Mapmaking is a difficult and, at times, politically charged task. Publishers of the Times Atlas have found themselves in hot water after printing Greenland much smaller than it is and then issuing a press release to that effect.
The Greenland problem
Greenland’s total ice mass is a difficult number to accurately calculate. The ice mass in Greenland fluctuates seasonally, and the total mass of ice as compared to total volume also fluctuates regularly. The Times Atlas, published by HarperCollins, published a change to its world atlas that showed a 15 percent reduction in total ice mass on the island nation. The difference was between the 10th and 13th editions of the atlas, which usually has very small changes from edition to edition.
The HarperCollins press release
Upon the publishing of the 13th edition of the HarperCollins World Atlas, the publisher put out a press release that stated that between 1999 and 2011, Greenland lost 15 percent of its ice cover. The press release was widely reported on around the world.
Tricky numbers
The problem with the claim that Greenland has lost 15 percent of its ice mass is that it’s simply not true. Losing that much ice mass would mean that the sea level around Greenland would rise by between three and five feet. The actual retreat of ice between 1999 and 2011 is close to about 0.1 percent. HarperCollins claims to be “urgently reviewing” its Greenland data, stating:
“We use data supplied by the U.S. Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. Our data shows that it has reduced by 15 percent. That’s categorical.”
Trying to identify icemelt
The job of identifying and mapping the melting of glaciers and ice sheets is difficult at best. Climate change models predict icemelt at a particular rate that is based on changing water temperature, air temperature and other seasonal changes. Such a huge loss of ice would mean that all generally accepted climate change models would need to be re-drawn to account for the speed at which the ice is retreating. Identifying the icemelt speed is important for creating models of the climate and temperature changes.
Sources
The Takeaway: http://www.thetakeaway.org/2011/sep/26/times-atlas-erroneously-depicts-greenland-land-erosion/
The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/20/times-atlas-incorrect-greenland
New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/science/earth/25atlas.html
Andrea is an entrepreneur, photographer and avid bike commuter with experience in everything from catering and construction to marketing and web design. Andrea writes extensively about technology, healthcare, and food.
PG&E to pay $70 million for pipeline tragedy
Pacific Gas and Electric Co., a northern California utility, has agreed to pay $70 million to the California town of San Bruno for a pipeline explosion that killed eight people in 2010. Company says it’s remorseful The San Francisco-based power company’s president, Chris Johns, released a statement Monday, saying PG&E is sorry and eager to [...]
Judge stabbed and deputy shot in Washington courthouse
Following a standoff in a Washington state county courtroom Friday, a man reportedly escaped after shooting a sheriff’s deputy in the shoulder and stabbing a judge in the neck. The man is still at large. Treachery among the tree farms The incident occurred Friday afternoon in the western Washington town of Montesano, which bills itself [...]
Microraptor was one flashy little dinosaur
A team of Chinese and American scientists have found that Microraptor, a small four winged dinosaur that went extinct about 130 million years ago, was likely black and almost certainly had glossy, iridescent feathers. Until now, the coloring of extinct creatures was a matter of pure speculation. That may no longer be the case. The [...]
Autocorrected message leads to school lockdown
Adjacent schools in Georgia were locked down for two hours Wednesday after a text message reportedly warned of a “gunman” on campus. Later, it was learned that the message was the result of a smartphone autocorrect function, attempting to “fix” the misspelled slang word “gunna.” A series of mixups A series of mixups led to [...]
