Drewski Part Deux

Drewski says :

Steve Goddard: “The Arctic Ocean is smaller than the US.”

Actually the Arctic Ocean occupies a roughly circular basin and covers an area of about 14,056,000 km2 (5,427,000 sq mi), almost the size of Russia — the United States (including Alaska and interior lakes) is 3,794,083 square miles — roughly 50% smaller.

Steve, how many simple geographical mistakes does that make for you now?

http://geology.com/world/arctic-ocean-map.shtml

Google Earth animation at eye altitude 6795.59 miles. The lower 48 states are slightly larger than the Arctic Ocean, and Alaska makes it much larger.

About Tony Heller

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52 Responses to Drewski Part Deux

  1. suyts says:

    lol, fun group of people you have watching you, Steve. Kinda makes it all worth it sometimes.

  2. Tony Duncan says:

    Wow,

    Steve I see another Nobel on the way. By using the unimpeachable scientific procedure of eyeballing, you have totally disproven the socialist idea of actual measurement!
    I can’t wait to see every source of geology rewriting all the geological references of the entire planet.

    So even if ACC is right and Manhattanites need gondola’s to get around, you place in history is secured.

  3. Scott says:

    It really depends on what you count as the Arctic Ocean. Drewski seems to have gotten his info from Wikipedia (uncited).

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Ocean

    The next paragraph at Wikipedia says:

    It is generally taken to include Baffin Bay, Barents Sea, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, East Siberian Sea, Greenland Sea, Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, White Sea and other tributary bodies of water. It is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Bering Strait and to the Atlantic Ocean through the Greenland Sea and Labrador Sea.[1]

    Again, this comes down to the definition of what the Arctic ocean…this argument has been had here in the past and people clearly choose the definition that best suits what they see fit, so there’s no point to have it again.

    On the other hand, numbers don’t lie, but Drewski apparently does. Using his very own numbers, the U.S. would be 30.1% smaller than the Arctic Ocean. How is that at all 50%…it’s not even close! The only way I’d see to get 50% would be to round to the nearest 50.

    Well, let’s use that method too…we’ll round to the nearest 50, but I’m choosing to go on the assumption that Hudson Bay is not part of the Arctic Ocean. Using the size of Hudson Bay here (yes, I cite, even though it’s Wiki):
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_Bay
    I subtract that size from Drewski’s numbers and get the U.S. as being 23.5% smaller than the Arctic Ocean. Drewski’s clearly a super expert, so I’ll use his round to the nearest 50 approach, meaning the U.S. is the same size as the Arctic Ocean (for the slow, because 23.5 rounds to 0).

    I hope this keeps all the arguments that happened last time we discussed the definition of the Arctic Ocean from happening again…they’re a waste of time. It goes to show how you can say whatever you want by choosing to include/exclude various seas/bays.

    -Scott

  4. Paul H says:

    Drewski’s Arctic Ocean area includes our old friends Hudson Bay + co!

    total: 14.056 million sq km
    note: includes Baffin Bay, Barents Sea, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, East Siberian Sea, Greenland Sea, Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, Northwest Passage, and other tributary water bodies

    Perhaps the US figure ought to include Kenya!

    • The US is actually part of Kenya now.

      • Tony Duncan says:

        Steve,

        then you admit the birth certificate issue is total nonsense. Glad we agree about something.

      • Scott says:

        then you admit the birth certificate issue is total nonsense. Glad we agree about something

        I really enjoyed that comment!

        -Scott

      • Rattus Norvegicus says:

        Steve,

        The ironic thing is that the Certification of Live Birth released in 2008 *is* admissible in a court of law as evidence. Says so right on the thing.

        It also meets all the requirements for obtaining a US passport.

      • bubbagyro says:

        Rattus:
        True, but if the certification is a forgery, bringing that to court as evidence is a B Felony.

      • Scott says:

        Tony Duncan says:
        April 30, 2011 at 3:46 am

        also the 50% could come from where one is comparing the fraction. it could either be 43% larger than the US or US could be 30% smaller than the Arctic

        Tony, normally I like your comments, but this time you’re really grasping at straws. Look at the sentence structure for your 30% example…”US” is the noun. Compare that to the 43% larger one…”it” [Arctic Ocean] is the (pro)noun. Now compare to the original quote.

        — the United States (including Alaska and interior lakes) is 3,794,083 square miles — roughly 50% smaller.

        Getting rid of the extraneous words gives “United States is 50% smaller”…essentially the exact structure of your 30% example. I don’t see any way that the sentence can be interpreted the other way.

        And lets just presume it could be. Where in the world does 50% come from? Rounding to the nearest 5%?..no. Rounding to the nearest 10%?..no. Rounding to the nearest 20?..no. Rounding to the nearest 25%..yes! Why in the world would a person round to the nearest 25% in this case? The only reasons I can come up with are: (1) did the math wrong, (2) didn’t do the math, and (3) did the math but exaggerated Steve’s error. Are any of these defensible?

        No, I don’t agree with Steve’s conclusion here. But at least one can make an argument that the choice of area measurement is at least somewhat subjective. Simple division is not subjective, so trying to defend bad math is a bit ridiculous. If the AGW believers were as objective as they say, shouldn’t we see articles being written by Tamino showing how poor Drewski’s math is?

        -Scott

    • Tony Duncan says:

      Paul,

      don’t see any google connection between kenya and the US, not even from geosynchronous orbit!
      Maybe people need to get their parameters straight before ridiculing each other. Certainly everyone I read, denier or believer, includes All the places you mention when referring to sea ice extent. does the Pacific include the sea of Japan, Sea of China, etc?

      • omnologos says:

        is that Arctic sea ice cover we’re talking about, or Arctic Ocean ice cover?

        Hudson Bay is in the Arctic. But if Hudson Bay is in the Arctic Ocean, Crimea is in the Atlantic.

      • Scott says:

        does the Pacific include the sea of Japan, Sea of China, etc?

        Only if you round to the nearest 50%. 😉

        This was by far the most grievous error in Drewski’s comment, yet no one else seems to discuss it. Differences in assumptions are one thing (that are argued over and over again here to no avail), but horrible math is unquestionably bad.

        -Scott

      • Paul H says:

        Tony

        My atlas shows the Arctic Ocean as clearly not including all the extraneous seas. But as Scott says, why get bogged down over semantics?

      • omnologos says:

        So the “Arctic Ocean” includes all areas of the Northern Hemisphere that were/are covered by ice.

        Therefore my London house is in the Arctic Ocean too.

      • It's always Marcia, Marcia says:

        I think it has been determined by James Hansen that Florida is part of Europe.

        I remember those posts.

      • Tony Duncan says:

        Paul,

        every source that I have seen on the internet from Wiki to universities to NASA used the 14 million KM number. Unless they all changed to that number after seeing Steve’s post, I see no validity in Steve’s post. He can argue that the accepted area is not the best description, but looking at what areas are considered part of the Pacific it is not unreasonable.

        and the person who put the arctic at the size of the US by basing it on 75°, the antarctic seems to be considered to extend from 60°

        also the 50% could come from where one is comparing the fraction. it could either be 43% larger than the US or US could be 30% smaller than the Arctic

        • The context of the discussion was the Arctic Basin where Hansen has no data, extrapolates large numbers and bumps the global temperature way up. Is that difficult for you to understand?

    • Tony Duncan says:

      Steve,

      you are right again. Obama should personally bring the paper copy of his birth certificate to every American citizen for them to ascertain it’s validity. After all as president he is our servant. The business of running the executive branch can be left to Biden for the next 5 1/2 years

    • Tony Duncan says:

      Scott,

      i was not defending the math, just pointing out that it might not be as egregious as it sounds. Even 43% is not 50. What I was saying was that he might have been thinking that the Arctic was 50% bigger than the US, which would actually be ~43%. He may have just been exaggerating for effect. I don’t defend that. As I have pointed out on this blog many times it is silly to exaggerate when it is so obviously wrong.

  5. mkelly says:

    A= (pi)r^2
    1 deg lat = 69.172 miles
    using 75 deg N as a rough ring for Artic Ocean
    90-75 = 15 deg
    15 * 69.172 = 1037.58 miles equals r
    1037.58^2 * (pi) = 3382151.49 sq miles

    Or slightly smaller than US.

    Check my math.

    • bubbagyro says:

      Of course, your calculations comprise land masses. I guess land is part of the sea, according to the genius Drewski.

      Have another brewski, Drewski! Then pulling out your hair won’t hurt so bad.

      • mkelly says:

        I should have included to translate the center of the circle southerly towards the magnetic pole to get rid of as much land as possible.

    • Alexej Buergin says:

      I am checking your math:
      If you are using “a rough ring” it makes no sense to do such an exact calculation. So I would use 1 ° lat = 69 sm (if you take as radius of the earth the radius of a sphere with equal volume, you get 69.108 anyhow). And your result would just be 3.4 million square miles, which still is a bit smaller than the USA.
      And it is not a circle, but a “cut off” piece of a sphere (does anyone know the proper english name for that?).

  6. Lance says:

    Well, keep that in mind that it includes all these other areas, I’m sure down the road, something will come back and bite them when they try to exclude those areas….as being part of the arctic ocean.

  7. Al Gored says:

    Yes, yes, but the Arctic Ocean will be getting larger as the sea levels relentlessly rise.

    So all this debate about its relative size is premature.

    Since we can’t come up with the real data, we can always just photoshop in the Arctic ocean. That now counts as evidence. It could even cover Hawaii.

  8. sunsettommy says:

    “The Arctic Ocean is smaller than the US.”

    Not a mention about the seas or bays.Therefore it is just a specific area.

    Just the ARCTIC OCEAN,he writes.

    Therefore it is smaller than America.

  9. It's always Marcia, Marcia says:

    The United States at what point in history?

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