I want to take you on a journey through time and space. Specifically, I want to take you along the long and convoluted trail of citations that leads from David Bellamy's surprising 2005 assertion, in a letter to New Scientist, that the vast majority of glaciers under observation were in fact increasing in size; and the 1988 paper from which this "fact" was ultimately taken. It's a fascinating story, that I think acts as a kind of exemplar for everything that can go wrong in using sources on the internet (HT: Deltoid).

We begin with Bellamy's claim, which ran counter to what many people believed at the time, and was immediately seized on by a number of so-called "climate skeptics".

David Bellamy, New Scientist, 16th April 2005.
"555 of all the 625 glaciers under observation by the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich, Switzerland, have been growing since 1980"

George Monbiot picked up on this claim in his Guardian column on the 10th May 2005, and wondered where it had come from. He contacted the World Glacier Monitoring Service by telephone, and their response was blunt - "this is complete bullshit." Monbiot then contacted Bellamy, who stated that the data came from a website called www.iceagenow.com - an insane site set up to promote a self-published book about "the coming ice age" by Robert W Felix.

Robert Felix, IceAgeNow.com, 2004
"Since 1980, there has been an advance of more than 55% of the 625 mountain glaciers under observation by the World Glacier Monitoring group in Zurich."

But hang on, Bellamy's made a mistake. Ice Age Now says "55% of the 625", and in Bellamy's letter this some how becomes "555 of the 625". What happened? Did he fail to hold the shift key?

Where did Felix get this "fact" from? Well he copied it directly from an article by Laurence Hecht.

Laurence Hecht, 21st Century Science & Tech, Winter 2003
"Since 1980, there has been an advance of more than 55% of the 625 mountain glaciers under observation by the World Glacier Monitoring group in Zurich."

No distortion this time, but the Hecht's article is in a magazine run by Lyndon LaRouche - an interesting source. As Monbiot summarizes: "Lyndon LaRouche is the American demagogue who in 1989 received a 15-year sentence for conspiracy, mail fraud and tax-code violations. He has claimed that the British royal family is running an international drugs syndicate, that Henry Kissinger is a communist agent, that the British government is controlled by Jewish bankers, and that modern science is a conspiracy against human potential."

So where did Hecht get this from? Apparently the infamous Fred Singer, at SEPP.org.

S Fred Singer, SEPP.org
"The World Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich, Switzerland, in a paper published in Science in 1989, noted that between 1926 and 1960 more than 70 percent of 625 mountain glaciers in the [mid-latitude] United States, Soviet Union, Iceland, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy were retreating. After 1980, however, 55 percent of these same glaciers were advancing."

SEPP introduced the meme to the internet then, where they quickly spread. As Monbiot found, "they were then reproduced by the appropriately named junkscience.com, by the Cooler Heads Coalition, the US National Centre for Public Policy Research and countless others. They have even found their way into the Washington Post."

So what did this paper in Science in 1989 say? Well there isn't one. Eventually, the claim was traced back (ironically by climate skeptics) to a paper in a different journal [1].

Fred Wood, Journal of Arctic and Alpine Research, November 1988
"Between 1960 and 1980, on the basis of data for about 400 to 450 glaciers observed each year, advancing glaciers are shown to have increased from about 6% of observed glaciers to 55%. During the 1960 to 1980 period, on the basis of data for about 50 glaciers observed each year, annual mass balance is shown to be, on the average, positive for about 57% of observed glaciers in the European Alps and for 40% of observed glaciers in the other monitored areas of the world."

So the original source was actually talking about observations made of 400-450 glaciers (less than 0.5% of the World's total), of which 57% in the Alps were advancing between 1960 and 1980, while only 40% in the rest of the world were. Far from suggesting that the majority of glaciers around the world are advancing, it actually says the complete opposite, while noting the exception of the Alps in which a number of glaciers were advancing until 1980. Of course, since 1980 glaciers in the Alps have been melting rapidly, and in fact the World Glacier Monitoring Service suggest there will be no glaciers left in the Alps within a few decades.

So there we have it, a chain of 5 people playing a game of Chinese whispers across the internet. It's an important case study though, because it serves as an example of three of the biggest problems in science communication today.

1. The Abuse of Authority. Frankly, David Bellamy's letter was pathetic. The man has built up a reputation over the years as an authority on environmental issues, and with that position comes responsibility. When he makes a statement, it should be backed up by the primary source, and not by a quote taken from promotional material for a book. It's shockingly poor, and he deserves to never be taken seriously again.

2. Carelessness vs Manipulation.
Every time the meme was duplicated, a little bit of the information in it was lost or altered. It was ripped out of its essentialy context by Singer, then the phrase "after 1980... were advancing" was replaced with "since 1980... have advanced", subtlely altering the tense to imply a trend that continues to the present. Finally we have Bellamy's inability to use the Shift key.

But is this deliberate manipulation or simple carelessness? My cop-out answer is that I think it's a combination of the two. I think that these errors are exactly the sort you could make if you were simply skimming text in search of something to suit your position, rather than actively trying to research the truth. In short, I think that these people were careless, but their carelessness came from a sort of extremely selective Myopia caused by their subconscious bias. They didn't try to conceal the truth - they simply weren't interested in it.

3. Tenacity of Memes.
The 55% figure spread across the internet very rapidly, as Monbiot notes even reaching the Washington Post. The fact that it has spread so far, in so many different versions, and that it is so far removed from any source, makes it difficult to counter. Like many similar memes, it is liable to spin around the internet for years to come, occasionally surfacing at a dinner party, or in the letter pages of your local paper. Once fake facts escape, it becomes very difficult to track them down and kill them.

Most of all, this story illustrates the vital importance of directly citing primary sources. With the best will in the world, allowing a piece of information to become disconnected from the evidence it rests on, is almost guaranteed to result in errors somewhere down the line.

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[1] Wood, F.B. Global Alpine Glacier Trends, 1960s to 1980s. Arctic and Alpine Research 20, 404-413(1988)