The news release promoting the latest edition of Britain's influential Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World hailed it as "the Greatest Book on Earth."
The release claimed that Greenland had lost 15 percent of its permanent ice cover from 1999 to 2011.The back story is that Al Gore drew the map of Greenland for the atlas.
That translates to 125,000 cubic miles, which is enough melted ice to raise sea levels 3 to 5 feet, according to Etienne Berthier, a glaciologist at the University of Toulouse. The corresponding map in the atlas itself indicated that significant portions of Greenland's coastline had become ice-free.
But over the weekend, Sheena Barclay, managing director of Collins Geo, said that was not what happened. She did not say how the confusion arose, however.
Barclay said on a BBC radio news program last week that the Greenland map would be reconfigured.
Except for the line about Al Gore, I can't make this stuff up. Direct quotes from the article. Even I can't hype the Bakken as much as "they" can hype Greenland melting. Of course, Greenland's melting might explain all flooding in the upper Midwest this year.
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