The Tracker rather keenly doubts that anybody’s topped-up bourbon on the rocks ever overflowed because the ice in the glass melted. At least a few people at CNN, which not so long ago let most of its veteran science reporters go but promised to keep up the good work via such running projects as its Planet in Peril program, appear not to understand why an ocean’s level doesn’t much care if some floating ice melts. An installment just out contains the evidence. Twice, reporter Azadeh Ansari wrote – and the editors failed to catch – the assertion that the melting of the polar ice cap will raise sea levels. That would be true if the reference were to the glacial masses on Greenland and on Antarctica, which really are ice caps resting on land. The context clearly shows the topic here is the ice pack afloat on the Arctic Ocean. It’s already in the water. Sea level accomodates its mass and volume the same whether it’s solid or fluid. The only way its melt could raise sea level would be the slight warming and thermal expansion of sea water in areas newly exposed to direct sunlight. One doubts that’s the phenomenon behind CNN’s assertion.
The story by and large is a timely and useful catch-up on a trio of British explorers attempting to reach the North Pole on foot and to measure the ice’s condition en route. One finds a few additional bits of scruff. One puzzler, but perhaps true, is the story’s report that, so close to the magnetic pole, the intrepid party has a hard time telling direction, especially at night. The Tracker had thought GPS satellites provide global coverage and info on such things. Are are they trekking along only with radio satellite phones but all other gear (like compasses) of the sort Shackleton or Amundsen might have carried? Another is the declaration here that “Geological evidence known as the paleorecord suggests that the Earth’s sea ice has been in existence for 13 million years.” Well, first of all, the paleorecord published in journals is not evidence directly, but is a compilation of deductions from such evidence. That’s just nitpicking. More important, does this declaration include sea ice at or near both north and south poles, and is it referring only to permanent year-round sea ice or what? Is it possible (my guess:no) that even in the dark of winter, there was no sea ice either place for a time prior to 13 million years ago?
One has to salute CNN for its Planet in Peril efforts and this story in particular for keeping such concerns before the public. But a little more care on technical detail would go a long way.
!!! Speaking of Punctiliousness in the face of Published Errors: Did you see this in the corrections box (scroll down to “The Arts” item) of this morning’s NYTimes, running simultaneously with the Times’s account by Robin Pogrebin of the watch in question today? One learns that this bit of brilliant attention to the big picture and to the tying up of loose ends is the work of a senior editor named Greg Bock and ass’t m.e. Craig Whitney. Kudos.
-CP
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