Denialist Hosted on Own Petard

Here's a classic of denialist logic. A survey is done that supports the view that global warming is real, we're causing it and it is serious. In this case it is the Catlin team. How does one commentator respond? With denialism...

The denalists accuse the survey team of lying, deception, making up data, incompetence and endangering others. Here are some samples;

"The whole thing was a publicity stunt, with little scientific value. Their findings have nothing of value to say about global warming, one way or the other."

"Ill-planned, ill-thought out."

"It seems to me that Catlin have conducted a useless and dangerous mission, (in the best traditions of British exploring) putting their lives and those of others at risk."

And so forth, yadda, yadda.

Their evidence? That a German team also did research into the ice-thickness but using different methods and finding different results. This sent the denial crew into a tizzy;

"As the Catlin team floundered on the ice the Germans meanwhile were doing real science."

"the catlin data though doubtful,is in line with various other observations. 1.77m is quite thick for first year's ice agreeing with the much better planned and executed German mission that stated that arctic ice was thicker than expected."

So this seems like another slam-dunk for the team denial. Except that, as per usual only half the story is told; What the German team found was;

a) The two surveys were clearly not studying the same region.

b) The Polar 5 expedition actually says that they saw localized thickening compared to recent years, which leads to the conclusion that Arctic ice cover recovers temporarily.

Which led a commenter to ask the denial team:

And now that you have admitted that the Polar 5 expedition produced good science and reliable results, will you endorse its actual conclusion, that the long term trend is thinning of the ice although there is some short term thickening?

After big-ing up the German research - which they had only read re-workings of from denialist websites, they were hoisted on their own petard. Such fun.

Answer to that from team denial? Silence. Then more white-noise about other fake-memes.

Reminds me of a fun debate on Bristol Indymedia where denialists cited a report suggesting increased numbers of polar bears as evidence - except they had not bothered to read the real research, which found localised increases in numbers as the animals moved closer to human settlements due to loss of habitat from global warming.

Answer to that from team denial? Silence. Then more white-noise about other fake-memes.