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Author Topic: "Thin Ice" - The Movie  (Read 3188 times)

Jim Hunt

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"Thin Ice" - The Movie
« on: August 06, 2014, 10:20:18 AM »
I finally got to watch "Thin Ice - The Inside Story of Climate Science" last night, at a Free Cinema Exeter event at the Bike Shed theatre.

I also found myself giving an ad hoc introduction to the movie. Stuart assured the restive audience that "Jim will speak for 2 minutes max". He lied, but I nonetheless received a round of applause as I sat down. I introduced myself as an "Arctic sea ice nutter" and "The world's leading Arctic surfing expert". I pointed out that, in my view at least:

"The Arctic is the canary in the climate coal mine".

There is a brief report on last night's event over on the "The Mail's Great White Arctic Sea Ice Con" thread, but here I'd like to discuss the film itself.

I was impressed. It didn't tell me a whole lot I didn't already know, but it seemed to me to put the story across well to those not already as obsessed with the cryosphere as yours truly. It was obviously filmed over a considerable period of time, showing Phil Jones pre "Climategate" and looking more like an absent minded professor than an evil conspirator. Phil's desk is even more cluttered than my own!

I was particularly pleased to see that the basic physics featured prominently. Ray Pierrehumbert was there looking very furry whilst getting the message across effectively:



whilst amongst other things Myles Allen had this to say:



There was also an animation of increasing global temperatures which finished up with the Arctic looking very red indeed, and please note that there's a whole host of other interesting videos over on the Thin Ice YouTube channel and also on Vimeo. Last, but not least, is Simon Lamb's recent TEDx presentation:


 
Here's a few resources related to things that cropped up in the post movie discussion:

"Infrared radiation and planetary temperature" by Ray Pierrehumbert in Physics Today

"Coverage bias in the HadCRUT4 temperature series and its impact on recent temperature trends" by Kevin Cowtan & Robert Way

 "Is Antarctica losing or gaining ice?" at Skeptical Science, and the ASIF Antarctica section.

Has anybody else watched the film? If so what did you make of it?
« Last Edit: August 06, 2014, 01:07:29 PM by Jim Hunt »
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Anne

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Re: "Thin Ice" - The Movie
« Reply #1 on: August 06, 2014, 11:23:23 AM »
I saw it quite a while back, and took a sceptical physicist friend along. I was impressed; he came away seriously revising his conviction that AGW is a religion. But he was contemptuous of the fact they'd included testimony from Inuit and Saami. As far as he was concerned that was mere anecdote that had no place in scientific discussion. I must say I didn't find it jarring at all - it helped to round out the science by bringing in the human impact.