Really we don’t. And if someone delivers it, we won’t answer the doorbell or bring it in off the porch. Such, at any rate, seems to be the reaction of climate alarmists to the wretched stuff expanding. Climate Compass admits that “Antarctic Ice Growth Surprises Climate Experts”. Meanwhile an AFP “Fact Check” (which to borrow a line from Captain Blood states the purpose for which it was put there not the function it actually performed) offers the headline “Antarctica’s brief gain in ice mass fuels climate denial” thus ridiculing anyone who claims the expansion of Antarctic ice is evidence that Antarctic ice is expanding. Even Fox, held by some to be right-wing, assured readers “Scientists warn, however, that this shift doesn’t mean the climate crisis is over. The gains were linked to unusual precipitation patterns, which may be temporary.” So climate change makes the ice melt, except when it makes it grow. In which case it melts anyway.

The bare facts are these. As the Climate Cosmos piece started:

“In a remarkable shift that has climate experts talking, Antarctic sea ice reached a record high in September 2024, covering an astonishing 19.4 million square kilometers according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). This surge outpaced all previous measurements and has forced the scientific community to revisit assumptions about ice loss in a warming world.”

Naturally what they’re doing is revisiting nothing, since their various speculations are all about how to keep the theory intact and never mind the wretched data. The planet is warming, humans are responsible, it’s a disaster including melting the Antarctic ice, the models work really well or will as soon as we somehow kluge them to predict this mess after the fact without changing their long-range projections, and this white stuff is just in the way. As the piece says, in its section on “Implications for Global Sea Levels”:

“This complex balancing act makes predicting future sea-level changes more difficult. The current growth in Antarctic ice, therefore, should not be interpreted as a sign that climate risks have diminished.”

Got that? Just because the process they insist is happening went into full reverse and they don’t know why is no reason not to claim it isn’t happening. And the fact that they’re now more confused about what’s going on doesn’t mean they’re any less certain about what’s going on. Because climate.

Thus AFP declared indignantly:

“After scientists reported a brief but notable uptick in ice mass in Antarctica, climate skeptics utilized the data to claim the continent does not suffer from human-induced warming. This is false; the short-lived reversal in ice mass does not indicate long-term recovery in the continent but instead stems from specific weather conditions, scientists say.”

And when journalists say scientists say, you know they called the scientists who would say what they wanted them to say. Who they did at least name, unlike Fox.

The herd of independent minds milled about like Emperor Penguins in Antarctic midwinter, in a tight circle huddled together for mutual warmth and support. Thus LiveScience contributed… nothing. In this form:

“NASA satellites show Antarctica has gained ice despite rising global temperatures. How is that possible? An abrupt change in Antarctica has caused the continent to gain ice. But this increase, documented in NASA satellite data, is a temporary anomaly rather than an indication that global warming has reversed, scientists say.”

At least this stuff writes itself:

“Antarctica has gained ice in recent years, despite increasing average global temperatures and climate change, a new study finds.”

Despite climate change. Nothing to see here, folks. And we have our hands over our eyes just in case. By the way Reuters had a “Fact Check” that said “Fact Check: Cherry-picked Antarctic ice data does not disprove climate change”. And it wasn’t even about the same issue. This stuff writes itself.

As for the scientists who wrote the paper, it seems they wished no one to have any idea what they said. The title is “Spatiotemporal mass change rate analysis from 2002 to 2023 over the Antarctic Ice Sheet and four glacier basins in Wilkes-Queen Mary Land” and the Summary of their paper starts:

“To accurately evaluate the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) mass change rate and its spatiotemporal characteristics, we derive the AIS mass change series from April 2002 to December 2023 using an improved point-mass model approach with data-driven regularization matrices and iteratively determined multiple regularization parameters.”

Zzzzzzzz.

Apparently their study covered 22 years of “satellite gravimetry data”. Whether AFP considers that period “brief” or an epoch was not specified in their article. But the press release, because nowadays the publicity machine seems to drive the science, ended you’ll never guess how. Oh. You guessed:

“Notably, the complete disintegration of these four glaciers could potentially trigger a global mean sea level rise exceeding 7 meters. Their pronounced ablation patterns already constitute a critical climate warning signal, warranting greater scientific attention to their stability.”

Massive crisis must have more subsidies. This stuff writes itself.

P.S. Something called “The Watchers” commented that “Antarctica has shown a rare shift in behavior, gaining ice mass between 2021 and 2023 after years of steady decline. Using satellite gravimetry, researchers tracked this anomaly and linked it to unusual precipitation rather than long-term change. The findings offer insight into the continent’s sensitivity, but little certainty about what comes next.” But of course we don’t know if it’s rare, because it offers no insight into its sensitivity given that we have no real basis for comparison. But at least they had a lot of uncertainty.