News and Comment

Why getting it right matters

22 September 2011

Climate change experts are concerned that exaggerated reporting of glacier melting could damage the credibility of climate change scientists. The publishers of the new edition of the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World have apologised for a claim made in a press release for the Atlas that there has been a 15% reduction in ice cover on Greenland in the last 12 years. The press release said that this provides “concrete evidence of how climate change is altering the face of the planet for ever – and doing so at an alarming rate.”

Scientists at the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge wrote to the publishers to say the claim is wrong and that Greenland’s glaciers are melting at a much slower rate. They said “there is to our knowledge no support for this claim [of a 15% reduction in glacier coverage] in the published scientific literature.” Since then the publishers have said the claim was made “without consulting the scientific community and was incorrect.”

Professor Elizabeth Morris, quoted in Tuesday’s Telegraph was clear why the publisher of the Atlas should get the facts right saying “the danger is if people quote these absurd figures the next thing that happens is climate change sceptics say scientists are making daft claims. We are not!”

For more on peer reviewed scientific publication as an arbiter of scientific quality see our short guide.

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