Republican War on Science Continues!

Discover Magazine has a great article on George Will's and the Washington Post's failure to perform basic fact checking in his article about global climate change not being a legitimate concern...In his article, Will claimed that:

As global levels of sea ice declined last year, many experts said this was evidence of man-made global warming. Since September, however, the increase in sea ice has been the fastest change, either up or down, since 1979, when satellite record-keeping began. According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.

Unfortunately, the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center said no such thing, issuing a rebuttal on their website:

In an opinion piece by George Will published on February 15, 2009 in the Washington Post, George Will states “According to the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.”

We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979. This decrease in sea ice area is roughly equal to the area of Texas, California, and Oklahoma combined.

It is disturbing that the Washington Post would publish such information without first checking the facts.

Rumor has it that Will is coming out with another article in tomorrow's Post where he continues to defend his lack of fact checking... Stay classy, conservatives!