George Will's dead cat bounce

In the ever unfolding story about George Will's climate fantasies, Steve Benen comments on this WaPo article.

It's safe to assume Will is furious to be exposed this way, but more to the point, it seems the Post is well aware that one of its highest-profile voices has published several columns with demonstrably false claims. Why, I wonder, hasn't the paper run any Will-related corrections?

I'd say it matters rather little to the likes of George Will if he is factually correct. This story has been bandied around at everyone's favorite wingnut environment fantasy league for a while now. How long?

Since about the end of summer 2007. In the daytrading world, one would call this a putative dead-cat bounce. Sea ice levels fell so low in '07 that it was a good guess that they might not be as low in the summer of '08 (certainly not as low over the winter).

The argument doesn't necessarily need science. If one gets enough people to believe that this is an actual reversal trend (a cat bouncing up after falling from the roof of a building) rather than just a short-term reversal (even dead cats bounce when dropped of a building) in a longer-term trend, that's all that's required here of George and others. This year's maximum ice is almost as high as 1979's minimum ice is what conservative bloggers and pundits peddle and the public winds up being the bagholder once the longer-term trend is re-established.

Along those lines, a post about sunspots is a bit risky right about now. But I doubt the knuckleheads who follow Will and others will remember the brief reprieve we've been fortunate enough to have in global temperature gains recently.