipping.
As of yesterday, that more northerly route was still solidly frozen, as can be ascertained on a daily basis from this satellite derived Bremer University site:
https://seaice.uni-bremen.de/data/amsr2/today/Arctic_AMSR2_visual.png
Here is a copy of the specific area mentioned above [from 12 August 2017]:
From the above detailed image of the various NW Passage routes it is clear that only a carefully selected tortuous southerly route was an option for an icebreaker to get through.
As a reporter, you should be aware that many a vessel has been caught short in trying to navigate the NW Passage in the recent past.
In conclusion, I put it to you that your article was merely intended as a headline grabber and had little basis in fact. The trip that you reported on was just another one of those sensation-seeking trips to blame humans for their emissions, which you and others allege are “melting the Arctic”.
Please take the time to read two factual peer-reviewed papers about the true role of carbon dioxide in our precious atmosphere:
http://tech-know-group.com/papers/Role_of_CO2-EaE.pdf and
http://tech-know-group.com/papers/Role_of_GHE-EaE.pdf
Maybe one or more of your scientific friends would be available to comment on those papers. Ask them for some factual evidence linking human produced carbon dioxide to climate change.
For the record, I am not a climate change “denier”. But I do deny that human activities via their carbon dioxide emissions are changing the climate, because there is no scientifically verifiable process by which a gas can make the surface from where it acquired its energy any warmer than it already was – cooling may occur but never warming.
At worst, human activities will cause localised pollution, such as forest clearing fires in South America and Indonesia, but those effects remain local.
Yours sincerely,
Hans Schreuder
Climate Analyst
Analytical Chemist (rtd)
mMensa (rtd)
Author
PS: as your article was in the public domain, so this message will appear as an article on various websites in the near future so that the general public gets a chance to appreciate your journalistic skills.
Mr Grimm’s response was as follows:
I don’t quite understand your criticism. I realized the northwest passage has been open during the summer months for several years. However, the northwest passage is not the same as a sailboat sailing to the north pole. f
With my follow-up to that below:
OK, but the headline picture read: In this July 22, 2017, photo, Canadian Coast Guard Capt. Victor Gronmyr looks out over the ice covering the Victoria Strait as the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica traverses the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Nordica has set a new record for the earliest transit of the fabled Northwest Passage. The once-forbidding route through the Arctic, linking the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, has been opening up sooner and for a longer period each summer due to climate change.
THAT is fabricated sensationalism, as per my original comments. That ice-breaker did not use the “fabled NW Passage” but rather some minor route on the southern edge of the proper NWP, big deal, not. That picture was also nothing short of sensationalism and could have been taken anywhere along the edges of the Arctic ice during the peak of the summer season.
With regards a sailing boat reaching the North Pole, keep on dreaming as the NP has been ice-free before and in any case, that proves nothing about human emissions of carbon dioxide – THAT is the point of my criticism.
As per other articles on those clowns trying to reach the NP in a sailing boat”to prove global warming”:
Jonathan Leake, Science Editor
August 13 2017, 12:01am, The Sunday Times
This weekend, however, scientists said satellite images suggested the North Pole would remain inaccessible except by an icebreaker.
Scientists warned, though, that despite the rapid melting of the ice there was unlikely to be access to the North Pole via open water for some years.
Professor Mark Serreze, director of America’s National Snow and Ice Data Centre, said the North Pole was still surrounded by nearly 800 miles of solid pack ice as of last week.
Flashback to past failed polar treks: Clitantic scientists trapped in Antarctic ice claim expanding sea ice caused by ‘global warming’ — But data and studies refute claims
As per your opener: Denial begins to look like psychosis. Yeah, and climate alarmism is looking like a zombie religion.
Climate change at the hands of human emissions of carbon dioxide is 100{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} impossible, as per my peer-reviewed papers and thousands more like it.
Ask one of your science friends to send me proper scientific evidence linking human produced carbon dioxide to climate change – do you understand how little carbon dioxide has its origins in human emissions? At most 4{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the total, that is, at most only 12ppm [should of course have been 16ppm] of the 400ppm now in the atmosphere.
That figure is per the UN IPCC themselves and has been confirmed by numerous scientific papers.
There is not even any scientific evidence linking all of the atmospheric carbon dioxide to causing climate change nor causing “global” warming….
Get the facts, then make the right decisions.
So, there we stand, no further response, no facts about the cause of global warming/climate change at the hands of human produced carbon dioxide.
Once again it proves that there is no chance of a meaningful exchange of ideas with a person who is already convinced by the relentless hype that humans are to blame for “melting the Arctic ice”.
His job of course depends on maintaining that hype and adding to it. Hey, the fact that some clowns are merely heading to the North Pole is enough to make a big deal of it!
Eve if they reach the NP, it proves nothing about human produced carbon dioxide being the cause, but they won’t see it that way. That NP has been ice-free before, but as always, don’t let facts get in the way of a great story.
Who are the climate change deniers then?!
Cheerio,
Hans Schreuder
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