The BBC’s green activist-in-residence Justin Rowlatt was in fine form on Monday, kicking off his week-long Radio 4 ‘end is nigh’ climate catastrophe promotions. “We are running faster than ever towards a climate abyss,” he reported, and the Arctic is currently warming faster than the rest of the planet. Sporting the latest fashion accessory for every climate catastrophist – the ‘tipping point’ – he went to report that Arctic warming leads to stalled weather patterns, leading to more “heat domes”, deep freezes and torrential downpours. All of this is said to be “predicted” to become increasingly common and more extreme.
You have to admire the man’s imagination. Let’s hope that a look at the actual science can restore some sanity to the debate.
It is true that the Arctic is currently warming faster than the rest of the planet, probably by around two times (the rest of the world has more or less stopped), although Rowlatt quotes the more alarmist ‘three times’. In 2002, researchers from the University of Alaska produced the above graph showing that a similar temperature spike occurred in the 1930s. The current trend line is similar to the warming that occurred at that time, and the last 20 years have probably lifted the line above the 1930s high point. This might be expected, since the planet has also warmed since that date. If Rowlatt’s alarmist claims are to have credibility, one would expect to see jet streams being diverted during the 1930s, weather patterns stalled, roasting heat domes, deep freezes etc. etc. In fact we see no record of dramatic changes in climate trends in the period. A few years later, temperatures started to fall in the Arctic – a fall replicated in the global record with the start of a near 40-year cooling period.
Going back a little further, the Daily Sceptic recently noted that scientists had examined ice core records in both the Arctic and Antarctica and found numerous examples of sharp, short-term temperature change. About 8,200 years ago, a number of scientists identified abrupt global multiple degree cooling over 150 years. Dr. Takuro Kobashi examined the palaeoclimatic records and found a drop of 3°C within two decades, followed by a similar rise over 70 years. Looking even further back in the record, temperatures rose dozens of times by up to 10°C within decades between 80,000 and 20,000 years ago. These are known as D.O. events and are named after the palaeoclimatologists Willi Dansgaard and Hanes Oeschger.
All this is known in the scientific community. As we have also reported, UCL Professor Mark Maslin, a frequent BBC climate guest, tweeted in 2021 that the Earth “is already becoming unliveable”. Climate change, he has also said, “could bring about the end of civilisation”. As a researcher in 1999, however, he noted that most climate change occurs in sudden jumps, “perhaps even a few years”.
Of course, the relentless catastrophisation of the climate owes much to the need to push the command-and-control Net Zero political agenda at all costs. But the more that alarmists cherry pick bad or even just changing weather events, and speculate on increasingly imaginative Armageddon scenarios, the more difficult it becomes to pin carbon dioxide down as the main culprit, the supposedly ultimate climate thermostat device. Diverse weather events, seen countless times in the historical and palaeoclimatic record, seem to owe much more to natural climatic variations. Few links are to be seen in the temperature record and CO2 atmospheric concentrations throughout the course of time. Life has thrived on Earth in the past with much higher CO2 levels, and temperatures have been higher and lower than those we currently experience.
The recent gentle warming in the Arctic, not replicated in Antarctica where temperatures have been static for at least 40 years and probably much longer, has a convincing natural explanation. A great deal of the Arctic is ocean and warming and cooling is in fact predictable. This is because warm water flows into the area from both the Atlantic and the Pacific. These regular events are known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). These oscillations pulse warmer waters northwards, leading to periods of lower and thinner ice cover. Of course this ice lies on the sea and its melting does not affect sea levels.
The graphs below demonstrate the link.
The lower graph tracks the warming and cooling for both the Atlantic and Pacific. It can be seen that when set against the Arctic temperature record, there are obvious links. As a result, many scientists argue that this evidence goes a long way to explain Arctic warming and cooling.
In a January 2021 essay, Joe D’Aleo, co-founder of the Weather Channel, and Emeritus Professor of Geology Don Easterbrook, said that when you combined the two ocean cycles, “you can explain the temperature and ice cover variations of the past 110 years for the Arctic”. They also noted that current Greenland data fall far short of earlier warming periods during the current interglacial, and short even of the warming earlier in the 20th century.
In 2006, the climate science professor Edward Hanna used measurements from 10 coastal stations to estimate sea surface temperatures near Iceland over about 120 years. He found there were generally cold conditions during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, strong warming in the 1920s with peak temperatures attained around 1940, cooling thereafter until the 1970s, followed once again by warming. This of course tracks the pattern seen for warming and cooling across the wider Arctic region. Needless to say, this pattern is not replicated in the CO2 atmospheric record, which rose on a gentle trajectory throughout this period.
And of course, not a tipping point, climate abyss or civilisation ending in sight.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor
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A re-assuring article. The warning is about the behaviour of certain journalists involved in the latest panic, with frequent use of the term “climate change”, in such a way that they believe it is abnormal, rather than admitting that climate change is actually normal, and always has been.
With the current temperatures in England I’m rather disappointed to find that the BBC and their friends have over-egged another supposed catastrophe. Will have to just turn up the heating in June!
The “climate deniers” are the ones who claim there is a “correct” state for the planet which we little humans should somehow be working to maintain… their arrogance and ignorance continues to astonish me.
We sceptics, on the other hand, don’t deny climate at all. Doing so would be similar to denying the existence of the planet.
Could climate hysterics make a set of firm, unamibiguous predictions that they are willing to be held to and stake their reputations on?
The problem we have is that they make very vague prclamations such as “meling ice” or “rising sea levels” or “more severe weather events”. It’s very easy then to link some occurance somewhere on the planet to their prediction.
A bit like fortune tellers. “I see you’ve had some bad news in your life”. Well, everyone has, haven’t they. If you’re gullible enough you’ll believe rhe fortune teller has some mystic power.
That’s basically the whole climate change scam right there.
‘Extreme weather events’ appear to happen everywhere that I am not.
I agree. Lets go back and load data from 30 years ago into the models and see how close the predictions are to how we are today.
The lie is easily spotted.
The notion that average temperatures of 13c is fine, but 14.5c and everyone dies is just banal fantasy beyond any rationality. Pretty much everywhere south of the UK, is warmer by up to 15c on average temperature. The temperature of say Barcelona, fluctuates from 5c to 30c each day, from highs of 18c in the winter to 34c in the summer. Manchester is 1.5c warmer than Aberdeen. Southampton is 1.5c warmer than Manchester. Are they really suggesting that at 14.5c, harvests will fail in the UK, or anywhere else for that matter. The slight warming and marginal increase in CO2 is greening the planet faster than any ‘rewilding’ project could possibly manage. At the head of this is an almighty corruption, helped along by useless people trying to do good.
But are they trying to good? Their ignorance might lead them to think that but as they cannot find any evidence to support their views they can only rant ever louder and more hysterically.
When involved in an argument, a sure sign that you have lost the debate is when you raise your voice and start to bluster and exaggerate.
An example being Princess Nut Nuts whispering lovingly in her husband’s ear to keep on going with his Net Zero wet dream.
The first untruth is that anybody still listens to or watches the BBC?. Can’t wait for the viewing figures for the new woke Dr Who. Three Daleks and the church cat.