Jason Box, a glaciologist at Ohio State University (who has
been to Greenland 23 times to track its changing climate), gives us a perfect
case study on how to make scary news: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/climate-desk-greenland-and-69-feet-sea-level-rise
First, you take perfectly good data (in this case the current
area change of ice cover in Greenland).
Second, you make a chart that zooms in on the data:
Finally, you throw in scary sounding quotes and meaningless statements:
“Humans have already set in motion 69 feet of sea level rise”
And you make scary youtube videos called “Can Greenland be saved?”: http://youtu.be/2r8cHXP8P4A
Scary huh!
So, let me show what happens when, instead of trying to mis-inform and
scare, you are trying to educate and communicate.
First, you take the same data, and establish that Greenland is melting at
about 130 km2 each year (50 square miles).
You can even show the same first chart.
Second, you communicate how much ice coverage there is in Greenland, about
734,000 square miles of ice. Also, you
communicate that most of the ice sheet is over a mile thick.
Now you can make another chart showing the affect of that melting on the
total ice sheet. At this rate it would
take 14,680 years to melt. At this rate,
over the next hundred years, the Greenland ice sheet would drop to 729,000
square miles and total sea level rise would be 2 inches.
Not quite as scary huh?
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