Unforeseen Contingencies

That's the motto of the conservative Media Research Center. And their director, Tim Graham, cautions us, "It’s always wise to check out the actual science developments on global warming issues when liberal reporters insist, with a rather unscientific attitude, that there is no opposing side to report on."

Good point. And it applies doubly when conservative "media experts" are doing the reporting.

In Graham's A Non-Melting Arctic Ice Update (on the MRC "New Busters" site) he illustrates the "liberal reporter" bias on global warming by contrasting an op-ed in the Washington Post (by a member of Ocean Conservancy, not a reporter) that mentions loss of polar sea ice with recent findings as reported in the online "Daily Tech."

Graham's "Daily Tech" quotes really didn't seem to me to contradict global warming, but as Graham counsels, I decided to be "wise" and "check out the actual science developments." So... straight to the original source I went, to the site of the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign Department of Atmospheric Sciences Polar Research Group for the data that purportedly contradict the melting sea ice op-ed.

Interestingly enough, the site has a link to a nice little summary of the Polar Research Group findings that explicitly address the (ahem) errors in the Daily Tech article. As it turns out, PRG reports its findings are actually quite consistent with predictions of models that show global warming, and that measured reductions in ice areas understate ice losses, since they don't account for lost ice volume.

MRC's media experts claim the purpose of NewsBusters is "to provide immediate exposure of liberal media bias, insightful analysis, constructive criticism and timely corrections to news media reporting."

I wonder how timely their correction to their own work will be.