Editor, Gazette-Journal:
In response to my letter about climate scientists underestimating the effects of manmade global warming, Mr. Ted Williams of Gloucester (Aug. 21 Readers Write) used the scripted distortions we see deniers using everywhere. Unfortunately for Mr. Williams, his scripts are all totally wrong. Thankfully, he gave us the deniers’ website as his source so I need say no more. Let’s go through them point by point.
 Mr. Williams states: “Arctic sea ice is the highest measured in a decade.” He is skating on thin ice here. Discussions about the amount of sea ice in the Arctic often (deliberately) switch two very different measures of how much ice there is. One measure is sea-ice extent which, as the name implies, is a measure of coverage of the ocean surface. It is a two-dimensional measurement; extent does not tell us how thick the ice is. It is made up of considerable new ice and necessarily very thin. The other measure of Arctic ice, using a...