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So about that ice

01 Sep 2021 | News Roundup

In the climate alarmist creed one passage reads “We believe in the melting Arctic ice, and the rising sea that proceedeth from it” or words to that effect. Along with more and fiercer storms, wildfires and droughts, crop failures and such. We have tackled all these claims repeatedly and apparently will have to again. Including, this week, that vexed ice whose disappearance is an article of faith. Also known as “the evidence of things not seen.” Because while they have been quietly backing away from Antarctica which seems to have cooled dramatically over a period of decades, they’re still on about vanishing Arctic ice that, well, isn’t. Perhaps because compared to a 1979-2000 baseline, current Arctic temperatures are actually down slightly.

One commentor attempting to educate us about vanishing Arctic ice referred us to the Danish Meteorological Institute’s Arctic Sea Ice data. But their chart shows that there’s more of it at this point than in any of the past five years. It also includes a nebulous grey line indicating, apparently, the average for 1981-2010 which is well above this year’s figure. But anyone who is not deliberately misleading people knows that there was a dramatic buildup in Arctic ice from around 1940 to the beginning of the satellite era in 1979 (it’s one of the things Leonard Nimoy used in his 1978 special to warn that a new Ice Age was coming), and that to use the peak of a natural cycle as a baseline is cheating.

The real question is why, if the planet is warming relentlessly and the ice is melting, the ice isn’t melting. To quote the U.S. National Snow & Ice Data Center’s August 18 newsletter, “The Northern Sea Route appears closed off in 2021, despite being open each summer since 2008.” And while total volume of Arctic sea ice is probably a more fundamental measure than extent, the extent is fast approaching the highest it’s been in 15 years.

It’s a real puzzler. And while sea ice is supposedly just a canary in the coal mine, because it is already displacing almost all the water it would release if it melted, the land-based Greenland ice cap is meant to be a major threat because if it melted sea levels would rise about 6 metres. However, for some reason Greenland’s “Surface Mass Balance” is rising this year with strong snow accumulation and a melt rate in summer so low that meteorologist Joe Bastardi (known to Wikipedia as “a professional meteorologist and weather forecaster… a frequent guest on TV news shows” and “an outspoken denier of human-induced global warming whose public statements frequently contradict the scientific consensus on climate change”) said “I had to do a double take”. Still, the press claims Greenland is melting, melting even though three of the last five years showed above-average ice gain compared to the 1981-2010 average. (Tony Heller also notes that the Peterman Glacier there is growing significantly and not even Wikipedia disagrees.)

As noted, Antarctica is not currently popular with alarmists because it seems to be cooling quite a bit. In fact one major meteorological agency omits trend lines for the annual average and minimum there lest, perhaps, they should cause talk. And they’re not very keen on the entire Southern Hemisphere, really, because it shows no warming at all since 2000. But we’re going to talk about it anyway, especially a new study of the meticulous temperature readings taken by Australian government scientists way back in November and December 1871 and modern data sets showing that the water around the Great Barrier Reef has since warmed by an astounding no degrees at all. As David Mason-Jones observes drily on Watt’s Up With That, “If the sea surface temperature of the Great Barrier Reef has been trending upwards – and if this trend could be characterised as ‘rapid’ – then a 150-year comparison should be sufficient to confirm it.”

If the ice continues to recover in the Arctic, whatever will they do or say?

8 comments on “So about that ice”

  1. I first started hearing about Global Warming in the 80's. I figured with a little evidence the crazies would be ignored. With evidence, however, they simply switched to Climate Change. No one here in the US seems to stand up to the crazies. None of the Global Warming or Climate Change predictions have come true but evidence doesn't matter. It is all a matter of faith that we are doomed because of Climate Change. When will a majority of people stand up to this before we all commit economic suicide ??

  2. Hi Chris, I have to agree with you, my main concern is, how do those of us who know that CC is nonsense, push back against the blatant lies and all encompassing propagander.
    We seem to be voices in the wilderness. I have written to my MP (UK) and thinking of the prime minister as well.
    The amount of tax payers money they have subsidised the wind mill and solar farms is gross, but them to build more nuclear and they back off.
    I have the feeling that "leaders" go along with the retoric because they don't want to be seen going against the flow with the rest of the brain washed leaders, Trudeau is a case in point.
    To my mind they are sheep who do not have the courage to stand up and say, enough is enough.

  3. None can be as blind as those who refuse to see. I think someone has said that before me but I will use it anyway.
    Real world data can be inaccurate, biased in collection, inconclusive in interpretation, and of unrealistically wide resolution. It is often simply a choice of what to believe. Personal observation has the lowest resolution of all in space and time and yet is the only one that can be relied upon to the extent of ones memory and personal records.
    If your primary observations are those provided by the media, then your beliefs may closely follow what has been presented to you. The media rarely presents more than one side of an argument and always the one that will generate the most interest. Yet it is difficult to blame the media whose motive is probably simple survival. Blame instead society , our education system, and our parenting for failing to instill a questioning spirit and a measure of logic in our upbringing.
    Instead we are introduced to a rigidity in thinking. It takes extreme pressure to change the opinion, vote, or beliefs of most individuals once a pattern has been set. Hence very few will actually explore all sides of a question. Very few will change their opinion in spite of even overwhelming evidence.
    That explains why you must keep stating your case over and over. A nail cannot be soundly driven with one blow of the hammer. Did someone else say that before too?

  4. Complex systems don't lend themselves to binary, hyper-political discourse. The institutions are mostly one side of that binary, hyper-political divide and exclusively funded by that same dominant political tent. The cottage industry of CAGW skepticism / agnosticism (what we used to call critical thinking) is left to persevere mostly outside the dominant cultural and institutional establishment bubble while advancing the discussion (when allowed) mostly as reality unfolds into history.

  5. So the North West Passage is supposed to be fully navigable year-round just about now (as Al Gore predicted)?
    Here is a link to the Government of Canada Ice Concentration map that shows the current coverage over the last ten days.
    My question is "would you try to sail through the North West Passage without the use of an ice breaker?".
    Just saying...
    https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/ice-forecasts-observations/latest-conditions/concentration-map-last-10-days.html

  6. Trouble is. In spite of all the evidence showing that CC is not the crisis it was predicted to be and there is none of the ice melting, seas are not rising to catastrophic levels, wildfires are actually reducing etc etc our tax money is still being spent on correcting these non existing problems. Why is this? When does this end ? How can we end this when there is no one presenting the side of truth?
    I have observed that more of the voices raised in shrill horror of how we are destroying our planet seem to be women. More of the voices trying to put forth scientific balance , pointing out the wrong computer modelling this has been based on, seem to be men. Now why is this? Then most of the politicians seem to land on the bandwagon of the Climate fanatics. Am I wrong?
    Do we somehow follow the money?

    I don’t understand.

  7. @ Rick W Kargaard

    "The media rarely presents more than one side of an argument and always the one that will generate the most interest. Yet it is difficult to blame the media whose motive is probably simple survival."

    Sensationalism and the need to sell copy may indeed be the driving force behind much of the print media's obsession with alarmism. However, involuntarily supported by the British taxpayer, the BBC have no such excuse.

    The BBC charter declares it should be impartial, but this was abandoned after the infamous '28Gate' meeting of the 'best scientific experts', which decided the sceptic viewpoint was no longer to be heard. Blogger Tony Newbury submitted an FOI request seeking the names of those experts, but it was rejected on the grounds of its being information required "for the purposes of journalism", a derogation originally designed to allow journalists to protect their sources.

    Backed by legal judgment (search for articles on "The Balen Report"), the BBC now routinely use this derogation to stymie almost all enquiries into its affairs, '28Gate' being no exception [1]. However, in this instance, BBC's efforts to resist were all in vain as another enterprising blogger, Maurizio Morabito, found the list online via the Wayback Machine. Judge for yourself whether they were the 'best scientific experts' [2].

    As a footnote to this affair, the BBC Trust conducted its own investigation into the BBC's impartiality – "From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel – Safeguarding impartiality in the 21st century" [3]. This is what John Bridcut, the report's author, had to say about climate change (page 40):

    "Climate change is another subject where dissenters can be unpopular. There may be now a broad scientific consensus that climate change is definitely happening, and that it is at least predominantly man-made. But the second part of that consensus still has some intelligent and articulate opponents, even if a small minority.

    "The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus. But these dissenters (or even sceptics) will still be heard, as they should, because it is not the BBC's role to close down this debate. They cannot be simply dismissed as 'flat-earthers' or 'deniers', who 'should not be given a platform' by the BBC. Impartiality always requires a breadth of view: for as long as minority opinions are coherently and honestly expressed, the BBC must give them appropriate space. 'Bias by elimination' is even more offensive today than it was in 1926. The BBC has many public purposes of both ambition and merit – but joining campaigns to save the planet is not one of them. The BBC's best contribution is to increase public awareness of the issues and possible solutions through impartial and accurate programming. Acceptance of a basic scientific consensus only sharpens the need for hawk-eyed scrutiny of the arguments surrounding both causation and solution. It remains important that programme-makers relish the full range of debate that such a central and absorbing subject offers, scientifically, politically and ethically, and avoid being misrepresented as standard-bearers. The wagon wheel remains a model shape. But the trundle of the bandwagon is not a model sound."

    The BBC has completely ignored Bridcut and is now little more than the PR department for Greenpeace and XR. They've also completely ruined Dr Who, but that's a whole different story.
    [1] https://www.theregister.com/2012/11/09/bbc_beats_blogger_/
    [2] https://www.theregister.com/2012/11/13/climate28_named_wtf/
    [3] http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/review_report_research/impartiality_21century/report.pdf

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