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  • 2021-02-16 (xsd:date)
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  • Did the 'USS Al Gore' Get Stuck in Ice? (en)
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  • In February 2021, as much of the United States was experiencing unusually cold weather, a photograph started circulating on social media that supposedly showed a global warming research vessel dubbed the USS Al Gore frozen in ice: This is a genuine photograph but it does not show a ship called the USS Al Gore. It should also be noted that the premise of this joke — a global warming research vessel encountering cold weather — is based on a common and persistent misunderstanding of climate change. While Al Gore, who served as the 45th vice president of the United States during U.S. President Bill Clinton's administration, has been warning people about climate change since at least 2006 when he released his documentary An Inconvenient Truth, there is no global warming research vessel in the United States navy that bears his name. This photograph, too, is several years old. While we have not been able to find a definitive source for this picture, it appears that it was taken in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2005. In other words, this photo has nothing to do with Gore. This meme also appears to confuse climate with weather. Kevin Petty, director of science and forecast operations for The Weather Company, explained the difference between these two terms in an article published by the Weather Channel: Global warming is another term that causes some confusion. While the data shows that average global temperatures have been climbing for decades, that does not mean that wintry weather is a thing of the past. In fact, the cold snap in the United States in February 2021 may actually show the impact of climate change: PBS NewsHour reporter Amna Nawaz talked to Dev Niyogi, a professor at the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Texas, Austin, about this issue: (en)
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